Last updated: September 2026
"Ag exemption" is the everyday name, but it isn't an exemption at all — it's a special way of valuing land that can cut a property tax bill by 80–95% on qualifying acreage. Here's how it actually works, and how the wildlife management option lets you keep it without running cattle.
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Nothing gets subtracted from your bill the way a homestead exemption works. Instead, Tax Code Chapter 23, Subchapter D (commonly called "1-d-1" or "open-space" valuation) lets qualifying land be appraised based on what it can produce — its agricultural productivity value — instead of what it would sell for on the open market. On land near a growing city, those two numbers can be wildly different: an acre that would sell for $40,000 as a homesite might carry a productivity value of a few hundred dollars.
Your appraisal district still tracks the land's full market value on your notice — it just isn't what your tax bill is calculated from as long as the land qualifies.
Three things have to be true:
Land under a homestead exemption can still carry 1-d-1 valuation on the acreage beyond the home and yard — the two aren't mutually exclusive.
If your land already qualifies for 1-d-1 valuation, Tax Code §23.51(7) lets you convert it to wildlife management use and keep the same productivity valuation — no livestock or crops required. You have to actively manage the land for native wildlife by implementing at least three of seven approved practices:
You'll typically need a wildlife management plan on file (Texas Parks & Wildlife's Form PWD-885 is the standard template most appraisal districts want), and some counties ask for an annual activity report. Because it rides on top of land that already qualified for 1-d-1, wildlife management is really a conversion, not a separate application from scratch — the underlying acreage still has to have that prior ag-use history.
The exact number depends entirely on your county's published productivity values for your land's soil type and use — there's no single statewide figure. But the pattern is consistent: productivity value is set from average net income the land could generate from agriculture, capitalized at a rate set annually by the State Property Tax Assistance Division, and it almost never tracks anywhere close to market value in a growing area. A homeowner weighing whether to keep acreage in ag or wildlife use versus letting it lapse should ask their appraisal district for both the current productivity value and current market value on the notice — that gap is the actual dollar savings.
Change the land to a non-qualifying use — selling it for a subdivision, for example — and you trigger a rollback tax under Tax Code §23.55. For a change of use on or after January 1, 2020, that's the difference between the taxes paid under productivity valuation and what would have been paid at market value, for each of the 3 most recent tax years, plus 5% annual interest on each year's difference. (Changes of use before that date fall under the older rule: 5 years of back taxes plus 7% interest — if you're buying land that already carries ag or wildlife valuation, ask when the clock last reset.)
File Form 50-129 (Application for 1-d-1 Open-Space Agricultural Use Appraisal) with your county appraisal district. The statutory deadline is before May 1 of the tax year, same as most special appraisals under Tax Code §23.43 — late applications can still be accepted up until the appraisal review board approves the appraisal records for that year, usually with a penalty. Once approved, most appraisal districts don't require you to re-file every single year, but they can ask you to reconfirm use, and a change in ownership generally requires a fresh application. See our county-specific guides for your local appraisal district's contact information and portal.
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