Retiring in Austin, Texas

Retiring in Austin: overview

Austin is in Travis, with parts in Williamson and Hays County, Texas, within the Austin & Central Texas region.

Austin is the anchor of the Austin and Central Texas region. The American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 profile counts 967,862 residents, a median age of 34.5 and 97,391 residents aged 65 or older, which is 10.1 percent of the city. Older residents are a modest share of a large and young city, so the reason to consider Austin is rarely a town full of fellow retirees. It is what a major metro supplies: several full-service hospital campuses, a hospital district, an international airport owned by the city and many neighborhoods at very different prices.

A city this size does not have one tax situation, one flood situation or one wildfire situation. Parcels in Austin are appraised by three appraisal districts because the city spans Travis, Williamson and Hays counties, they can fall in different school districts, and the lakes, creeks and aquifers that matter differ by address. This page sets out what the appraisal district, the Texas Comptroller, the City of Austin, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), the Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, the Census Bureau and the hospital systems publish, and it flags where an address-level check is needed. If you want Austin's medical access with a smaller footprint, compare Georgetown, Lakeway, Bastrop and San Marcos.

Cost of living in Austin

The Census Bureau supplies income and housing counts rather than a price index. The 2019-2023 ACS profile for Austin city shows a median household income of $91,461 in 2023 inflation-adjusted dollars, 466,428 housing units, a vacancy rate of 5.6 percent, 44.4 percent of occupied units owner-occupied and 55.6 percent rented. The median owner-occupied home value is $512,700, the median gross rent is $1,655, and median selected monthly owner costs are $2,586 for homes with a mortgage. The same profile shows 12.4 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population without health insurance. These are citywide, all-age, five-year estimates; a lakeside, central or older-neighborhood home can sit far from a citywide median, and a five-year estimate lags the current market.

The ACS economic profile is useful for the retirement angle. It counts 15.5 percent of households with Social Security income, averaging $23,465, and 13.9 percent with retirement income, averaging $36,801. Those shares are low compared with a retirement town because most households in Austin are working-age. Texas has no state personal income tax, so retirement income is not taxed at the state level (see Texas retirement taxes). Property tax, flood and homeowners insurance and any condominium or association dues are the costs that vary most with the address.

Property taxes in Austin

Austin is in three appraisal districts, and each does a different job from the offices that collect the bill. The Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) appraises Travis County property at market value and administers exemptions. Its homestead page says a general residence homestead exemption is available to owners who own and live in the home on January 1, and that applications can be made by mail, online or at its office on East Anderson Lane, with action on an application within 90 days. Parcels in the Williamson and Hays parts of Austin are handled by those counties' appraisal districts. The statewide rules are covered in the guides on property taxes and appraisal districts and on the homestead and age-65 exemption and school tax ceiling.

For tax year 2025, the Texas Comptroller's city rate file (a working version dated January 28, 2026) lists the City of Austin with a total rate of 0.574017 per $100 of taxable value, made up of 0.460282 for maintenance and operations and 0.113735 for debt service. The same file lists a no-new-revenue rate of 0.483319 and a voter-approval rate of 0.524017. The 0.574017 figure matters because the city put it to voters in a November 2025 special tax rate election as Proposition Q, a rate its ballot language describes as $0.05 higher per $100 than the voter-approval rate, and says the rate the year before was $0.4776. Because a rate above the voter-approval rate needed voter approval, confirm the rate the city actually applied to a 2025 bill with the Travis County Tax Office and the city. Rates are set again each budget year.

Other units add to the city's rate. The Comptroller's 2025 files list Travis County at a total of 0.375845 per $100, the Travis County Healthcare District (Central Health) at 0.118023 and the Austin Community College District at 0.1034. For Austin Independent School District the file shows 0.8022 for maintenance and operations and 0.123 for debt service, a total of 0.9252. The county's own 2025 notice lists a no-new-revenue rate of 0.343152 and a voter-approval rate of 0.375845. As arithmetic only, those five rates add to about 2.0965 per $100 for a parcel taxed by all five, and before any exemption a home with $500,000 of taxable value would carry about $10,482 of tax across them. Special districts and public improvement districts add more where they apply, and a home in another school district will differ: the same Comptroller file lists, for tax year 2025, Eanes ISD at 0.8322, Round Rock ISD at 0.8931, Del Valle ISD at 0.9489, Lago Vista ISD at 1.0169, Lake Travis ISD at 1.0397, Manor ISD at 1.0814, Leander ISD at 1.0869 and Pflugerville ISD at 1.1069.

