Texas TEFA Application and Award Statistics 2026

Texas Education Freedom Accounts · 2026–27 school year

By The School Choice Index Editorial Team Published August 5, 2026 · Last verified August 5, 2026 Official statistical data through July 29, 2026 · Live award-tier status checked August 5, 2026 · Dataset version 1.0

The School Choice Index is an independent comparison and research resource for U.S. school choice programs.

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The Texas TEFA application and award statistics 2026 start with one number: 274,183 student applications. That's the exact count from the state's own application report. By the state's July 29 snapshot, Texas had made more than 122,000 awards, funded 85,344 accounts, and still had more than 121,000 students on the waiting list. (Official application report; official annual demographic report)

Those numbers look like they contradict each other. They don't. An award is a notice. A funded account is money. Between the two sits a set of steps a lot of families hadn't finished yet.

Here's the part almost nobody reports: Texas published at least seven dated statistical releases between the application window and July 29, plus a live award-tier notice that changed again by August 5. They use different words for different stages. If you grab the wrong one, you'll say something wrong in public. We put the dated releases in one table, showed the math, and flagged the two places where the state's own numbers don't line up.

One more thing you'll want early. Of the 72,644 eligible applicants in Tier 3 — middle-income families without disability priority — fewer than 30 had a funded account in the July 29 report. That is a dated snapshot, not the live status today. The official TEFA site now says awards are moving to remaining eligible Tier 2 families and some eligible Tier 3 families, but it has not published an exact updated Tier 3 funded count. We'll show both dates so the July report stays useful without pretending it is still the live total. (Official waitlist information)

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What this page can and can't do

It can tell you which TEFA number is current for a stated date, what each one counts, and which denominator belongs under it.

It can't tell you whether your child will come off the waiting list. Statewide totals don't predict one family's outcome. Only the official parent portal shows a specific child's status, and the state itself says it can't say for certain how far down the year-one list awards will reach. (Official waitlist information)

If that's the only answer you need, go straight to the portal. We'd rather send you to the right place than keep you here.

→ Check your child's official TEFA status (official Odyssey parent portal)

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What do the Texas TEFA application and award statistics 2026 show?

Answer capsule: Texas received 274,183 student applications for the 2026–27 TEFA cycle. By July 29, the state had issued more than 122,000 award notices, funded 85,344 participant accounts, and retained more than 121,000 students on the year-one waiting list. The correct number depends on whether the question is about demand, eligibility, award notices, active awards, or funded participation.

Official statistical data through July 29, 2026. Our calculations verified August 5, 2026.

Sources: TEFA Application Insights: Year 1 and the TEFA Annual Demographic Report.

A quick vocabulary note, because it matters everywhere below. TEFA stands for Texas Education Freedom Accounts. It's a state-funded education savings account, or ESA, that participating families can use for approved education expenses such as private school tuition, homeschool materials, tutoring, assessments and certain therapies. It is not a charter school. Charter schools are public schools and do not charge tuition. (Official TEFA family information)

Want to choose the date, denominator and segment yourself? → Open the free TEFA Number Finder

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Which TEFA number should you quote?

Answer capsule: For the 2026–27 Texas TEFA cycle, quote 274,183 for applications, 248,712 for eligible applicants in the detailed July tables, more than 122,000 for cumulative awards, 85,344 for funded accounts, and more than 121,000 for the waiting list, all with the correct date attached. The figures measure different stages of the same process and are not interchangeable.

Two habits will keep you out of trouble. Keep the state's hedges — "more than," "nearly," "fewer than" — instead of inventing precision the state didn't claim. And never put a July numerator over a May denominator without saying so.

Want the source line with it? The TEFA Number Finder builds a copy-ready sentence with the formula, date, exactness label and source attached.

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Why one report says 85,344 and another says 106,659

Answer capsule: Texas reported 106,659 active awards on June 24, 2026, more than 122,000 cumulative awards by July 29, and 85,344 funded accounts in the July report. The gaps exist because an award notice becomes a funded account only after the parent opts in and, for private school funding, the school confirms enrollment.

This is where most reporting goes sideways. So here's the plain-English dictionary.

The state's own report defines a participant as a child whose account has been funded, and lists the steps in between: accept the award by opting in, then — for anyone getting the $10,474 private school amount or more — pick a participating private school and have that school confirm the child is enrolled. (Annual report, notes on data)

That's four things that can stall. Multiply by more than 122,000 student award notices in July, with school starting in weeks.

About that more-than-36,656 gap

More than 36,656 award notices had not become funded accounts on July 29. Do not call all of them declines. That group can include families still working through confirmation, families who received a notice shortly before the snapshot, schools that had not confirmed enrollment, and opt-outs. The state said plainly that awarding and funding were still in progress.

The last separately published opt-out checkpoints were about 1,400 by May 29, about 2,000 by June 10, and nearly 3,000 by June 23. That June figure is not enough by itself to explain the full July stage gap, but the state did not publish a later standalone opt-out total in the demographic report. (May 29 update; June 10 fact sheet; June 23 update)

Holding an award and the money hasn't landed? → See the official TEFA funding timeline and confirmation deadlines

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Every published TEFA snapshot, in order

Answer capsule: Texas published at least seven dated statistical releases from the application report through the July 29 participation snapshot. Initial awards totaled 95,934 by the lottery rows, active awards reached 106,659 on June 24, cumulative awards exceeded 122,000 by July 29, and the live official site said on August 5 that awards were moving into Tier 3.

