Open data · Smith County

How many Smith County homes and lots end up in tax court?

In the year ending August 31, 2025, Smith County district courts received 177 new delinquent-tax suits and closed 314. On that date 587 tax cases were still active. Here is every year since FY2011, in one free file.

Download the CSV (15 rows)

What the numbers show

From FY2011 through FY2025 the courts logged 4,266 new tax cases in Smith County, about 284 a year. The busiest year was FY2014 with 419 filings; the quietest was FY2012 with 148. FY2025's 177 filings were the second lowest in the series.

The backlog tells a different story. Active tax cases at year end climbed from 299 in FY2011 to a high of 858 in FY2023, then fell to 748 and 587 over the next two years as the courts closed more cases than were filed (336 and 314 dispositions). In FY2025, 102 cases ended in a judgment after a bench trial and 168 were non-suited or dismissed by the plaintiff, which usually means the taxing unit was paid or the account was settled.

Tax suits made up 10.9% of all new civil filings in Smith County district courts in FY2025 (177 of 1,620), against a 15-year average of 22.2%.

Year by year

FY (Sept–Aug)	Pending at start	New tax suits	Disposed	Judgment after bench trial	Non-suited / dismissed by plaintiff	Pending at year end	All civil filings	Tax share of civil
2,011	234	297	478	236	176	299	1,242	23.9%
2,012	306	148	219	122	73	304	749	19.8%
2,013	306	351	309	152	112	369	1,246	28.2%
2,014	368	419	312	161	111	444	1,101	38.1%
2,015	444	179	259	91	97	126	915	19.6%
2,016	364	296	278	81	79	384	1,156	25.6%
2,017	384	297	230	91	73	438	1,289	23.0%
2,018	436	276	224	68	88	474	1,383	20.0%
2,019	474	387	203	66	90	653	1,555	24.9%
2,020	653	287	302	77	131	627	1,445	19.9%
2,021	627	221	224	69	108	620	1,313	16.8%
2,022	600	311	197	35	89	701	1,382	22.5%
2,023	701	389	230	79	118	858	1,517	25.6%
2,024	859	231	336	105	159	748	1,549	14.9%
2,025	747	177	314	102	168	587	1,620	10.9%

How this dataset was built

Source: the Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) Court Activity Database, report “District Court Activity Detail,” county = Smith, one report per fiscal year FY2011–FY2025, exported to Excel on October 12, 2026. Texas courts report on a fiscal year running September 1 to August 31.

From each report we read the civil-case section and took the column headed “Tax.” The rows used are: Active Cases pending at the start of the year, New Cases Filed, Total Cases Disposed, the disposition rows After Non-Jury Trial and Non-Suited or Dismissed by Plaintiff, and Active Cases pending at the end of the year. “All civil filings” is the Total column of the New Cases Filed row. The tax share is our own division of those two figures, rounded to one decimal.

Nothing was estimated, smoothed or filled in. Our check: the FY2025 extract (177 filed, 314 disposed, 587 pending) was compared by hand against the OCA report itself.

Limits to keep in mind

These are district-court counts only. A tax suit filed in a county court at law would not appear here.
A single suit can cover several parcels or owners, and one taxing unit's suit can include accounts for others, so the counts are cases, not properties.
OCA pending counts at the start of a year do not always equal the prior year's ending count; the database records clerk corrections that way.
Courts can revise reported figures; OCA data are the official record as of the export date.

Use it

Reporters, librarians, researchers and nonprofits are welcome to reuse the file. Please credit “Texas Office of Court Administration, compiled by Tyler Tax Resolution.” For the plain-language side of the process, see our Smith County delinquent property tax guide and the printable guides.

Primary source: Texas Judicial Branch, Court Activity Reporting and Directory System; statute background: Texas Tax Code Chapter 33 and Chapter 34.