The exemption amounts come from a different document and a different year, so they should not be mixed with the 2025 rates as if they were like for like. TCAD's 2026 exemption listing, generated July 19, 2026, shows for the City of Austin a local-option residence homestead exemption of 20 percent with a minimum of 5,000, and a local over-65 amount of 204,000, with the same 204,000 for disabled persons. It shows Travis County at 20 percent with a 5,000 minimum and 145,269 for over-65, and the Travis County Healthcare District at 20 percent with a 5,000 minimum and 197,000. Austin Community College District shows a 1 percent homestead exemption with a 5,000 minimum and 75,000 for over-65. For Austin ISD the listing shows the state homestead exemption of 140,000, the state over-65 amount of 60,000 and an additional local over-65 amount of 25,000. Exemptions reduce taxable value; they are not cash payments, and the listing does not say how a unit's homestead and over-65 amounts combine, so confirm the stacking on the appraisal district's parcel page. As arithmetic only, applying just the city's 204,000 over-65 amount to a $500,000 value would leave 296,000 taxed at 0.574017 per $100, about $1,699 instead of about $2,870 for the city levy alone.

The tax ceiling is where Austin differs from many Texas towns. TCAD's homestead page says the over-65 exemption is available the year the owner turns 65 and that it limits school taxes by establishing a ceiling, also called a tax freeze, which does not rise unless improvements such as a garage or pool are added. It adds that a county, city or junior college may also limit taxes only if its governing body adopts a ceiling. The 2026 listing marks a freeze ceiling as adopted for Austin ISD and for Austin Community College District, and not adopted for the City of Austin, Travis County or the Travis County Healthcare District. So an Austin homeowner aged 65 or older has a school-tax ceiling and a large city exemption, but the city, county and hospital-district levies can still change with rates and appraisals. A ceiling can also be transferred to a new Texas homestead; for city, county or junior-college ceilings, only within the same unit if it has adopted one.

The Williamson and Hays pieces of the city deserve their own check. The Comptroller's 2025 files list the City of Austin under the Williamson and Hays appraisal districts at the same total rate of 0.574017, with county totals of 0.413776 for Williamson and 0.3999 for Hays. TCAD's 2026 listing carries separate entries named City of Austin/Hays Co and City of Austin/Wmsn Co, each showing 51,000 in the local over-65 column, and the Williamson County Tax Assessor-Collector's 2024 table shows the City of Austin at 0.477600 with 154,000 in two exemption columns. Those are different years and different tables, so use the appraisal district for the county the parcel is in rather than the Travis figures. The listing also names the Downtown Public Improvement District and the East Sixth Street Public Improvement District, each with 70,000 in the over-65 column, which matters to condominium owners downtown.

The Texas Comptroller states that Tax Code Section 11.13(b) requires school districts to give a $140,000 residence homestead exemption and Section 11.13(c) an additional $60,000 for homeowners aged 65 or older or disabled, and that any taxing unit may adopt local-option exemptions, with a minimum of $3,000 for the age-65 option. Central Health, the county's hospital district, is funded in part by this tax; its home page describes its purpose as health care for residents with low income, so a retiree who pays its levy should not assume its programs are open to them.

Insurance and risk in Austin

Austin's own flood pages are direct about the hazard. The city's ATX Flood Safety page says Austin lies in the heart of Flash Flood Alley and that about 10 percent of land in Austin is in the floodplain. It says more than 10,000 buildings and 300 bridges in Austin are subject to flooding, and that in many older or annexed neighborhoods the storm drain systems are inadequate or in poor condition. It gives two measures of how rare a 100-year storm is: a 1 percent chance in any year and a 26 percent chance over the span of a 30-year mortgage. Its history of large storms lists Tropical Storm Hermine in September 2010 and the floods of October 30, 2015 and May 26, 2016, which produced more than 13 inches of rain in eight hours in parts of the Onion Creek and Dry Creek East watersheds.

Flood maps are being redrawn. Austin Watershed Protection says the city, Travis County and other Central Texas communities are updating floodplain maps based on the Atlas 14 study. The current maps show where flooding is likely with 10.2 inches of rain in 24 hours, and the updated maps will reflect almost 13 inches of rain in some areas. A home outside today's mapped floodplain could therefore be mapped inside it later, and the city's online FloodPro tool, named on the flood safety page, shows its floodplain maps and drainage systems. FEMA's flood insurance program page states that most homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage, that flood insurance is a separate policy, that homes in high-risk flood areas with mortgages from government-backed lenders must carry it, and that an NFIP policy typically has a 30-day waiting period.

The Colorado River adds a second mechanism. LCRA states that Lake Travis is the only one of the six Highland Lakes designed to capture and store floodwaters, that it is considered full for water supply at 681 feet above mean sea level, and that it can hold an additional 776,062 acre-feet in its flood pool. It also states that Lake Travis cannot prevent flooding along creeks and streams that feed the Colorado River or from rain that falls downstream of Mansfield Dam, and that the smaller pass-through lakes, including Lake Austin, have no capacity to store floodwaters. LCRA's lake-level page reported Lake Travis about 95 percent full on October 5, 2026 after rain in the Hill Country, with floodgate operations at Wirtz and Starcke dams earlier that week. A Lake Austin or Lake Travis lot should be checked against the mapped floodplain and the lot's elevation, not the day's lake level.

