Texas TEFA 2026: What Homeschool Families Actually Get

What TEFA actually is

The Texas Education Freedom Accounts program (TEFA) was created by Senate Bill 2 in the 89th Texas Legislature, signed by the Governor May 3, 2025 and effective September 1, 2025. Per the program portal, the Legislature provided $1 billion in funding and the program is administered by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. The Comptroller announced the adoption of the program’s final rules on November 25, 2025.

The program has three funding tiers:

• Accredited private-school students: $10,474 per year for 2026-27, set by the Texas Education Agency at 85% of the estimated statewide average of state and local funding per student in average daily attendance.
• Private-school students with an IEP on file: up to $30,000 per year, including the base amount, with the allotment based on the funding the student’s district would receive for IEP services. The IEP must be on file with the Texas Education Agency by the end of the application period, per the program portal.
• Homeschool students: $2,000 per year, the amount for children who are homeschooled or not enrolled in a public school. The program portal states that an awarded child “who is homeschooled or is not enrolled in a public school or a pre-K or kindergarten program will receive $2,000 annually” (retrieved October 2026), and the families page states that the maximum award for all homeschool/other students is $2,000.

The program portal states that the amount available to a participating child depends on the educational setting the family chooses, and Education Code §29.361(b-1) bars transfers above $2,000 per school year to the account of a home-schooled student.

The 2026 award results: 95,600 funded, most applicants not

The first application window closed with more than 274,000 student applications, per the Comptroller’s April 2, 2026 overview. About 43,000 students applied on the first day. Nearly three-quarters of applicants came from low- or middle-income households. Roughly 30,000 applicants qualified for the top priority tier (students with disabilities in households at or below 500% of the federal poverty level), and roughly 79,000 qualified for the second tier (students in low-income households).

Awards went out in stages, with later updates:

• April 22-24, 2026: more than 42,600 students received award notices, covering every applicant in the top priority tier plus their siblings. Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock noted that “the Legislature made low- and middle-income students with disabilities the first priority for the first year of school choice here in Texas.”
• May 4-6, 2026: more than 53,000 additional students received awards after a lottery among second-tier applicants, whose demand exceeded the remaining funding. That brought the funded total above 95,600.
• August 3, 2026: Comptroller Don Huffines’ first annual report to the Legislature put confirmed 2026-27 participation at more than 85,000 students, with more than 120,000 eligible applicants still awaiting additional funding.
• August 13, 2026: a new round of awards brought the funded total to 101,600, the first program of its kind to fund more than 100,000 students in its opening year. More than 100,000 students remain on the waitlist for 2026-27.

The arithmetic is blunt: roughly 95,600 awards against 274,000+ applications means almost two of every three applicants landed on the waitlist or outside the program. The Comptroller states that additional funding is likely to reach waitlisted students as families make their selections, opt out of the program or resolve appeals. Parents have 30 days after notification to appeal their child’s funding amount, application priority or ineligibility.

Who qualified, and what participation requires

Per the program’s families page, the Parent Application Guide and 34 TAC §16.403(a), the requirements for 2026-27 were:

1. Citizenship. The child must be a U.S. citizen or national or have been lawfully admitted to the United States.
2. Texas residency. The child must reside in Texas, and at least one parent must be a Texas resident.
3. School eligibility. The child must be eligible to attend a Texas public school or open-enrollment charter school, or eligible to enroll in a public pre-K program. The program portal states that the pre-K eligibility criteria are narrower than the criteria for K-12 students.
4. No concurrent public enrollment. A child may be enrolled in a public or charter school when the family applies, but may not receive TEFA funding while enrolled.
5. Application in the annual window. For 2026-27, applications opened February 4, 2026 and the window is now closed. The program portal offers a 2027-28 interest list for families who want updates about future application opportunities.

Applications are assigned a priority group, and the three groups after the first are determined solely on household income. SB 2 establishes a priority order when applications exceed available funding, and in 2026-27 they did. The families page lists the order: children with a disability in households at or below 500% of the federal poverty level first, then households at or below 200%, then households between 200% and 500%, then households at or above 500%. Funds for the last group may not exceed 20 percent of the amount appropriated, and children enrolled in a Texas public or charter school for at least 90% of the prior school year are prioritized within it. The top tier was funded in full and the second tier went to lottery.

