Trampoline Park Property Tax: The $125,000 Exemption Math
Altitude Arlington filed a $1,200,000 fit-out for its 31,512 sq ft (2,928 m²) park with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Most owners who budget from construction filings like that one stop at the invoice. They forget one line: in Texas and a dozen other states, the equipment itself is taxable property, year after year, on top of the sales tax collected at the door and the federal depreciation schedule on the same purchase.
That second tax, the business personal property tax, is easy to miss because nobody sends an invoice for it. The owner has to report the property, the appraisal district values it, and only then does a bill arrive. Skip the reporting and the district still taxes the equipment, minus an exemption the owner never claimed.
On January 1, 2026, the rules in Texas changed. House Bill 9, passed by the 89th Legislature and approved by voters, gives every business location a $125,000 exemption on income-producing tangible personal property. For a park with a seven-figure equipment package, the exemption removes about 11 percent of the year-one assessed value. For a park below the threshold, it removes all of it, but only if the owner files the paperwork.
This article works the math on one reference box: a $1,200,000 equipment invoice inside Arlington, Texas. It walks through how an appraisal district builds the number, what the new exemption changes, what the same invoice would render across a state line, and where owners lose money on deadlines rather than rates.
1. The Equipment Is on the Tax Roll, Not Just the Building
Texas Tax Code Section 22.01 requires every person who owns tangible personal property used to produce income to render it to the county appraisal district each year. “Tangible personal property” is the legal term for anything physical and movable that earns money: trampoline beds and springs, foam blocks, padded structures, climbing frames, interactive play systems, arcade cabinets, point-of-sale terminals, party furniture, even the socks held for sale at the front desk.
Three points trip up first-time park owners.
The landlord’s building is not your problem Real property (land and structure) is assessed against the landlord and usually reaches you through rent. Business personal property is assessed against you. Two different rolls, two different accounts, two different sets of deadlines.
Leased and financed equipment still counts Equipment a park leases from a finance company or a supplier, or controls as a fiduciary, goes on the operator’s rendition, with the actual owner named on the form. A park that finances its attractions does not escape the roll; it just splits the reporting responsibility with the finance company.
There is no state tax, only local stacks Texas has no state-level property tax. The bill is assembled from every overlapping taxing unit: county, city, school district, hospital district, community college district, sometimes water or emergency districts. Two identical parks across a city line can face different combined rates because the stack differs.
Who should care most: anyone opening in a state that still taxes business equipment. Texas, California, Arkansas, Louisiana and Kentucky all do, under their own local structures. Fourteen states broadly exempt tangible personal property, which is a siting variable most feasibility models never record.
2. How an Appraisal District Builds the Number: Cost × Percent Good
The appraisal district does not send anyone to value a foam pit by eye. It works from what the owner reports: acquisition cost and year, by asset category. The district then applies a percent good factor, a schedule that estimates what the asset is worth on January 1 of the tax year given its age and typical life expectancy.
Taxable value = historical cost × percent good (by age and category) − exemptions Annual bill = taxable value ÷ 100 × combined tax rate (per $100)
The Tarrant Appraisal District, which covers Arlington, publishes its percent good schedule on its rendition form. Machinery and equipment sit on a 12-year life: the schedule holds 92 percent of original cost after one year, 65 percent after five, and bottoms out near 24 percent after fourteen. Office equipment runs a 10-year life with a steeper early decline: 90 percent after one year, 59 percent after five, 35 percent after ten. An arcade cabinet or an interactive play wall might reasonably fall in either bucket, and the choice moves the assessed value by dozens of points.
Two honest caveats come with that paragraph. First, trampoline park equipment is not a named category in the schedule; an appraiser assigns it a life expectancy, and districts may develop their own tables adjusted for local market conditions, as Texas appraisal manuals explicitly permit. Second, percent good is a starting point, not a conclusion. Texas law lets owners protest the value with evidence, and Chapter 41 of the Tax Code sets the process.
What the owner controls in this system is input quality. A rendition with cost, acquisition year and category on every asset line gives the district less room to fill gaps with assumptions. District guidance is blunt about what happens when owners leave fields blank: the gaps get filled, and the filling rarely favors the taxpayer.
