Retiring in Texarkana, Texas

Retiring in Texarkana: overview

Texarkana is in Bowie County, Texas, within the East Texas Lakes & Piney Woods region.

Texarkana sits on the Texas-Arkansas line, and the two Texarkanas are separate cities in separate states with separate governments, taxes and school districts. This page covers only the Texas side, the City of Texarkana, Texas, in Bowie County, which belongs to the East Texas Lakes & Piney Woods region. A buyer who looks at a home on the Arkansas side is under Arkansas law and a different tax system, and should research that side separately.

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2019-2023 five-year profile estimates 36,039 residents in Texarkana, Texas, a median age of 37.3 and 6,537 residents aged 65 and over, or 18.1 percent. The city is a regional medical and shopping center and offers some of the lowest home prices among the Texas cities profiled in this region, but it is not a retiree enclave, and it does not have the lake-and-golf communities found in Hideaway or Holly Lake Ranch.

Cost of living in Texarkana

The survey estimates a median household income of $49,240 and per capita income of $29,655, with 21.6 percent of people below the poverty level, and a median owner-occupied home value of $159,700. Median monthly owner costs are $1,587 for homes with a mortgage and $491 for homes without one, and median gross rent is $990. Owners occupy 51.0 percent of occupied units, the city has 16,178 housing units, and 10.8 percent of them are vacant. These are survey estimates with margins of error. They describe the whole city, and neighborhoods vary.

Texas levies no personal income tax; see Texas retirement taxes. That statement is about Texas, so it matters which side of the state line a home sits on. Because the survey profile is for the Texas city, none of these figures describe Texarkana, Arkansas.

Property taxes in Texarkana

Property in the Texas city is appraised by the Bowie Central Appraisal District, whose office is at 122A Plaza West in Texarkana. The Comptroller's county directory lists, among the Bowie County units, the City of Texarkana, Texarkana Independent School District, Liberty-Eylau Independent School District, Pleasant Grove Independent School District, Texarkana Community College District and several emergency services districts. Which school district applies depends on the address and should be confirmed with the appraisal district.

The Comptroller's 2025 rates and levies files give these total rates per $100 of taxable value: City of Texarkana 0.65 (0.409895 for maintenance and operations and 0.240105 for debt service), Bowie County 0.423947, Texarkana ISD 1.209 (0.7552 and 0.4538), Liberty-Eylau ISD 0.9328, Pleasant Grove ISD 1.067 and Texarkana Community College District 0.109639. As our arithmetic, the city, county, Texarkana ISD and college rates add to 2.392586 per $100 for an address in all four, before emergency services districts or any exemption, and an address in Liberty-Eylau or Pleasant Grove ISD would carry that district's rate instead. The files are working versions of the 2025 data, so the adopted rates on a tax statement govern.

Exemptions reduce taxable value; they are not cash payments. The Texas Comptroller states that school districts must give a $140,000 residence homestead exemption plus an additional $60,000 for homeowners 65 or older or disabled, and that other taxing units may adopt local option exemptions, with an over-65 local option of at least $3,000. For example, a home appraised at $300,000 with the $140,000 school exemption is taxed by the school district as if it were worth $160,000. The city, county and college decide for themselves whether to offer more, so ask the appraisal district for the current list of units and amounts. See the age-65 and homestead guide for how the school-tax ceiling works and the guide to appraisal districts for protests.

Insurance and risk in Texarkana

Texarkana is far from the coast, and Bowie County is not among the 14 coastal counties in the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association territory. The hazards are thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, ice storms and flooding. The National Weather Service Shreveport safety guidance recommends the basement or an interior room on the lowest floor and says to abandon mobile homes for a sturdy building. The Texas Department of Insurance guidance for hail and wind damage advises filing a claim promptly, documenting the damage and getting more than one estimate, and explains that some roof coverage pays replacement cost while other policies pay only actual cash value. No premium is quoted here because premiums depend on the insurer, the roof, the claims history and the address.