The program’s assessment requirement attaches to private schools. Education Code §29.358(b)(2)(B) requires an approved private school to demonstrate annual administration, to students in grades 3 through 12, of a nationally norm-referenced assessment instrument or the assessment required under Chapter 39, Subchapter B, and participating parents agree under §29.357(a)(2) to share the results of any assessment required to be administered to their child. The adopted rules apply that agreement to participating children in grades 3 through 12 enrolled in a private school (34 TAC §16.403(b)(4)(D)).

What the $2,000 actually buys

The TEFA families page lists the approved expense categories (retrieved October 2026):

• Tuition and fees at a private school, higher education provider, online educational course or program, or program that provides training for an industry-based credential.
• Textbooks or other instructional materials.
• Private tutoring from approved providers.
• Academic assessment costs, which the adopted rules define to include nationally norm-referenced tests (34 TAC §16.401(3)).
• Educational therapies to the extent not covered by government benefits or by private insurance, or provided by a public school (34 TAC §16.406(7)).
• Computer hardware or software, capped at 10 percent of the total amount transferred ($200 of a $2,000 homeschool account) and limited by the adopted rules to items required by an approved provider or vendor or prescribed by a physician (34 TAC §16.406(9)).
• Transportation to and from approved providers.
• Required uniforms, certain school-district class fees, and meals provided by a private school.

Every purchase must come from a provider or vendor approved into the program. The Comptroller’s rules bar paying anyone related to the child within the third degree by consanguinity or affinity, require parents to agree not to withdraw cash or seek reimbursement, and bar selling items bought with program money, per the adopted program rules (34 TAC §§16.401-16.410, including §16.404(k) and §16.403(b)(4)).

How funds flow: marketplace only, no reimbursement

Odyssey is the certified educational assistance organization (CEAO) selected to help administer the program under the Comptroller’s oversight. Families pay through the TEFA Marketplace, and the legal basis is explicit. Texas Education Code §29.360(f) provides that the program’s payment system may not allow a participant to withdraw cash or receive reimbursement directly from the program. The Comptroller declined to add a receipt-submission alternative when a commenter requested one during rulemaking, per the adopted rules published in the Texas Register (December 2025).

The mechanics, from the same rules:

1. All purchases run through a Comptroller-approved payment system accessible through the program’s website (34 TAC §16.407(g)). In its adoption notes, the Comptroller describes a comptroller-approved purchasing system as “the only permissible mechanism” for approved purchases.
2. The CEAO verifies each purchase: the expense must be approved, the provider in good standing, the child in good standing, and the total within the account balance. The purchase amount is then deducted from the account (34 TAC §16.407(g)).
3. Parents attest, under penalty of perjury, that they will not attempt to withdraw cash or seek reimbursement from the child’s account, and will not resell items purchased with program money (34 TAC §16.403(b)(4)(B)-(C)).
4. Refunds return to the account, not to the parent. A vendor refunding a returned product pays the CEAO, which deposits the money back into the child’s account (34 TAC §16.407(h)).

The practical consequence for at-home learning families: if a preferred publisher is not in the TEFA marketplace, there is no reimbursement route. A family cannot buy the materials at retail and submit the receipt, although the Comptroller states that families who need a particular product can email Odyssey to request additional offerings. Vendors apply separately to join, on a rolling basis, per the program’s providers and vendors page, and all vendor applications and offerings are reviewed by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts to determine eligibility before appearing in the marketplace. The Comptroller’s December 2025 announcement reported hundreds of schools and providers enrolled, and its June 30, 2026 announcement reported that the marketplace would open July 1 with more than 54,000 approved products and services from nearly 2,400 vendors, with more to be added regularly.

