Frequently asked questions

It’s a special appraisal — formally, a 1-d-1 open-space valuation with wildlife management as the qualifying agricultural use, under Texas Tax Code §23.51(7). Your land is taxed on its low agricultural productivity value instead of market value, and the qualifying “farming” is active management for native wild animals: habitat work, water, food, shelter, censuses, and predator or erosion control.

Yes. Converting to wildlife management keeps the productivity value your land already has — the appraisal category carries over from your previous ag use (native pasture, dry crop, timber, etc.). Your tax bill doesn’t change because you switched from cattle to wildlife.

Your county appraisal district’s chief appraiser reviews the application (Form 50‑129) and wildlife management plan (PWD‑885) and determines qualification, the same as any ag application. TPWD publishes the standards and forms but does not approve individual properties.

The usual reasons: the livestock lease ended and finding a good operator is hard; fences, water, and liability for someone else’s cattle stopped being worth it; overgrazing was degrading the land; or the family simply wants deer, turkeys, and wildflowers instead. Wildlife use keeps the taxes low while letting the land recover.

Yes — wildlife management use requires the land to be qualified open-space (1-d-1) or timber land at the time you convert. If the land lost its valuation, you’d first requalify through ordinary agricultural use (typically 5 of the preceding 7 years of ag history), then convert.

If your tract hasn’t been reduced in size since January 1 of the prior year, no minimum applies. If it has (a subdivided ranch, a partial purchase), your county applies its adopted wildlife-use ratio — set within TPWD-recommended ranges for your region — which typically produces minimums of roughly 12–50 acres (lower where an endangered-species or habitat-preserve exception applies). Every county page on this site covers the local situation.

Between January 1 and April 30 with your county appraisal district: Form 50‑129 plus your PWD‑885 plan. File late (before the roll certifies) and a 10% penalty applies to that year’s savings. New owners keeping an existing ag valuation must file their own application too.

Yes: file your own 50‑129 and either adopt/update the existing wildlife plan or submit your own PWD‑885 by April 30. The valuation follows the qualified use and your paperwork, not the previous owner’s.

Habitat control, erosion control, predator management, providing supplemental water, providing supplemental food, providing shelter, and making census counts. You must actively use the land in at least three each year, at the intensity standards for your ecoregion. Full guide here.

Property and ownership details, acreage and habitat description, your target native species, your management goals, and the specific practices (with activities and intensity) you commit to. TPWD publishes ecoregion-specific guidance the plan should align with. Our PWD‑885 guide walks every section.

It’s required when the chief appraiser requests it — and many districts request it annually or on a review cycle. Treat it as expected: keep logs and photos all year so the report is a formality, not a scramble. PWD‑888 guide.

Dated activity entries tied to specific practices, photos (ideally location-tagged), receipts for feed/seed/equipment, survey data sheets, and totals that meet your plan’s stated intensity. That’s precisely what the app produces as you tap through the season.

Yes. Hunting is compatible with (and often part of) wildlife management; harvest records even strengthen your census practice. A hunting lease doesn’t affect the valuation.

When qualified open-space land changes to a non-agricultural use, the county recaptures the tax difference for the previous 3 years plus 5% interest per year (reduced by HB 1743 in 2019 from 5 years and 7%). On land saving $9,500/year, that’s roughly a $28,500+ bill. Full rollback guide.

Denial alone doesn’t trigger rollback — rollback follows a change of use. A denied conversion typically means the land just continues under its existing ag use (keep those cattle arrangements until approval is secure). But losing qualification entirely, then developing or ceasing ag use, is where rollback bites. The safe path: convert correctly, document relentlessly.

The boring stuff: no annual report when requested, practices that don’t match the plan, intensity below the ecoregion standard, or no records to show. Genuine management with clean documentation almost never loses.

The full eligibility check, your county’s requirements and deadlines, all 254 county guides, and email deadline reminders. Building the PWD‑885, tracking activities, and generating PWD‑888 reports are part of Steward ($249/yr). Pricing.

Yes — log activities and photos offline; everything syncs when you’re back in coverage. Ranches don’t come with LTE, so we built for that.

Steward includes two users; Ranch includes shared access for family and managers across up to three properties.

Great — upload it. The app extracts your practices into the seasonal tracker and generates PWD‑888 reports against your existing plan. Many members start exactly this way.