Places
What does the Harris County Flood Control District add to a Cypress tax bill?
Answered by Allen Markel, REALTOR®, Texas Premier Realty ·
Short answer
The Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) charged $0.04966 per $100 of taxable value for 2025, which is about $209 a year on a $421,000 Cypress home, or 1.9% of the total rate. The rate was $0.03105 in 2023 and $0.04897 in 2024, so it is up 60% in two years. The line appears on all 1,055 complete Cypress stacks we checked, and it funds the district's channels, detention basins, and flood damage reduction projects.
What is the rate and how has it changed?
The HCAD jurisdiction table lists the flood control district at $0.03105 per $100 for 2023, $0.04897 for 2024 and $0.04966 for 2025. On a $421,000 home that is $131, $206 and $209 a year. Every Cypress home in Harris County pays the same rate, so it does not differentiate one subdivision from another. For scale, the line is about 1.9% of the 2.66% typical stack, and 7.9% of the $0.628928 county-level units. The number to watch each fall is the adopted 2026 rate, which will be set by the district's governing court. In dollar terms, the county-level flood line added about $78 a year more on a $421,000 home in 2025 than it did in 2023. Two other county units moved too: the hospital district rose from $0.14343 to $0.18761 per $100 over the same years. Together those two lines added about $264 a year at that price, which is a useful reminder that a Cypress tax bill can rise even when a home's appraised value is flat.
What does it pay for?
HCFCD is the county agency responsible for flood damage reduction: maintaining channels and stormwater basins, building detention and drainage projects, buying out flood-prone properties and providing flood warning and mapping tools. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Harris County voters approved a $2.5 billion flood bond in August 2018 to fund projects across the county's watersheds. The district's own project pages list the work by watershed, including the Cypress Creek watershed, which is the one most relevant to Cypress. A flood-control tax line does not remove flood risk for a specific home, so it does not replace checking the zone or buying coverage. You can follow the money without a bond document: the HCFCD website lists capital projects by watershed, with status and schedule, and the county's flood warning system shows rainfall and gauge readings. For a specific address, the two questions that matter are whether the nearest channel or basin has a scheduled project and whether the home sits in the mapped area those projects are meant to protect.
Amounts and rules change every year. For the most current and accurate answer, contact the county office directly: the Harris Central Appraisal District (hcad.org, 713-957-7800) for values, exemptions and protests, and the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector (hctax.net, 713-274-8000) for tax bills and payments.
| Tax year | Rate per $100 | Annual $ on $421,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 0.03105 | 131 |
| 2024 | 0.04897 | 206 |
| 2025 | 0.04966 | 209 |
Common follow-up questions
How much is the flood control tax in Harris County?
$0.04966 per $100 of taxable value for 2025.
Did the flood control tax go up?
Yes: from $0.03105 in 2023 to $0.04966 in 2025.
Does this tax mean my house cannot flood?
No. It funds county-wide drainage work; a specific home's risk depends on its location and elevation.
Sources
Talk it through with Allen
A short call can turn a general answer into one for your address, your timeline and your numbers.
Related questions
Does Cypress flood?
Parts of Cypress are in a mapped FEMA flood hazard area and parts are not. Checking the location of every active Cypress listing against the FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer, 205 of 1,326 homes for…
Read answerHow much of a Cypress tax bill is MUD, school, county and flood-control tax?
For a typical Cypress home in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD with a MUD, the 2025 rate stack is about 2.66% in total.
Read answerWhat does the Harris County Flood Control District tax fund?
The Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) tax, $0.04966 per $100 of taxable value in 2025, funds county-wide flood damage reduction: channel and stormwater basin maintenance, drainage and…
Read answerDoes Harris County flood?
Parts of Harris County flood and most homes are outside the mapped hazard area. Of 20,471 active Harris County listings, 1,918 (9.4%) are in a FEMA flood zone that is a Special Flood Hazard Area…
Read answer
Answers describe transactions and public data. They are not legal, tax or financial advice.