Flood risk is parcel specific. FEMA states that floods do not follow city limits or property lines and that most homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage, and homes with mortgages from federally backed lenders in high-risk zones must carry flood insurance. Texarkana receives water from Wright Patman Lake, and the Texas Water Development Board says the lake was built as part of the flood control plan for the Red River below Denison Dam and is operated for flood control as well as water supply, so flood-control releases and the lake's seasonal pool are part of the local picture. Check the address on FEMA's flood map before an offer. Texas A&M Forest Service is the state's wildfire agency, and burn bans change with conditions.

Healthcare access in Texarkana

CHRISTUS Health operates a Texarkana campus on Pine Street at 1000 Pine St. The system's page says the campus is open 24 hours and offers emergency care, heart care, general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology and physical therapy, describes it as a remote location of CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System, and says CHRISTUS Health has welcomed Wadley Regional Medical Center into its network. The page says Texarkana has trusted CHRISTUS care since 1916.

Confirm with the hospital and your Medicare plan which campus and which specialists are in network. In a border city a hospital on the other side of the state line may be closer for some addresses, and plan network rules can differ. For how hospital geography interacts with Medicare, see Texas healthcare geography and Medicare.

Climate in Texarkana

NOAA's 1991-2020 monthly normals for the Texarkana station show a January mean temperature of 43.7 degrees F and a July mean of 83.2 degrees, with an August average high of 93.5 degrees and a January average low of 33.1 degrees. Monthly precipitation normals run from 2.77 inches in August to 5.25 inches in May. As our arithmetic, the twelve monthly normals add to about 52.41 inches a year.

That is a humid subtropical climate with hot summers, cool winters with regular freezes and rainfall every month. For summer heat and humidity planning, see the summer heat and humidity guide.

Lifestyle and recreation in Texarkana

Texarkana's appeal is practical rather than resort-like. The city's site lists a community center, parks and recreation, a visitor section on things to do and a HOME program that builds new homes for residents, and Wright Patman Lake is the area's large reservoir. The Texas Water Development Board places the lake about eleven miles southwest of Texarkana in Bowie and Cass counties on the Sulphur River, with a surface area of 119,700 acres at the spillway crest elevation used for flood control; the conservation pool is raised in spring and summer to supply water to Texarkana. Day-to-day shopping, medical offices and restaurants are those of a regional hub rather than a small town.

Housing in Texarkana

The survey says single-family detached homes are 64.6 percent of units, and homes built in the 1970s are 18.0 percent, in the 1980s 15.5 percent and in the 1990s 14.7 percent, with 6.3 percent built in 1939 or earlier and only 0.1 percent built since 2020. The result is an older, lower-cost stock with limited new construction, which suits buyers who want to buy a house and update it; roof, plumbing and electrical condition are the main inspection issues. With rents at $990 for the median unit, renting for a season is a low-cost way to test a neighborhood.

Getting around and getting away

Texarkana Regional Airport (TXK) says it offers nonstop American Airlines flights to Dallas/Fort Worth with connections to other destinations, and that it has opened a new passenger terminal of 40,000 square feet. The airport promotes shorter travel times and easier parking than larger airports. Single-hub service means a missed connection or weather cancellation can be hard to recover from, so some travelers drive to a larger airport. No drive times are quoted here.

Who Texarkana fits

Texarkana fits retirees who want low housing costs, a regional medical campus and airport service in a real city, who are comfortable with older housing, and who do not need a lake-and-golf lifestyle inside the city. It fits less well for buyers who want a dense community of peers or a new-construction active-adult product, and anyone choosing between the two states should compare the full tax and insurance picture on both sides before picking an address.

Comparisons with Texarkana

• Texarkana vs Tyler: retirement compared

Guides relevant to Texarkana

• 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
• Texas retirement taxes: state income tax, Social Security, pensions and federal taxes