Often the single biggest number in Hill Country land math — and the easiest one to get wrong.
What everyone calls an "ag exemption" is 1-d-1 open-space special appraisal: qualifying land gets taxed on what it can produce agriculturally rather than what it would sell for. On Hill Country land, where market values have run far ahead of grazing values, that difference commonly cuts the land's tax bill by 80–90%. On a decent-sized tract, it's thousands of dollars a year — every year.
Qualifying means a real agricultural use (grazing cattle, sheep, or goats; hay; beekeeping on smaller tracts; and more) to the degree of intensity typical for the county, with a multi-year history. Each county's appraisal district — Kerr CAD here, Gillespie for Harper, Kendall for Comfort — publishes its own intensity standards. Those standards, not internet folklore, are what count.
Don't want livestock? Land already under ag valuation can convert to wildlife-management use and keep the same tax treatment. You implement a qualifying set of practices — from habitat and erosion control, predator management, supplemental water/food/shelter, and census counts — under a written plan. For many buyers of recreational ranches around Mountain Home and Hunt, wildlife management is the natural fit: the deer are already doing half the work.
We'll walk the qualification, the rollback exposure, and the wildlife-conversion option for your specific tract.