3. The $125,000 Exemption Changed the Math on January 1, 2026
Before 2026, Texas taxed business personal property from the first dollar. The Tax Foundation’s state survey, published in April 2025, listed Texas among the states that fully tax tangible personal property, and that listing was accurate when compiled. The 89th Legislature then passed House Bill 9, voters approved the enabling constitutional amendment, and from January 1, 2026 a person is entitled to an exemption of $125,000 of the appraised value of income-producing tangible personal property at each location.
The mechanics matter more than the headline number.
Per location A park with $960,000 of equipment renders it, the district subtracts $125,000, and the owner pays tax on $835,000. A park with $110,000 of equipment pays nothing, but the exemption is not automatic.
Certification replaces itemizing only below the line An owner who reasonably believes the property is worth $125,000 or less can certify that on the rendition form and skip itemized reporting in future years, unless the chief appraiser demands more. Above the line, the exemption applies to the first $125,000 and the rest is taxed at market value.
No rendition, no exemption The appraisal district notices are blunt about this: an owner who does not file is not eligible for the $125,000 exemption, and a 10 percent penalty on the total tax attaches anyway. The exemption rewards participation; it does not forgive absence.
Related entities cannot stack it House Bill 9 added aggregation rules. Related business entities that run a common enterprise at the same address have their property pooled to determine the exemption, so an operating company and an affiliated equipment company at one site share one $125,000 window rather than doubling it. Leased property gets its own $125,000 aggregation, computed separately from owned property.
Why this matters at signing, not at filing: the exemption applies per location. A franchisee planning a second park in the same taxing unit should model both sites’ equipment values together, because the property tax line is one of the few cost lines that an accurate form, filed on time, can shrink by a fixed amount every year.
4. What a $1.2 Million Box Renders in Arlington, Texas
Here is the worked example. Take the Altitude Arlington filing: $1,200,000 of fit-out value in a 31,512 sq ft (2,928 m²) shell. Assume, as an upper bound, that the full amount is rendered as business personal property; in practice some permanently attached work may sit on the real-property roll, which would lower the number. Assume the district assigns the equipment package a 12-year machinery and equipment life and values it in its first year at 92 percent of cost.
The Arlington rate stack, assembled from adopted rates, looks like this:
| Taxing unit | Adopted rate per $100 | Rate vintage |
|---|---|---|
| City of Arlington | $0.6298 | FY 2026 adopted |
| Arlington ISD | $1.1035 | 2024–25 school year |
| Tarrant County | $0.1862 | 2025 adopted |
| Tarrant County Hospital District (JPS) | $0.1650 | 2025 adopted |
| Tarrant County College District | $0.1122 | 2025 adopted |
| Combined | $2.1967 | mixed vintages, see Section 6 |
Now the computation, step by step:
| Step | Input | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment cost rendered | TDLR filing, upper bound | $1,200,000 |
| Percent good, machinery and equipment, effective age 1 | TAD schedule, 12-year life | 92% |
| Assessed value | $1,200,000 × 0.92 | $1,104,000 |
| Less §11.145 exemption | HB 9, per location | −$125,000 |
| Taxable value | after exemption | $979,000 |
| Combined rate | $2.1967 per $100 | — |
| Year-one bill | $979,000 ÷ 100 × 2.1967 | $21,506 |
| Per admission, at 2.0 visits per sq ft (63,024 visits) | standing reference assumption | $0.34 |
| Per sq ft of building | 31,512 sq ft | $0.68 |
Three observations on that number. The year-one bill equals about 1.8 percent of the invoice that generated it, and it recurs. It is smaller than several other cost lines this site has priced, including the annual cost of an SBA loan on a $1.5 million note, but it never disappears and it does not depend on revenue. And every $0.10 per $100 in the combined rate adds $979 to the year-one bill, which is why the stack, not any single unit’s rate, is the number to model.
