Who Owns Texas's Vacant Land? The 2026 Texas Land Ownership Report

Key findings

• Texas's 232 covered counties hold about 2.6 million vacant-land ownership records — 465,499 of them tracts of 5 to 40 acres.
• 195,291 vacant-land owners (7.5%) mail their tax bills outside Texas. The largest group lives in California: 29,491 owners, 15% of all out-of-state owners.
• In Dallas County, 6,637 vacant-land owners (12.3%) were behind on property taxes as of September 21, 2026, owing a combined $48.3 million (median $2,084).
• Contrary to investor folklore, out-of-state owners in Dallas County were less likely to be delinquent (8.8%) than owners mailing from inside Texas (12.6%) — and small city lots (13.5%) far more likely than tracts of 5+ acres (6.3%).

Where Texas's out-of-state land owners live

Of the 195,291 vacant-land owners with a mailing address outside Texas, these states account for the most. Many hold lots sold nationwide decades ago in far West Texas; others are Gulf Coast and border-state neighbors.

Counties with the highest share of out-of-state owners (at least 3,000 vacant-land owners):

Where the vacant land is

The most vacant-land owners are in the fast-growing counties around Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, and San Antonio:

The most vacant tracts of 5 to 40 acres — rural homesites, hunting land, and small farms — are in East Texas and the Rio Grande Valley:

Dallas County: vacant land behind on its taxes

Joining the Dallas County Tax Office's own delinquent-tax file (as of September 21, 2026) to Dallas County's 53,950 vacant-land ownership records: 6,637 are past due, owing a combined $48.3 million in taxes, penalties, and interest. The median balance is $2,084; 1,159 owners owe $10,000 or more.

The pattern runs against a common assumption that absentee, out-of-state owners are the ones who let taxes lapse. In Dallas County the delinquency is concentrated in small in-town lots owned by Texans. See the current Dallas County numbers.

How this was measured

• Parcels: the TxGIO StratMap Land Parcels (compiled from county appraisal district rolls), 2025 tax roll. A parcel counts as vacant when its appraisal district reports no improvement value (or, where a district reports no values, when it falls in the state's vacant-lot or agricultural-land category). Government, school-district, church, railroad, and utility owners are excluded.
• Owners are counted once per owner and mailing address within a county. “Out of state” means the tax-bill mailing address is outside Texas. Acreage is the deeded acreage, or the mapped area where none is recorded.
• Delinquency: the Dallas County Tax Office — Tax Roll (TRW) file, as of 2026-09-21 — accounts past their due date with a balance remaining, joined to parcels by appraisal-district account number. Amounts include penalties and interest.
• 22counties don't report enough to identify vacant land and are not included: Donley County, El Paso County, Garza County, Hardeman County, Hudspeth County, Jim Wells County, Kenedy County, Live Oak County, Mason County, Montague County, Nacogdoches County, Potter County, Randall County, Red River County, Robertson County, Runnels County, Smith County, Terrell County, Travis County, Val Verde County, Williamson County, Yoakum County.

Cite or reuse this data

Journalists, researchers, and bloggers are welcome to quote these findings and use the county table, with a link to this page. Suggested credit:

Source: Land Lead Directory, “Who Owns Texas's Vacant Land? The 2026 Texas Land Ownership Report” (https://landleaddirectory.com/reports/texas-land-ownership-report-2026), analysis of TxGIO and Dallas County Tax Office records.

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