Wildfire is a smaller but real topic at the city's edges. Austin Fire's Wildfire Division describes its work as public education, vegetation management and firefighting response, offers Firewise program coordinators for neighborhoods, and asks residents to register at WarnCentralTexas.org for emergency notifications. The Texas A&M Forest Service is the lead wildfire agency in Texas and publishes a Texas Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal and guidance for homeowners. Neighborhood-level wildfire risk should be checked against those tools rather than assumed from the city as a whole. For hail, the Texas Department of Insurance advises filing a claim as soon as you can if hail or strong winds damage a home or car. No premium is quoted here because premiums vary by insurer, roof, claims history and address.

Healthcare access in Austin

Austin has more acute-care hospital capacity than any other Central Texas place, spread across three large systems. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital General Information file for Travis County lists in Austin: Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin at 1201 W 38th Street, Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas at 601 E 15th Street, St. David's Medical Center at 919 E 32nd Street, St. David's South Austin Medical Center at 901 West Ben White Boulevard, North Austin Medical Center at 12221 MoPac Expressway North, Ascension Seton Northwest at 11113 Research Boulevard, Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Austin at 5245 W US 290, and The Hospital at Westlake Medical Center at 5656 Bee Caves Road. The Hays County file adds Ascension Seton Southwest at 7900 FM 1826, in Austin ZIP 78737. The file also lists Dell Children's Medical Center, Austin State Hospital and psychiatric hospitals that are not general retirement options.

System pages describe what some of these campuses do. Ascension Seton says Seton Medical Center Austin is a full-service hospital with 24/7 emergency care, a comprehensive Level 1 stroke center and a Level IV trauma center, and that it is a statewide leader in cardiac transplants and ventricular assist devices. Dell Seton Medical Center is described as a Level I trauma center for adults with the first dedicated neurocritical care unit in Central Texas. St. David's Medical Center lists a 24-hour emergency department, a Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute and complex surgical services. CMS shows overall star ratings of 3 or 4 for six of those eight and none for Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Austin and The Hospital at Westlake Medical Center. Its emergency-services field shows No for Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Austin and for Dell Seton, although Ascension's page describes Dell Seton as offering 24/7 emergency care, so confirm emergency services with the system, and whether your plan treats a campus as in network, before relying on it.

Coverage and access are separate questions. Central Health, the Travis County hospital district, says it is building a health care system for residents with low income and describes its Medical Access Program as health coverage for people who are uninsured or unemployed, so a Medicare enrollee should confirm eligibility rather than assume it. Medicare plan networks, specialist wait times and the choice between a Medicare Advantage plan and traditional Medicare vary by plan and year; the guide to Texas healthcare geography and Medicare explains what to ask. For most retirees the practical question is which campus a physician uses and how that campus relates to the address.

Climate in Austin

NOAA's 1991-2020 normals for the Austin Bergstrom Airport station, which is in the city, give a normal daily high of 62.5 degrees Fahrenheit in January, 96.1 in July and 97.0 in August, and a normal low of 37.7 in January. The monthly normals list 24.4 days at or above 90 degrees in June, 28.4 in July and 29.4 in August, which by our arithmetic from the monthly figures is about 123 days a year at or above 90 and about 24 at or above 100, concentrated in July, August and June. About 33 nights a year fall at or below 32 degrees, with 10.9 of them in January, by the same arithmetic.

Monthly precipitation normals range from 1.89 inches in February to 5.00 inches in May, and our arithmetic from the twelve monthly values gives about 35.57 inches for the year. Rain arrives in bursts, which is why drought and flash flooding both appear in the same city's official pages. The Texas Water Development Board's drought dashboard, for a map dated October 6, 2026, shows 82.00 percent of Texas in at least moderate drought and 13.49 percent in extreme drought or worse. The statewide guide to heat, humidity and climate by region compares Austin with other parts of the state.

Lifestyle and recreation in Austin

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is owned and operated by the City of Austin and its terminal is the Barbara Jordan Terminal at 3600 Presidential Boulevard. The airport's nonstop flights page, which says it applies to June 2026 and is updated monthly, lists nonstop service to Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and many other U.S. destinations, and to Amsterdam on KLM, Frankfurt on Lufthansa, London Heathrow on British Airways and Mexico City on Aeromexico. Airlines change service, so confirm routes with the airline. For retirees with family elsewhere, a large airport with international service is a real advantage of living in Austin rather than a smaller town. The airport's ground-transportation page says CapMetro operates a high-frequency Route 20 to the airport, and lists rideshare, taxis and rental cars.