The bill falls as the equipment ages, because percent good declines faster than the exemption shrinks:
| Effective age | Percent good | Assessed value | Taxable value | Annual bill | Per visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 92% | $1,104,000 | $979,000 | $21,506 | $0.34 |
| 5 years | 65% | $780,000 | $655,000 | $14,388 | $0.23 |
| 14+ years (floor) | 24% | $288,000 | $163,000 | $3,581 | $0.06 |
Only the three anchor points in that table are published schedule values; the years between them decline along the district’s own curve, and the actual notices will carry the district’s figures. The direction is what matters for a five-year pro forma: the property tax line on equipment starts near $0.68 per sq ft and drifts toward $0.11 per sq ft as the package ages, assuming no reinvestment. Every refreshed attraction, every new interactive wall, every replaced trampoline bed lifts a slice of the value back up the curve, which is also why a refurbishment changes this line even when attendance does not move.
5. The Same Invoice Across a State Line
Equipment value is portable; the exemption rules are not. The Tax Foundation’s 2025 survey records an exemption value for every state that offers a de minimis on business tangible personal property, and the spread is enormous. Applied against the same $1,104,000 year-one assessed value, the taxable base differs by state before any rate enters the calculation:
| State treatment | Exemption value | Taxable base on a $1,104,000 value |
|---|---|---|
| 14 states broadly exempt TPP (incl. Ohio, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin) | full | $0 |
| Indiana, Montana | $1,000,000 | $104,000 |
| Arizona | $500,000 | $604,000 |
| Idaho | $250,000 | $854,000 |
| Texas (HB 9, from tax year 2026) | $125,000 | $979,000 |
| Michigan | $80,000 | $1,024,000 |
| Wyoming | $75,000 | $1,029,000 |
| Colorado | $56,000 | $1,048,000 |
| Rhode Island | $50,000 | $1,054,000 |
| Florida | $25,000 | $1,079,000 |
| Georgia, Maryland | $20,000 | $1,084,000 |
| Kansas | $1,500 | $1,102,500 |
| Kentucky | $1,000 | $1,103,000 |
Read that table as a base comparison only. Each state values property on its own depreciation assumptions and each locality sets its own rate, so this article deliberately stops before multiplying any other state’s base by a rate. The defensible conclusion is narrower: in Indiana or Montana, a $1.1 million year-one package is nearly exempt; in Kentucky or Kansas, a de minimis set at four figures removes almost nothing from a seven-figure package; in Texas, the 2026 change moved a $1.2 million park from a fully taxable base to one reduced by $125,000.
For siting decisions, that makes the property tax question a two-variable lookup: which exemption tier the state sits in, and what the local combined rate runs. A park comparing a Texas suburb against an Ohio suburb should model the Ohio equipment bill at zero and the Texas bill at the Section 4 math, then let rent and market size decide. The tax spread alone over ten years is real money, but it rarely outweighs where the customers are, and treating it as a tiebreaker rather than a driver keeps the model honest.
6. What the Data Does and Does Not Show
This article computes rather than surveys, so the boundaries of the computation deserve the same space as the result.
What is published and verifiable The $1,200,000 fit-out value comes from the operator’s TDLR filing. The percent good anchor points (92, 65 and 24 percent for 12-year machinery and equipment) come from TAD’s published schedule. The exemption mechanics come from the enrolled text of House Bill 9 and from appraisal district notices. The individual tax rates come from adopted budget documents and published rate sheets. None of those figures is estimated by us.
What is our assumption Rendering the full $1.2 million as business personal property is an upper bound. A fit-out includes work that may legally attach to the building, and the split between trade fixtures and real-property improvements is exactly the kind of question a property tax professional gets paid to argue. The 2.0 visits per sq ft figure used to convert the bill into a per-admission number is this site’s standing reference assumption, not an operator disclosure.
What the combined rate does and does not represent The $2.1967 stack mixes vintages: the city rate is the FY 2026 adopted figure, the school rate is the published 2024–25 total, and the county-level rates are 2025 adopted. A specific parcel’s stack comes from the taxing units its account actually touches, and Texas school district rates compress over time, so treat $2.20 as a planning figure for Arlington, not a statewide constant. This is also why no cross-state rate was multiplied into Section 5.