We assembled this because the state does not publish one consolidated change log. The older releases are not "wrong" because a later number exists. They are historical snapshots, and they stay useful when the date and definition stay attached.

Sources: application report, lottery update, May 29 update, June 10 fact sheet, June 23 update, June 24 fact sheet, annual report, and current waitlist notice.

Three things worth pulling out of that table.

The May 29 batch was not all ordinary movement down the waiting list. The state separately described 3,317 waitlisted Tier 2 awards, 294 awards after special-education information was confirmed on file with the Texas Education Agency, and 183 siblings. Do not relabel the 294 and 183 as ordinary line movement or as proven appeal outcomes; the official release does not say that.

The June 23 batch was entirely Tier 2. All 5,499. That statement belongs only to that dated batch. It does not mean every award issued after June 23 remained in Tier 2; the live site now says some Tier 3 families are receiving awards.

The two June numbers aren't a contradiction. June 23 reported "nearly 110,000" cumulative awards. June 24 reported 106,659 active. Cumulative counts every notice ever sent. Active subtracts known opt-outs. Same week, two different questions.

A one-student footnote belongs here too. The lottery tier rows total 95,934, while a separate May awarded-applications fact sheet headlines 95,935. Both are official. We keep the source attached instead of smoothing the difference away.

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What percentage of TEFA applicants got funded?

Answer capsule: There is no single Texas TEFA acceptance rate. As of July 29, 2026, funded accounts equaled 31.1% of all 274,183 applications and 34.3% of the 248,712 eligible applicants in the detailed current tables. The initial May award rate was 38.6% of the 248,636 eligible applicants represented in the lottery rows.

The state publishes counts. It does not publish one universal percentage in its annual demographic report. Every rate below is ours, and we're showing the arithmetic so you can check it.

Rate 1 — Funded accounts out of every application 85,344 ÷ 274,183 = 31.1% Use it for: the broad "how many who tried got money" question. Limit: the denominator includes applications that were later found ineligible.

Rate 2 — Funded accounts out of eligible applicants 85,344 ÷ 248,712 = 34.3% Use it for: funded participation among the eligible students represented in the detailed July tables. Limit: the process was still moving after the snapshot.

Rate 3 — Initial awards out of the initial eligible pool 95,934 ÷ 248,636 = 38.6% Use it for: explaining the initial May lottery. Limit: it went stale as additional waiting-list awards went out.

Rate 4 — Cumulative award notices out of eligible applicants more than 122,000 ÷ 248,712 = more than 49.1% Use it for: showing how far cumulative award notices had reached by July 29. Limit: "more than" prevents an exact percentage.

So please don't write "TEFA acceptance rate: 31.1%." Write "funded-account rate among all applications: 31.1%, as of July 29, 2026." It's four extra words and it's true.

→ Build a copy-ready TEFA statistic with its source line

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Does the state's report actually add up? We checked every table.

Answer capsule: All six complete eligibility tables in the Texas TEFA annual demographic report sum to exactly 248,712, and five complete funded-participant tables sum to exactly 85,344. The tier and household-income funded figures are rounded, so their displayed rows cannot be forced to reconcile to the exact statewide total.

Nobody had done this in one public reconciliation. We added up every column in the report. Here's what we found.

The eligibility side is airtight. Six separate tables — priority tier, household income, grade, age, sex, and race or ethnicity — each independently total 248,712. Six for six, to the student. The report says "more than 248,000." The exact sum is 248,712.

The funded side is airtight in five places. Grade, age, sex, race or ethnicity, and Regional Education Service Center each total exactly 85,344.

Two displayed tables cannot be used for an exact reconciliation, and the report tells you why. The tier and household-income funded values are displayed as rounded hundreds, with Tier 3 and the highest-income band reported only as "fewer than 30." The visible rows show 85,300 plus an undisclosed value below 30, but the rounded 20,700, 12,800, 51,800, 68,000 and 17,300 values are not exact inputs. That means the exact difference cannot be bounded from the printed table alone.

That's disclosed approximation, not a mistake. It also means the tier and income figures are less precise than the complete grade, age, sex, race and regional tables.

There's one more small gap worth naming. Add up the May lottery award and waitlist rows and you get 248,636 eligible. The July tables give 248,712. That's 76 students more. The state says differences between its web updates and the annual report can come from parent confirmations or declines, additional waiting-list awards, and later verification. We're leaving both numbers standing rather than quietly picking one. (Annual report, notes on data)

And the application total itself has a 147-record wobble: the application report says 274,183, while the May lottery rows add to 274,036. Both are official. The records do not explain the difference. If you see a page publishing 274,036 as the application count, that's where it came from.

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Which TEFA priority tiers actually got funded?

Answer capsule: In the July 29 report, Texas displayed 20,700 funded Tier 1 participants, 12,800 funded Tier 1 siblings and 51,800 funded Tier 2 participants. It displayed fewer than 30 funded Tier 3 students and did not separately display a funded count for Tier 4(a) or Tier 4(b). The live official site checked August 5 says awards are now moving to some Tier 3 families, but no exact updated Tier 3 count is public.

Texas ranked families in tiers because demand blew past the money. Tier 1 is children with disability priority in households at or below 500% of the federal poverty level (FPL) — the federal income yardstick, which for a family of four puts 200% at $66,000 and 500% at $165,000 under the figures used by the program for 2026. Tier 2 is households at or below 200% FPL. Tier 3 is above 200% and below 500% FPL. Tier 4 is at or above 500% FPL, split into 4(a) for children reported as enrolled in a Texas public or charter school for at least 90% of the prior school year and 4(b) for those who were not. The annual report says 4(b) may sometimes be called "Tier 5." (Official prioritization and 2026 FPL guidance)

Source: TEFA Annual Demographic Report, data through July 29. The participant values in this table are rounded; the current live Tier 3 notice is on the official waitlist page.