Spending the $2,000 well: three sample plans

With 100% of the homeschool award deposited at once, families face a planning question rather than a cash-flow question: what does $2,000 buy for a full school year? The three plans below price a complete year of second-grade materials at three spending levels, using each publisher’s current selling prices retrieved October 2026. They are illustrations, not endorsements, and they are not statements of TEFA marketplace availability. Whether a given publisher’s materials can be bought with TEFA funds depends on that vendor’s approval status in the Odyssey marketplace, which families must confirm in the portal before counting on any line item.

Plan 1: the four-subject core, about $530

One complete program per subject, bought à la carte. This covers math, reading, history, and science and leaves nearly $1,470 of the award for assessment costs, tutoring, or technology (within the 10% cap).

A single-vendor variant of the same idea: Master Books sells a Grade 2 Basic 4 Subject Set at $163.16 (retrieved October 2026), which puts a four-subject core under $170 and leaves even more of the award for services.

Plan 2: boxed classical core plus reading intervention, about $928

A full-grade boxed program as the spine, with a dedicated reading and spelling sequence layered on.

This plan leaves roughly $1,070 for assessment costs, tutoring, or approved therapies. Note the overlap risk in any boxed-plus-supplement plan: the Memoria Press set already includes phonics and spelling, so the All About Learning sequence here is a deliberate redundancy, not a requirement.

Plan 3: literature-rich complete package, about $1,386

A complete all-subjects package from a single publisher, plus targeted supplements, for a family that wants the year planned and boxed.

The remaining $610 or so leaves room for assessment costs, tutoring, or other approved instructional materials, with margin for a price change between October and the family’s actual order date.

All prices are as published on each publisher’s own site, retrieved October 2026, and subject to change. TEFA eligibility for any specific item is determined by the vendor’s approval status in the Odyssey marketplace and the Comptroller’s expense rules, not by the publisher.

The $8,474 funding gap

Texas pays private-school students $10,474 per year. It pays homeschool students $2,000. The $8,474 difference follows from the formula and the cap written into SB 2.

The difference follows from two provisions of SB 2. Under Education Code §29.361, the private-school figure is tied to 85% of the estimated statewide average of state and local funding per student, while a home-schooled student’s account may not receive more than $2,000 for a school year.

TEFA participation also introduces oversight: expense-category approval and marketplace-only purchasing, described above, plus annual audits by a private entity under contract with the Comptroller and periodic State Auditor audits, per the program’s families page. Families who prefer independence from program oversight may prefer to pay out of pocket. The trade-off is real and worth pricing honestly against each family’s own budget.

Timeline and deadlines

The 2026-27 cycle, per the Comptroller’s April 22 and May 4 award releases, the June 30 and August 13 Comptroller releases and the TEFA program page (retrieved October 2026):

The at-home learning disbursement is the notable one: the program portal states that homeschool and other students receive 100% of their award on July 1, 2026, while private-school students are paid in three installments across the year. The Comptroller’s June 30 announcement adds that the first group funded included homeschool and other families who opted in by the deadline, and that waitlisted families awarded later are funded in batches after they complete their confirmations. The program’s funding timelines page adds that students brought off the waitlist after July 15 may have their funding prorated depending on when they confirm enrollment, and that confirmation by September 15 is required to receive the full award amount. A homeschool family can plan its entire curriculum order in one pass once its account is funded.

For 2027-28, the program portal invites families to join an interest list to receive updates about future application opportunities (retrieved October 2026).

How Texas compares to other ESA states

Homeschool amounts vary widely across these four ESA programs:

On dollar amount per homeschool student, Texas is the lowest of the four. Texas’s marketplace-only purchasing differs from West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship, whose Reimbursement Policy (adopted December 10, 2025) lists nine circumstances in which reimbursement requests may be approved, including out-of-pocket purchases of off-the-shelf curriculum.

Checking marketplace availability

The Texas Comptroller reviews every vendor application and offering before products appear in the TEFA marketplace, per the providers and vendors page, and vendor applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The Comptroller reported that the marketplace would open July 1, 2026 with more than 54,000 approved products and services from nearly 2,400 vendors and that more would be added regularly, so the authoritative check is the family’s own marketplace listing in the Odyssey portal.

TEFA eligibility for specific items is set by Odyssey and the Texas Comptroller, not by the publisher.