What Texas water districts owe
Joining the Bond Review Board's FY2025 debt data to TCEQ's district registry, district by district: $39.6 billion in principal outstanding across 1,365 water districts — $25.0 billion of it tax-supported, meaning property taxes inside those districts' boundaries service it.
The findings
- $25.0 billion of the $39.6 billion is tax-supported debt — the kind the district's I&S tax rate exists to repay. The remainder is revenue-supported, concentrated in wholesale authorities (the largest, NORTH TEXAS MWD, owes $5,402,035,000 — nearly all revenue-backed, repaid by water sales, not property taxes).
- 263 districts carry a verified zero — not "no data": the BRB's records show no principal outstanding for them at all.
- The median MUD with a 2025 rate levies $0.7 per $100 of taxable value (965 MUDs carry a rate in the Comptroller's file), and 263 districts levy $1.00 or more.
The ten largest tax-supported debts
| District | County | Tax-supported principal (FY2025) |
|---|---|---|
| HARRIS COUNTY FCD | Harris | $1,186,280,000 |
| PORT OF HOUSTON AUTHORITY | Harris | $406,509,397 |
| HARRIS COUNTY MUD 165 | Harris | $328,180,000 |
| CEDAR PORT NAVIGATION AND IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT | Chambers | $308,745,000 |
| CHAMBERS COUNTY IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT 1 | Chambers | $308,745,000 |
| VIRIDIAN MUNICIPAL MANAGEMENT DISTRICT | Tarrant | $293,560,000 |
| HIDALGO COUNTY DRAINAGE DISTRICT 1 | Hidalgo | $249,590,000 |
| HARRIS COUNTY MUD 489 | Harris | $229,160,000 |
| HORIZON REGIONAL MUD | El Paso | $221,009,985 |
| HARRIS COUNTY IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT 18 | Harris | $213,515,000 |
Method and limits
Debt: Bond Review Board data center, per-issuer principal outstanding, fiscal year 2025 (Texas's fiscal year ends August 31); excludes obligations under one year and debt not requiring Attorney General approval, per the BRB's own scope. Rates: Comptroller Special District Rates and Levies 2025 (Tax Code §5.091), version "Working" — rates the appraisal district did not report are excluded, never counted as zero. Join: three-agency name normalization with ambiguity never resolved by guessing; 1,727 registry districts have no BRB record and are not in these totals — absence from the file, not proof of zero debt. The mirror is also true: BRB issuers that match no registry district (dissolved or renamed entities, mostly) are not counted, so the BRB's own statewide water-district total runs higher than the joined total reported here. Every district's page shows its figures and history.
Cite as: "The HOA Book, Texas water-district debt report, BRB FY2025 data pulled 2026-08-08." Wrong or missing? Tell us.