One trap to avoid. Don't add the 12,800 siblings into the Tier 1 denominator to build a bigger Tier 1 rate. The state reports siblings on their own line and never publishes an eligible sibling count. Siblings can also sit in a different income band than the child who qualified them, because state law requires eligible siblings applying together to be awarded together.

The Tier 1 income split the state never published

Here's something we found by crossing two of the report's tables against each other.

Take the households at or below 200% FPL — 94,663 eligible — and subtract Tier 2's 79,652. You get 15,011. Now take the 201%–500% FPL band, 87,047 eligible, and subtract Tier 3's 72,644. You get 14,403.

Add them: 29,414. That's the published Tier 1 total, exactly.

So Tier 1 splits almost down the middle. About 49% of Tier 1 applicants were in the report's 201%–500% income band. Disability priority, not low income alone, is what put them at the front of the line.

A second cross-check lands just as cleanly. Tier 4(a) plus Tier 4(b) equals 13,242 + 53,760 = 67,002 — identical to the report's count of eligible applicants in the highest income band. The tier rows and income rows line up exactly on the eligibility side, which is a good sign the underlying categories reconcile.

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The July 29 hard truth: middle income without disability priority had almost no funded accounts

Answer capsule: In the July 29 snapshot, fewer than 30 of 72,644 eligible Tier 3 applicants had funded accounts. That is no longer the full live picture: on August 5 the official site said awards were moving to remaining Tier 2 families and some Tier 3 families, but the state had not published an updated exact Tier 3 count.

We're going to say this plainly instead of burying it.

TEFA had barely reached middle-income families without disability priority by July 29. Not "funded a little fewer of them." Fewer than 30 funded accounts out of 72,644 eligible Tier 3 applicants in the report. If you're in that group and you were quietly hoping the July numbers looked better than the headlines, they don't.

But the date belongs in the sentence. The live official notice now says some Tier 3 families are receiving awards. Do not turn the July figure into "Tier 3 got nothing all year," and do not invent a current Tier 3 rate until the state publishes the new count.

If your top priority is a tuition-free option this school year, TEFA is not the answer. A child's assigned district public school is tuition-free. An open-enrollment charter school is also public and tuition-free, although a specific charter may have limited seats or use a lottery when applications exceed capacity. We'd rather tell you that now than let you plan around a maybe.

But here's why that same July fact is good news for a lot of families. Because Texas used priorities instead of dividing the first appropriation evenly, the July report displayed 51,800 funded Tier 2 accounts and 20,700 funded Tier 1 accounts, plus 12,800 Tier 1 siblings. About 80% of funded participants were in households at or below 200% FPL. (Annual report)

And the scale explains why the priority order mattered. Funding all 248,712 detailed eligible applicants at the standard $10,474 private-school amount would require:

248,712 × $10,474 = $2,605,009,488

That's about $2.61 billion, more than 2.6 times the program's $1 billion spending cap for the state fiscal biennium beginning September 1, 2025, before any higher disability amounts or administrative spending. Divide $1 billion by 248,712 and you get about $4,021 per eligible applicant before those costs. That is a scale check, not a proposed benefit amount. It shows why the law's priority order had real consequences. (Enrolled Senate Bill 2, Section 29.3521(c-1))

And there's a real reason for a Tier 3 family to stay attentive. The waiting list doesn't just sit there — Texas issued 3,317 ordinary waitlist awards in late May, 5,499 more in June, and the live site now says awards are moving into Tier 3 as money becomes available.

→ See the dated tier and waiting-list evidence on this page

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The hard ceiling: 4,100 disability-qualified applicants sat outside Tier 1

Answer capsule: The July report lists 2,841 eligible applicants with a disability in Tier 4(a) and 1,259 in Tier 4(b), a total of 4,100 disability-qualified applicants outside Tier 1 because their household income was in the highest band. The public report does not separately display how many of those 4,100 were funded.

This is the fact we found hardest to read, and it belongs on the page.

Disability priority moved a child to the front of the line only if household income was at or below 500% of the federal poverty level. Above that line, the child sat in Tier 4. The report shows dashes rather than funded counts for the two Tier 4 disability rows. Do not translate those dashes into a verified zero. The separate household-income table says fewer than 30 students above 500% FPL were funded with siblings in another tier, but it does not publish their disability status.

Total eligible applicants with a disability: 29,414 in Tier 1, plus 2,841 in Tier 4(a), plus 1,259 in Tier 4(b) — 33,514. The report displays about 20,700 funded Tier 1 participants. Dividing that rounded displayed numerator by all 33,514 disability-eligible applicants gives about 61.8%, but that is not an exact total disability funding rate because the Tier 4 disability rows are not separately reported.

One more thing families with an IEP — an Individualized Education Program, the written special-education plan a public school district develops for a qualifying child — should know. Getting Tier 1 priority and getting the larger award are two different things.

