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During the annual Tribune Fest in Austin in November, several state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle were interviewed in a variety of panel discussions, podcast recordings, and moderated Q&A sessions. When a representative, a senator or a group of lawmakers was asked about the biggest challenges facing Texans today, one topic kept resurfacing: property taxes.
Homeowners in Grand Prairie likely agree. A recent report cites the city west of Dallas as one of the cities with the highest property tax burdens, not only in Texas but also in the entire country.
The November statewide ballot provided voters a chance to put some of the Legislature’s latest efforts to rein in property taxes on the books. A bipartisan relief package from 2025, comprising six bills and resolutions, including legislation that increased the homestead exemption to $200,000 for seniors and $140,000 for non-seniors, garnered bipartisan support.
“With the Legislature’s overwhelming passage of additional property tax relief, Texas home and business owners are on their way to keeping more of their hard-earned money,” said Texas Speaker Dustin Burrows in a statement after the relief package passed in 2025.
The absence of a state income tax and the reliance upon local funding for schools have fueled property tax increases in recent years in Texas. SmartAsset, a personal finance website, surveyed 343 cities with populations over 100,000 and compared the median annual real estate taxes paid by homeowners to the median household income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1-Year American Community Survey for 2024. Grand Prairie landed at the No. 18 spot for the highest property tax burden.
The SmartAsset report lists Grand Prairie’s property taxes as a percentage of income at 5.08%, alongside a median annual property tax payment of $5,894. The survey also noted that the median income of Grand Prairie households with a mortgage is $116,083, and that their median monthly housing costs are $2,277.
Fort Worth wasn’t too far behind Grand Prairie, ranking at No. 23, followed by Denton at No. 30. Dallas didn’t make the top 20 but landed instead at No. 40, which, let’s face it, isn’t exactly where many residents wish it were.
The city with the greatest property tax burden in the U.S. is Paterson, New Jersey, about an hour’s drive northwest of Manhattan. It’s worth noting that there are no Texas cities on SmartAsset’s top 20 list of cities with the lowest property tax burdens. Grand Prairie’s reported property taxes are indeed higher than both the state and national averages, but there are other Texas cities sitting higher on this undesirable list. Conroe (No. 16), Georgetown (No. 15) and Edinburg (No. 14) each show a higher tax property burden for homeowners than does Grand Prairie.