What we cannot verify No public record shows how any appraisal district classifies trampoline park equipment or which life expectancy it assigns. The 12-year machinery treatment is the closest published category and is used here as a proxy. A district could classify interactive systems, with their short-lived electronics, on a steeper schedule, and that classification, not the tax rate, is the largest single swing in the whole computation.
One correlation caveat, stated once: parks in states with no equipment tax do not out-earn parks in Texas because of it. Location quality, rent and market size dominate the outcome. The exemption table is a cost input, not a verdict on where to build.
7. The Calendar, the Penalties and the Protest Path
Most of the money lost on this tax is lost to dates, not rates. The rendition obligation runs on a fixed annual cycle:
| Date window | What happens |
|---|---|
| Jan 1 – Apr 15 | File the rendition (Comptroller Form 50-144) with the appraisal district for property owned on Jan 1 |
| By Apr 15 | Written extension request moves the deadline to May 15; the chief appraiser may add 15 days for good cause |
| By May 1 | Notice of appraised value mailed |
| May 15, or 30 days after the notice | Deadline to file a written notice of protest (Tax Code §41.44) |
| Jun – Jul | Informal review, then Appraisal Review Board hearings |
| Oct | Tax bills mailed |
| Jan 31 | Payment deadline; delinquent Feb 1 with escalating penalty and interest |
The penalty schedule is where carelessness converts into cash. Missing the April 15 rendition deadline costs 10 percent of the total taxes imposed on the property for that year, and the penalty is mandatory; the chief appraiser can waive it only for demonstrated reasonable diligence. On the Section 4 numbers, a late rendition costs $2,151 for one form. Failure to render also forfeits the $125,000 exemption, so the combined damage on the reference park is a bill of $24,252 instead of $21,506, plus the penalty: $5,171 more than the compliant path, for skipping paperwork. A court-determined fraudulent rendition adds a separate 50 percent penalty on top.
The protest path is equally concrete. An owner who disagrees with the assessed value files a written protest by May 15 or 30 days after the notice, whichever is later. Many districts resolve a share of disputes informally; unresolved cases go to the Appraisal Review Board, and values of $5 million or less can move to regular binding arbitration through the Comptroller’s office. The evidence that moves these hearings is boring and decisive: purchase invoices, disposal records for retired assets, and photographs of condition. Appraisal districts regularly carry ghost assets, equipment sold or scrapped years ago that still sits on the roll, and removing them is often the fastest reduction available.
8. Decision Rules Before You Sign a Lease
One page of rules, in the order the decisions arrive. None of this is a forecast; each rule is an if-then an owner can apply to their own numbers.
1. If the equipment package is under the state’s exemption threshold, filing is the whole game. In Texas, a park that certifies $125,000 or less pays zero equipment property tax from tax year 2026 onward, but only after filing the certification. A park that never files can be assessed anyway, without the exemption and with the penalty.
2. If the package is seven figures, put the line in the pro forma as taxable value × 0.022. Every $100,000 of taxable value costs about $2,197 a year in a $2.20-per-$100 county. The year-one bill on a $1.2 million invoice is about $21,500 in Arlington; your own county’s stack and your district’s classification of the equipment will move it, and the formula above lets you swap their numbers in.
3. If you are choosing between markets in different states, look up the exemption tier before the rate. The table in Section 5 spreads the taxable base from $0 to $1.1 million on an identical package. Rate differences inside a metro are trivia next to that spread.
4. If your entity structure puts equipment in a sister company, check the aggregation rules first. Related business entities at one location share one $125,000 window, and leased equipment aggregates separately from owned property. Restructuring after the January 1 situs date is a next-year problem.
5. If the notice arrives high, protest with records, not adjectives. The calendar in Section 7 gives one written deadline a year. Purchase records, disposal records and condition photographs are what the Appraisal Review Board can act on.