For priority, the official program accepts a qualifying Texas IEP, an out-of-state IEP, a full individual and initial evaluation (FIIE), an expired Texas IEP, or the program's disability certification form. A 504 plan by itself does not provide TEFA disability priority or additional funding. The extra amount, up to $30,000, requires a qualifying IEP on file with the Texas Education Agency and depends on the child's instructional code. The official guidance says most eligible students will receive less than $30,000. (Official Odyssey disability guidance; official proof-of-disability guidance)

Here is the damaging admission families deserve before they plan around that money: a participating private school is not subject to federal and state special-education laws in the same way as a school district or open-enrollment charter school. If enforceable public-school IEP services and procedural rights are your first priority, a district or charter school may be the better path. If your family has already verified that a participating private school can actually serve your child, TEFA may help pay for that fit. (Official TEFA private-school notice)

→ Compare Texas autism-school options and the verification steps that matter → Read the official TEFA disability instructions

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How household income shaped TEFA funding

Answer capsule: In the July 29 report, about 71.8% of eligible applicants at or below 200% FPL were funded, compared with about 19.9% in the 201%–500% band. Fewer than 30 students above 500% FPL were funded with sibling groups. The live site now says some Tier 3 awards have moved beyond the July snapshot.

Source: TEFA Annual Demographic Report. The funded values are rounded, so treat the displayed percentages as approximate.

Two notes before anyone reuses these.

The middle row is the interesting one. About 17,300 funded participants were in the 201%–500% band, while the July tier table showed fewer than 30 funded through Tier 3. That means almost all of the displayed middle-income funded count came through Tier 1 disability priority or sibling-group rules, not through the displayed Tier 3 count. The public report does not publish the cross-tab needed to split those paths exactly.

Income didn't decide who could apply for K–12 TEFA. It decided who went first when there wasn't enough money. That's a different thing, and the distinction matters if you're writing about eligibility. Pre-K has its own narrower eligibility conditions. (Official eligibility and prioritization rules)

The July table is still the best detailed income snapshot. It is not the current endpoint. The official site checked August 5 says awards are now moving to some Tier 3 families.

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TEFA applications and funded accounts by grade

Answer capsule: Kindergarten produced the largest number of eligible Texas TEFA applicants at 23,732 and the lowest observed funded-to-eligible ratio among K–12 grades at 29.6%. Pre-K had the highest displayed ratio at 48.5%, but Pre-K eligibility rules are narrower and it should not be compared casually with K–12.

Source: TEFA Annual Demographic Report.

The kindergarten line is the one that surprised us. More families applied for kindergarten than any other grade, and kindergarten had the lowest displayed funded-to-eligible ratio among K–12 grades. Highest demand, lowest observed K–12 ratio.

Skip the temptation to explain why. This table shows what happened, not what families were thinking.

The June-active-to-July-funded comparison, by grade

Here's a calculation that exists nowhere else. The state published active awards by grade on June 10 and funded students by grade on July 29. Line them up and you can see the size of the two dated measures beside each other.

Sources: June 10 active-award fact sheet and July 29 funded-participant report.

Read the last column carefully. It compares two different measures on two different dates, and Texas issued many more awards in between. It is not a clean conversion or retention rate. What it does show is a tight displayed band — 81.3% to 88.3%, a 7-point spread — with the lowest cross-snapshot ratio in 9th grade and the highest in 12th. It cannot tell you why.

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TEFA demographics: disability, race, ethnicity and sex

Answer capsule: Almost 25% of funded Texas TEFA participants had a qualifying disability, and about 80% were in households at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. The exact race, ethnicity and sex tables sum to 248,712 eligible applicants and 85,344 funded participants, but the resulting ratios are descriptive, not causal.

Source: TEFA Annual Demographic Report.

Please read these as what they are. These are funded-divided-by-eligible ratios from parent-reported, self-identified administrative data. They are not approval rates by race, and they are not evidence of how anyone was treated.

The aggregate pattern is consistent with a program that prioritized disability and lower household income. But the public report does not publish the cross-tabs needed to attribute the race differences to income, disability, sibling grouping, grade, school selection or confirmation behavior. The arithmetic can describe the gap. It cannot prove the cause.

The sex table is a useful arithmetic check: 34.4% versus 34.2% in the two reported categories. It shows almost no difference in this aggregate split. It does not prove that sex had no relationship with any later step after controlling for other factors, because the report does not run that analysis.

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Where funded TEFA participants live

Answer capsule: Funded Texas TEFA participants lived in at least 895 reported school districts as of July 29, 2026. Houston ISD had the largest district count at 3,327, and the five largest Regional Education Service Center areas held 60,238 participants, or 70.6% of the statewide funded total. These are raw counts by parent-reported residence, not population-adjusted participation rates.

One definition first, because it changes how you can use this data. A Regional Education Service Center (ESC) is one of 20 state regions that support Texas school districts. The report groups participants by those regions.

The concentration in raw counts is extreme

Now flip it. The five smallest regions — San Angelo (576), Abilene (617), Mount Pleasant (653), Wichita Falls (711) and Midland (722) — hold 3,279 participants between them. That's 3.8% of the state.

The top five regions had 18.4 times the funded participants of the bottom five. That's the single clearest geographic concentration in the dataset, and we haven't seen it assembled anywhere else.

But don't turn a raw-count comparison into "metro families were more likely to participate." The largest regions also contain far more children and applicants. The report does not publish the denominator needed for a population-adjusted regional participation rate.

Largest districts of residence

Source for the regional and district tables: TEFA Annual Demographic Report.

Do not call these "students who left the district." The field is the district a parent reported living in. It doesn't prove the child previously attended a school there, and the report says the residence and campus data can change with additional verification.