Lake and creek recreation is also a mixed picture. Austin Watershed Protection reports that hydrilla has spread in Lake Austin since June 2025 and covered about 592 acres in February. The city's site also lists a senior services hub under public health. Check current lake and trail conditions rather than assuming them.

Housing in Austin

The ACS profile counts 466,428 housing units. About 44.2 percent are single-family detached homes, 24.7 percent are in buildings of 20 or more units and 11.0 percent are in buildings of 10 to 19 units, so apartments and condominiums are a large part of the stock and a realistic option for a downsizing retiree. By age, 20.7 percent of units were built from 2010 to 2019 and 2.5 percent in 2020 or later, while 2.3 percent were built in 1939 or earlier. Whatever the age of the home, the flood and storm-drain notes above apply to the lot rather than the building.

This page covers the city as a whole, not individual communities. Buyers considering condominiums should read the association's documents, since the dues, reserves and special assessments rules are covered in the guide to HOA, condo and club fees. TCAD's homestead page says an owner must own and live in the home to qualify and that a recent buyer may submit the application, so a resale buyer should apply in their own name rather than assume the seller's exemptions carry over.

Water supply and the Edwards Aquifer

Water in Austin comes from more than one system, and the drought news differs between them. LCRA states that the City of Austin takes water from the Highland Lakes above Mansfield Dam and from Lake Austin, that lakes Buchanan and Travis are the supply reservoirs and that the current water supply condition under its Water Management Plan is Normal. LCRA's dams-and-lakes page says Lake Travis holds about 1.1 million acre-feet when full at 681 feet above mean sea level.

Groundwater is in a different state. The Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, which manages the Edwards and Trinity aquifers and groundwater in its territory, declares drought stages from Barton Springs flow and groundwater levels in the Lovelady monitor well. The district's stage governs groundwater use, so it matters most to well owners and permitted users in its territory and to anyone who values Barton Springs, and it is not the same as the City of Austin's watering rules. Check the water utility's current stage and the watering schedule for the address before relying on a green lawn.

Austin compared with nearby Central Texas places

Many retirees who want Austin's hospitals and airport choose a smaller place within reach and accept a lighter tax and traffic load. Georgetown is a Williamson County city with active-adult communities; Lakeway is a Lake Travis city in Travis County with a higher older share; Bastrop and San Marcos sit on opposite sides of the metro, and Lago Vista is a Travis County city on the north shore of Lake Travis. Further out, the Highland Lakes towns such as Marble Falls and Horseshoe Bay trade proximity for lake living. The deciding factors in Austin are usually the school and city tax stack, the flood zone of the specific lot, and how much hospital access matters.

What to confirm for a specific address

Before buying, look up the parcel in the correct appraisal district (Travis, Williamson or Hays) and confirm the taxing units shown on the parcel page, including the school district and any public improvement or special district. Check the lot against the city's FloodPro floodplain maps and the updated Atlas 14 mapping, and get a flood insurance quote early because of the typical 30-day waiting period. Ask the appraisal district how the over-65 exemption and school-tax ceiling would apply, using its own listing for the tax year. Register for WarnCentralTexas.org alerts, note the nearest hospital campus your physicians use, and confirm the current water stage with the utility that serves the address.

Comparisons with Austin

• Austin vs San Antonio: retirement compared

Places near Austin

• LakewayA Travis County city on the south shore of Lake Travis, the most suburban town in the Highland Lakes region, with a 106-bed hospital in town, high home values, and a water-supply lake whose level rises and falls by design.
• Lago VistaA Travis County city on the north shore of Lake Travis with a much higher older share than Austin, a municipal golf course, an on-demand transit service, no hospital inside the city limits, and a property-tax stack in which the city offers a homestead exemption but shows no over-65 amount of its own.
• GeorgetownA Williamson County city on the northern end of the Austin corridor, with a historic town center, a hospital and clinics in town, an age-restricted community on its west side, and a property-tax picture that depends on a layered set of local taxing units.
• BastropThe Bastrop County seat in the Lost Pines forest on the Colorado River, with a small downtown, an emergency room in town, a new 55+ Del Webb community under construction, and a wildfire history that any buyer should understand.
• Liberty HillA fast-growing Williamson County city northwest of Austin whose retirement relevance rests on one 55+ neighborhood inside a large master-planned community, with no hospital inside the city, a young resident base, and a local-option tax freeze on the city portion of the bill.

Guides relevant to Austin

• Texas hail, wildfire, drought, heat and power outages: the inland hazards
• Texas healthcare geography and Medicare network considerations
• Texas homestead exemption, the age-65 exemption and the school tax ceiling
• Texas property taxes and appraisal districts: how to compare actual total tax bills