Property tax on equipment will not decide whether a park survives. But it is a recurring line that starts on day one, rises again with every refurbishment, and shrinks for owners who file one accurate form each spring. The sales tax on a $19.99 ticket and the federal depreciation schedule on the same invoice each have their own article; this line belongs in the same spreadsheet, not in the forgotten pile.
If you are still assembling the budget that a filing like this one comes from, our design-to-delivery process shows where equipment values, freight and installation land in the sequence, and why operators start their layout with us before the first form is due.
FAQ
Is leased or financed trampoline equipment taxable to the operator?
Yes, in Texas the user reports it. Tangible personal property an operator leases from a finance company or controls as a fiduciary goes on the operator’s rendition, with the actual owner named on the form. From tax year 2026, leased property receives its own $125,000 exemption aggregation under House Bill 9, computed separately from owned property at a location, so a park mixing owned and leased attractions should track the two pools apart.
My equipment is worth less than $125,000 — do I still file a rendition?
Yes, at least once. House Bill 9 lets an owner certify on the rendition form that the property’s value is $125,000 or less; after that certification, no further rendition is required unless the value rises or the chief appraiser requests one. Skipping the filing entirely forfeits both the exemption and the certification, and it exposes the account to a 10 percent penalty on whatever the district assesses.
Does the $125,000 exemption apply to a second park in the same city?
It applies per location. House Bill 9 grants the exemption to each separate location in a taxing unit, so a second park across town gets its own $125,000 window on owned property. The limit is on stacking within one site: related business entities operating a common enterprise at the same address must aggregate their property, so two affiliated companies cannot claim two exemptions on one park’s equipment.
What happens if I ignore the rendition letter?
Three things, all expensive. The appraisal district assesses the property using its own assumptions about what you own. The $125,000 exemption is not applied, because it is conditioned on filing. And a mandatory penalty of 10 percent of the total tax imposed attaches for failure to render, rising to a further 50 percent if a court finds a rendition was falsified to evade tax. On a $1.1 million year-one assessed value in a $2.20-per-$100 county, ignoring the letter costs roughly $5,100 in the first year alone.
Can I protest the appraised value of my equipment?
Yes, through Texas Tax Code Chapter 41. File a written notice of protest by May 15 or 30 days after the notice of appraised value is delivered, whichever is later. Informal review with a district appraiser resolves many disputes; the rest go to the Appraisal Review Board, and accounts valued at $5 million or less can elect binding arbitration through the Comptroller’s office. The evidence that works is documentary: acquisition invoices, disposal records for retired assets, and condition photographs.
Sources
- Texas Legislature Online, “HB 9 (89th Legislature), enrolled text, amending Tax Code §11.145 on income-producing tangible personal property exemptions”: capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/HB00009F.htm
- Tarrant Appraisal District, “File Your 2026 Business Personal Property Rendition Electronically”, January 22, 2026: tad.org/file-your-2026-business-personal-property-rendition-electronically
- Tarrant Appraisal District, Business Personal Property Rendition of Taxable Property (Form 50-144) with TAD Percent Good Schedule (PDF): tad.org/content/forms/BPPRendition(50-144).pdf
- Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Rendition of Taxable Property (Form 50-157), general information on rendition deadlines, the §11.145 exemption and penalties (PDF): comptroller.texas.gov/forms/50-157.pdf
- Tax Foundation, “Tangible Personal Property De Minimis Exemptions by State, 2025”, April 2025, data compiled by Joseph Johns: taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tangible-personal-property-taxes/
- City of Arlington, FY 2026 Adopted Budget and Business Plan, property tax rate table ($0.6298 per $100): arlingtontx.gov, FY 2026 adopted budget (PDF)
- Arlington ISD, “Learn about school property taxes in Arlington ISD”, 2024–25 total tax rate $1.1035: aisd.net
- City of North Richland Hills, “Taxes”, 2025 adopted rates for Tarrant County ($0.1862), Tarrant County Hospital District ($0.1650) and Tarrant County College ($0.1122): nrhtx.com/101/Taxes
- Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Construction project filing TABS2026013038, Altitude Arlington, 31,512 sq ft, $1.2M fit-out: tdlr.texas.gov/TABS/Projects/TABS2026013038