The comparison nobody has run: awarded in May vs. funded in July, district by district

Texas published district-level awarded counts with a May 1 run date, and district-level funded counts in the July 29 report. We joined the official May 1 district-award file to the official July 29 funded-participant appendix. Across the 108 districts appearing in both source tables, the pattern isn't uniform at all.

A 48-point spread, from 67.2% to 115.3%. The matched subtotal was 71,415 May awards and 61,910 July funded accounts, or 86.7% when one aggregate is divided by the other.

Be precise about what this ratio is. It compares two differently defined official measures on two different dates. Texas issued many additional awards between the snapshots, and the sources do not identify the same child across both files. It is not participant-level conversion, acceptance, attrition or retention.

Geographically, the low-ratio list is concentrated around Dallas–Fort Worth and Houston, while the high-ratio list includes several South Texas, border and regional-center districts. That pattern is visible in the joined table. The cause is not proven. The public data does not provide district-by-tier or district-by-income cross-tabs, and it does not let us separate new awards from incomplete confirmations inside each district.

The statewide version of the same cross-snapshot math

95,935 students were headlined as awarded in the May fact sheet. On July 29, 85,344 were funded. That's 10,591 fewer than the May award headline — even though many additional award notices went out in between.

Run a different stage comparison: more than 122,000 cumulative award notices minus 85,344 funded accounts equals more than 36,656 notices that had not become funded accounts by the snapshot. The two calculations answer different questions and neither identifies individual drop-off.

(A small honesty note: the May fact sheet's headline reads 95,935 while the lottery update's tier rows add to 95,934. A one-student difference. We're publishing both rather than smoothing it.)

What's hidden, and how much

The report names 335 of the 895 districts with at least one funded participant, and 434 of the 6,883 campuses. Public rows below 30 students are suppressed to protect privacy. So 560 districts and 6,449 campuses — 93.7% of campuses — are not individually named in the public appendices, although all district counts are included inside the 20 regional totals.

That privacy rule is reasonable. It also means the district finder can return an exact public count only where the state published one. For smaller districts, the honest result is "not individually disclosed," not zero.

→ Look up your district or region in the TEFA Number Finder

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How the TEFA waiting list moved in 2026

Answer capsule: Texas initially placed 152,702 eligible students on the TEFA waiting list, including 20,383 in Tier 2, 65,368 in Tier 3 and 66,951 in Tier 4. By July 29, more than 121,000 students remained on the year-one list; the live site checked August 5 says additional awards are now going to remaining Tier 2 and some Tier 3 families.

Source: official lottery update.

Here's a subtraction that trips people up. The May lottery rows total 274,036 applications. Subtract 95,934 initial awards and you get 178,102 — and that is not the waiting list. The state's published waiting list was 152,702. The 25,400-student difference is exactly the applications the lottery update classified as ineligible. The shortcut overstates the official list by 16.6%.

The list moved because awarded families opted out, some families selected the $2,000 homeschool/other setting and freed money compared with a private-school award, appeal reserves became available, and later verification changed some records. (Official waitlist explanation)

Confirmed ordinary waiting-list award rounds:

• May 29: 3,317 waitlisted Tier 2 students awarded
• June 23: 5,499 waitlisted Tier 2 students awarded

Keep the additional 294 special-education confirmations and 183 siblings in the May 29 release separate from the 3,317 ordinary waitlist awards. The state did not label those 477 as ordinary line movement. (May 29 update)

And keep the date on the Tier 2 statement. Both confirmed May and June waitlist batches were Tier 2. The current official page now says awards are moving into Tier 3 too.

What parents were actually asking

Texas families spent the summer trying to read tea leaves. In the program's public subreddit, the questions were blunt:

“Has anyone been notified of their waitlist position yet?” — u/SuccessfulState3836

“My deadline to lock in our TEFA award is TOMORROW, July 31st, and I’m panicking.” — u/temo2024

These are parent comments from the 2026 rollout, included to show the real confusion families faced. They are not evidence of typical outcomes and not official program policy.

Can these statistics predict your child's chances?

No. And we want to be blunt about it, because a lot of pages imply otherwise.

Your position range, your tier, and how the list moved in June still don't reveal how many families will opt out next, how many will switch settings, how appeals will land, or how many dollars remain available after later awards. The state says it cannot predict with certainty how far down the first-year list awards will reach. Anyone quoting you personal odds from this statewide dataset is guessing.

If you're waitlisted, four things are worth doing: keep your contact information current in the portal, watch email and text, don't treat any past deadline as still open, and don't sign a nonrefundable tuition contract on the assumption the list will reach you.

→ Check your child's official position and status (official Odyssey parent portal) → Join the state's 2027–28 interest list

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How much was a TEFA award worth in 2026–27?

Answer capsule: The standard 2026–27 Texas TEFA amount for a participating private-school student was $10,474. A qualifying private-school student with an eligible IEP could receive more, up to $30,000, while the homeschool/other setting carried a $2,000 amount. None of those figures guarantees admission, full tuition coverage or cash paid directly to a family.

Source: official TEFA family funding information.

The $10,474 figure is 85% of the statewide average state and local funding amount calculated for the school year. Two things it isn't: a guarantee a school will admit your child, and cash paid to a family. Program money is held in the account and paid for approved expenses through participating schools, providers and vendors.

