Do Frisco and Plano have MUD taxes?

If you have been shopping across the corridor you will have noticed the same house costs less the further north you go — and then heard something about MUD taxes that made you wonder whether the saving is real.

Short answer for these two cities: Frisco and Plano are largely past the district stage. Both were built out long enough ago that the water lines and drainage were paid for by somebody else, decades ago, and the cost is buried in ordinary city taxes rather than charged to you separately.

That is genuinely worth money. It is also most of why those houses cost more.

What Frisco actually has

Frisco has two Public Improvement Districts, both in the Panther Creek area, and the city publishes the numbers:

Assessments can be paid up front or spread over twenty years.

Two things about that table are worth saying plainly. These are assessments, not tax rates — a fixed amount per lot that ends, not a percentage of your value that runs indefinitely. And they are small. Sixteen dollars a month is a rounding error against a mortgage payment.

There is a further wrinkle in your favour: as of 27 March 2025 the City of Frisco is in the process of closing PID 1 and PID 2.

What Plano has

The only Public Improvement District the City of Plano lists is the Downtown Plano PID — a commercial district covering the downtown business area, funded by and benefiting businesses there. It is not something that lands on a residential buyer in a neighbourhood.

I would still check your specific address rather than take that as a guarantee, for the reason below. But if you are buying a house in Plano, a district assessment is not the thing to worry about.

What this is actually worth

Put a number on it, because the comparison people are really making is Frisco versus somewhere twenty minutes north.

Take a $4,600 monthly budget — the whole payment, including taxes and insurance, at 6.5% with 10% down.

The same monthly payment stretches about $41,500 further where there is no district. That is the honest way to compare a Frisco house against a Prosper or Celina one: not sticker price against sticker price, but what each costs you every month once the district is in the number.

Sometimes the northern house still wins, comfortably — newer build, bigger lot, and a MUD rate that will fall as the district fills in. Sometimes the gap you thought you were capturing is mostly the district. You cannot know which without running both.

The payment calculator has a MUD/PID field for exactly this. Put the Frisco house in with zero and the Prosper house in with its actual rate, and compare the two monthly figures rather than the two asking prices.

How to check your own address in two minutes

Do not rely on a city-wide answer, including this one. Districts follow parcels, not city limits, and one side of a road can differ from the other.

Look the property up at the appraisal district. Collin CAD for most of Frisco and Plano, Denton CAD for the western edge of Frisco. Search the address and read the list of taxing entities attached to it. Every entity that can tax the property is named — city, county, school district, and any MUD.

A PID will not always appear there, because an assessment is not a tax. For that, ask the seller or builder directly, in writing: is this property in a PID, what is the annual assessment, how many years remain, and what is the payoff today.

Use the notices. Texas requires a seller to disclose both, before you sign a binding contract. That is a right with a deadline attached, and it is covered properly in the MUD and PID guide — including what happens if the notice arrives at closing instead.

The short version

In Frisco, the district question is usually either "none" or "about twenty dollars a month, and it is being closed." In Plano it is usually "none." Neither of those should drive your decision.

What should drive it is the comparison across the corridor, where the difference is real and runs to tens of thousands of dollars of buying power. Price the payment, not the sticker — and if you send me two addresses, I will price both properly rather than guessing at an average.

---

Figures use 6.5% over 30 years, 10% down, 2.1% base property tax and $2,400 a year insurance — illustrative, not a quote. Frisco PID amounts are the City of Frisco's published figures as of this writing; district rates and assessments change, and your own rate depends on your credit, your down payment and the property.

Sources: City of Frisco — Public Improvement Districts · City of Plano — Public Improvement Districts · Collin CAD · Denton CAD