Keep "up to" attached to the $30,000 every single time. The amount depends on the child's qualifying IEP and instructional code, and the official guidance says most eligible students will receive less than $30,000. (Official disability-funding guidance)

Timing matters too. Private-school students receive money in installments, not all at once:

• 25% was available July 1 for students whose schools confirmed enrollment by June 15.
• Students confirmed by July 31 were scheduled for funding by mid-August.
• Later waiting-list awardees are funded as soon as practicable.
• Another 25% is scheduled for October 1, with the final 50% scheduled for February 1, provided the student remains enrolled and the required confirmation deadlines are met.
• Awards can be prorated for students who join later.

On a $10,474 standard award, the first 25% is $2,618.50 — but only when the confirmation condition for that funding round is satisfied. (Official funding timeline)

What can TEFA money pay for?

The official approved categories include:

• Tuition and fees at a participating private school, higher-education provider, approved online course or program, or qualifying industry-credential program
• Textbooks and other instructional materials
• Required uniforms
• Certain district classes that do not count the child in average daily attendance
• Academic assessments
• Private tutoring
• Transportation to and from approved providers
• Educational therapies not covered by government benefits such as Medicaid
• Computer hardware, software and other required technology, capped at 10% of the amount transferred to the account that year
• Breakfast or lunch provided by a participating private school

Program money cannot be used to pay a person related to the participant within the prohibited degree, and unused account money can carry forward while the account remains open under the statute. (Official approved-expense list; enrolled Senate Bill 2)

How many schools participate?

We are not freezing a participating-school count into this page because it would go stale quickly. The official school finder says new participants are added regularly, and private schools may apply on a rolling basis. Use the live state directory before saying a specific school participates. (Official school and service finder; official school requirements)

Here is the damaging admission: TEFA does not guarantee the award will cover a private school's full tuition, and an award does not guarantee the school will admit your child. If eliminating tuition and preserving public-school services are your priorities, a district school may be the better financial fit; a charter school is also tuition-free, but a particular charter may not have an open seat. If your family already has a verified participating-school fit, the award can materially reduce what you pay yourself.

→ See the official installment schedule and confirmation deadlines → Verify a school or provider in the live TEFA finder

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What the annual report includes — and what it doesn't

Answer capsule: The August 1 TEFA demographic report publishes grade, age, sex, race or ethnicity, priority category, household-income band, disability status, an enrollment funding range, and partial district and campus tables. It does not publish a ZIP-code table, a final opt-out count, a participant-level prior-public-school total, academic outcomes or an exact updated Tier 3 count after the live August awards began moving.

We read the whole report. Here's what's in it and what's missing, so you know what you can and can't ask it.

In the public report: grade, age, sex, race and ethnicity, tier, income band, disability status, 335 named districts, 434 named campuses, all 20 regional totals, and a statewide statement that the 85,344 reported accounts were funded between July 1 and July 24.

Not separately published in the public report:

• A ZIP-code table. None appears in the public PDF.
• A child-by-child enrollment-date distribution. The report gives the statewide July 1–July 24 funding range, not a table of dates.
• A final opt-out count. The state published running counts through June 23 and did not include a later standalone total.
• How many funded participants previously attended public school. District and campus fields do not answer that question.
• Academic, satisfaction or long-term outcome data. This report is demographic.
• Most district and campus rows. Public rows under 30 were suppressed for privacy.

What Senate Bill 2 required the demographic report to cover

The enacted law lists ten demographic fields for participating children. We compared those statutory fields with what a reader can find in the public August report.

Sources: enrolled Senate Bill 2, Section 29.3715 and the public TEFA Annual Demographic Report.

This table is a public-document coverage audit. It is not a legal ruling that the Comptroller did or did not comply with the reporting statute. The report says smaller demographic fields were provided under legislative privilege and removed from the public portions to protect student privacy. We do not know what nonpublic material the Legislature received.

What comes later

Senate Bill 2 also calls for a longitudinal report covering applications, satisfaction, assessment results, school capacity, state savings, later college/career/military readiness, and certain graduation, dropout and expulsion measures. The statute says that report must cover at least five years. The August 2026 demographic report is not that outcomes report, and it cannot support claims that TEFA raised or lowered academic performance in year one. (Enrolled Senate Bill 2, Section 29.371)

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Numbers you'll see that are wrong or stale

Answer capsule: The most common Texas TEFA errors are treating an old active-award count as current, using 274,036 instead of the application report's 274,183, calling a dated Tier 3 figure the live status, quoting the wrong 2026 FPL thresholds, or claiming every TEFA student must or must not take STAAR.

We're not naming and shaming. But if you're checking a figure against another page, here's what we found still circulating:

Stale award totals. A page that leads with 102,037 or 106,659 without the June date is describing an older active-award snapshot. The July report moved the public record to more than 122,000 cumulative awards and 85,344 funded accounts, and the live tier status moved again by August 5.

A stale Tier 3 claim. "Fewer than 30 Tier 3 students were funded" is accurate only for the July 29 report. The current state notice says awards are now moving to some Tier 3 families. No exact updated count is public.

Wrong income thresholds. The official 2026 figures used by TEFA for a family of four are $66,000 at 200% FPL and $165,000 at 500% FPL. A family close to the boundary can be placed in the wrong tier by an outdated guide. (Official TEFA family page)

A testing claim that isn't right. Participating private schools must annually administer students in grades 3–12 either a nationally norm-referenced assessment or an appropriate assessment under Chapter 39. STAAR is one approved instrument; it is not the only permitted test. That private-school provider requirement does not establish the same testing rule for homeschool/other participants. (Enrolled Senate Bill 2, Section 29.358; official approved-assessment list)

The wrong administrator. Odyssey is the certified educational assistance organization operating the TEFA application, account and payment platform. (Official Odyssey TEFA overview)

274,036 as the application count. It's an official row total from the lottery update. The dedicated application report says 274,183, and that is the better answer to "How many applications were submitted?"

A frozen participating-school count. Schools and providers are added on a rolling basis. Verify the live directory rather than repeating an old signup or approval count.

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TEFA Number Finder: build a statistic you can defend

We built this because the hardest part of using TEFA data isn't finding a number. It's knowing which one belongs in your sentence.

Pick four things:

1. What you want — applications, eligible applicants, initial awards, cumulative awards, active awards, funded participants, waiting list, award amount or a rate
2. Which snapshot — application close, May lottery, May 29, June 10, June 23, June 24, July 29 or the live August tier notice
3. Which denominator — all applications, all eligible applicants, or a segment's own eligible count
4. Which segment — tier, income band, grade, race or ethnicity, sex, district or region

It returns a copy-ready line like this:

As of July 29, 2026, Texas reported 85,344 funded TEFA participants — 31.1% of the 274,183 applications submitted and 34.3% of the 248,712 eligible applicants in the state's detailed tables. Source: TEFA Annual Demographic Report, August 1, 2026.

Underneath: the formula, both numbers, the snapshot date, the source, the exactness label, the caveat and a copy button.

Free. No email required. Take the data and go.

→ Open the interactive TEFA Number Finder

Download the underlying data

• Texas TEFA 2026 source-labeled dataset — CSV
• Texas TEFA 2026 source-labeled dataset — JSON
• District May-award-to-July-funded cross-snapshot join — CSV
• Figure and definition ledger — CSV

Each row carries its measure, segment, date, exactness label, source URL and calculation note. The district file says plainly that its ratios are cross-snapshot comparisons, not participant-level conversion.

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What this data does not prove

Answer capsule: The 2026 Texas TEFA statistics are administrative snapshots showing who applied, who qualified, who received award notices, and whose account was funded. They contain no completed academic-outcome study, no retention measure, no school-quality rating, and no model that can predict one child's waiting-list result.

Seven honest limits:

No academic results. The demographic report has zero achievement or satisfaction data. Anyone claiming TEFA raised or lowered outcomes in year one is going beyond this record. The statutory longitudinal report has to cover at least five years, so real outcome evidence is years out by design.

No school quality or fit information. A school appearing in the TEFA finder says nothing about whether it has an open seat, can serve a child's disability, is affordable after the award, or is a good fit for that family.

Not a finished year. Texas was still awarding and funding after the July 29 snapshot. The live official site checked August 5 says awards are moving into Tier 3, and the agency says it plans another update before the 90th Legislature.

Geography is parent-reported. District and campus fields come from application information and can change with verification.

Small cells are hidden. Public district, campus and demographic rows below 30 are suppressed.

Aggregate demographic ratios are not causal findings. The public report does not cross-tab or control for income, disability, siblings, grade, school choice or confirmation behavior.

No individual prediction. Statewide totals cannot forecast one family's outcome.

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What to do next, based on where you stand

Answer capsule: The right next step for a Texas family depends on program status: funded families verify account and school details, awarded-but-unfunded families complete the opt-in and enrollment confirmation, waitlisted families check the official portal, and families who missed the 2026–27 window join the state interest list.

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How we built and checked this

The School Choice Index is an independent comparison and research resource for U.S. school choice programs.

Why this page exists. Texas published several accurate totals that mean different things. This page keeps applications, eligibility, award notices, active awards and funded accounts from being quoted as if they were the same number.

What we actually verified

How we calculated

1. We never mix snapshots without labeling both dates.
2. We keep the state's hedges — "more than," "nearly," "fewer than."
3. Every derived figure shows its numerator, denominator and formula.
4. We don't turn suppressed values into guesses.
5. We don't force rounded category totals to match an exact total.
6. Counts are students, student applications, award notices or accounts — not families — unless a source says otherwise.
7. Where two official numbers disagree, we publish both and identify the source.
8. We do not treat a cross-snapshot ratio as participant-level conversion.
9. We separate the July 29 statistical snapshot from the live tier status checked August 5.

One number to check us on. Add the six complete eligibility tables in the annual report. Each totals 248,712. Add grade, age, sex, race and region on the funded side. Each totals 85,344. If our arithmetic were sloppy, that's where it would show.

Downloads and version history

• Dataset version 1.0 — August 5, 2026: Initial source reconciliation using official statistical data through July 29 and live tier status checked August 5.
• The CSV, JSON, district join and figure ledger are public and require no email.
• dateModified should change only after the sources are actually rechecked, never automatically on every deployment.

Corrections. Found an error? Tell us and we'll fix it and log it. Version history stays public so nobody's old citation quietly changes underneath them.

Suggested citation: The School Choice Index Editorial Team. “Texas TEFA Application and Award Statistics 2026.” The School Choice Index, dataset version 1.0, last verified August 5, 2026; official statistical data through July 29, 2026; live tier status checked August 5, 2026.

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Frequently asked questions

How many students applied for Texas TEFA in 2026?

274,183 student applications were submitted for the 2026–27 cycle. The window ran February 4 through March 31, 2026, after a federal court order extended the original March 17 deadline. Day one brought 43,273 applications — 15.8% of the entire cycle. (Application report; deadline-extension release)

How many TEFA applicants were eligible?

The state describes more than 248,000 as eligible. The exact figure derived from each complete detailed eligibility table in the July 29 report is 248,712.

How many TEFA awards were made?

More than 122,000 cumulative award notices had gone out by July 29, 2026. Earlier official counts included 95,934 initial awards by the May lottery rows, 102,037 active awards on June 10, and 106,659 active awards on June 24. The live site checked August 5 says more awards are moving into Tier 3, but it does not publish an exact new cumulative total.

How many TEFA accounts were actually funded?

85,344 in the July 29 report. The report says those accounts were funded between July 1 and July 24.

Why were there more than 122,000 awards but only 85,344 funded accounts?

An award notice comes first. The parent has to opt in, and for private-school funding the family must select a participating school and that school must confirm enrollment. More than 36,656 notices had not become funded accounts at the snapshot. That group was not all declines, and the latest separately published opt-out checkpoint was nearly 3,000 on June 23.

What was the Texas TEFA acceptance rate?

There isn't one honest single figure. Funded accounts were 31.1% of all submitted applications and 34.3% of the detailed eligible total as of July 29. The initial May award rate was 38.6% of the eligible pool represented in the lottery rows. Name the stage, denominator and date.

How many students were on the TEFA waiting list?

More than 121,000 as of July 29, 2026. The initial list was 152,702 — 20,383 Tier 2, 65,368 Tier 3 and 66,951 Tier 4. Applications minus awards does not equal the waiting list because ineligible applications sit in the gap.

Did any Tier 3 students get TEFA funding?

The July 29 report displayed fewer than 30 funded Tier 3 students out of 72,644 eligible. That is not the live total now: the official site checked August 5 says awards are moving to some Tier 3 families. No exact updated Tier 3 count is public.

Did any applicants above 500% of the poverty level get funded?

The July report says fewer than 30 students in the highest income band were funded with siblings in another income tier. It does not publish an exact count or a separate funded total for the Tier 4 disability rows.

How many TEFA participants had a disability?

The report says almost 25% of funded participants had a qualifying disability and displays about 20,700 funded Tier 1 participants. It lists 33,514 disability-qualified eligible applicants across Tier 1 and the two Tier 4 rows, but it does not separately display funded disability counts for Tier 4.

Does a 504 plan qualify a child for TEFA disability priority or the higher amount?

No, not by itself. Official Odyssey guidance says a 504 plan does not constitute additional funding or disability priority for TEFA. Priority documentation can include a qualifying IEP, FIIE, out-of-state IEP, expired Texas IEP or the TEFA disability certification form; the higher amount requires a qualifying IEP on file with TEA.

Was TEFA first-come, first-served?

No. When eligible demand exceeded available funding, Texas used statutory priority tiers plus a random lottery sequence within the applicable groups. Applying on day one did not improve a child's position by itself.

Is the Texas TEFA application still open?

No. The official family page says the 2026–27 program is no longer accepting applications.

When does the 2027–28 TEFA application open?

The official family page did not publish a 2027–28 application window as of August 5, 2026. Join the state's interest list rather than relying on an unverified date.

How much was a TEFA award?

$10,474 for a participating private-school student, up to $30,000 for a qualifying private-school student with an eligible IEP, and $2,000 for the homeschool/other setting. Keep “up to” attached to $30,000; the official guidance says most eligible students receive less.

What can TEFA money pay for?

Approved categories include qualifying tuition and fees, instructional materials, required uniforms, assessments, tutoring, transportation to approved providers, uncovered educational therapies, certain technology subject to a 10% annual cap, and private-school meals. Use the official marketplace and current program guidance before assuming a specific purchase is approved.

Does a TEFA award guarantee private-school admission or full tuition coverage?

No. An award does not force a private school to admit a child, and $10,474 may not cover the school's full tuition and fees. Verify participation, admission, services and the remaining family cost directly with the school.

How many private schools participate in TEFA?

The official directory changes because new schools and providers are added regularly and private schools can apply on a rolling basis. This page does not freeze a count. Use the live state finder before stating that a particular school participates.

Do TEFA students have to take STAAR?

Participating private schools must annually test students in grades 3–12 using either a nationally norm-referenced assessment or an appropriate Chapter 39 assessment. STAAR is one approved option, not a universal requirement. The private-school provider rule does not establish the same testing requirement for homeschool/other participants.

Which district had the most funded TEFA participants?

Houston ISD, with 3,327 parent-reported residents in funded accounts. Dallas ISD followed with 2,645, then Northside ISD in San Antonio with 2,271. These are districts of residence, not proof that each child previously attended or left that district.

Are these figures students or families?

Students, student applications, award notices and student accounts. Some coverage says “families invited,” but the state's statistical units are student-level. Don't switch words mid-sentence.

Can these numbers tell me whether my child will come off the waiting list?

No. The state says it cannot predict with certainty how far down the year-one list awards will reach. Use the official portal for your child's status.

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Still not sure which path is right for your family?

You've just read what happened to 274,183 applications. Numbers are useful. They're not a plan.

If you're still weighing public school, a charter school, a private school, or homeschooling — and trying to figure out what your family actually qualifies for — we built something for exactly that.

Take our free 60-second school choice matching quiz.

→ Get my school choice action plan

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The School Choice Index is an independent comparison and research resource for U.S. school choice programs. We do not process TEFA applications, and we are not affiliated with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts or Odyssey. Program figures change; check the official program site and Odyssey portal for the current status of any individual application.

Last verified August 5, 2026 · Official statistical data through July 29, 2026 · Live award-tier status checked August 5, 2026 · Dataset version 1.0