Homeschool Requirements in Texas

Texas asks for nothing each year. No annual notice, no registration, no assessment. The step people miss is a separate one: if your child is enrolled in a public school right now, withdrawing them is its own act, and nothing on this page does it for you. Do that first. Everything below is what Texas actually requires, cited at the foot so you can read it yourself.

What you file, and by when

None. Texas requires no notice, no registration, no affidavit, and no approval. Home schools are private schools under Tex. Educ. Code § 25.086(a)(1) per the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in TEA v. Leeper (1994), and TEA states it does not regulate, index, monitor, approve, register, or accredit homeschools. There is one exception. If your child is currently enrolled in a public school, give the school written notice of withdrawal stating the date you begin homeschooling. That heads off truancy referrals. Districts occasionally send a “letter of assurance” asking you to confirm you meet the Leeper standard; responding is voluntary.

Nothing to file is not the same as nothing to know, and the group of states in that position is smaller than the forums suggest. How to read your own state code in about ten minutes.

Days or hours

None. No minimum days, hours, or school calendar.

Subjects you must cover

Under Leeper, three requirements: (1) instruction must be bona fide (genuine, not a sham or subterfuge); (2) the curriculum must be in visual form (books, workbooks, video/monitor, not purely oral); and (3) it must cover five basic subjects: reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship. “Good citizenship” is read as civics-equivalent, U.S./Texas history and government, the Pledge, and similar.

Records you keep

None required by statute. No attendance records, portfolios, reports, or submissions. Keep your own records anyway. Curriculum must be “in visual form,” so the books, workbooks and programs you used are the evidence that would answer a bona fide challenge. That is the only situation in which records ever matter in Texas.

Nothing goes to a district, so the only account of the four years is the one you write. Writing the counselor letter when the counselor is you.

Testing or evaluation

None. No standardized testing, no evaluation, no assessment of any kind. STAAR is not required and generally not available to homeschoolers.

Diplomas and transcripts

The parent is the school administrator: the parent sets graduation requirements, awards credit, signs the transcript, and issues the diploma. There are no state credit, Carnegie-unit, or endorsement requirements for homeschoolers, and Texas issues no state diploma. Texas public universities and colleges may not discriminate against homeschool applicants, and homeschool graduates are eligible for state financial aid. HB 3041 (2025) clarified homeschool applicants’ eligibility for programs such as TEXAS Grants, effective the Fall 2026 semester. Two 2025 changes are worth noting. (1) HB 2674, the Homeschool Freedom Act, signed June 20, 2025, effective Sept. 1, 2025, prohibits TEA, the SBOE, and other public educational institutions from adopting rules that increase regulation of home schools without express legislative authorization. It puts Leeper’s hands-off standard into statute. (2) SB 2, signed May 3, 2025, creates a ~$1B universal ESA program with homeschooled students eligible for roughly $2,000/year (up to $30,000 for certain students with disabilities), first usable in the 2026-27 school year. Participating in the ESA is voluntary and brings program-specific expense reporting and, per the program rules, an assessment obligation. That is a different legal posture from unregulated Leeper homeschooling.

If the transcript is the piece you are missing, it is free on its own: The Transcript Template, with the weighted and unweighted GPA already wired.

Where this comes from

Statute: Tex. Educ. Code § 25.086(a)(1); Tex. Educ. Agency v. Leeper, 893 S.W.2d 432 (Tex. 1994); 2025 Tex. Sess. Law (HB 2674, Homeschool Freedom Act, eff. 9/1/2025); SB 2 (ESA, 2025)

Source: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ED/htm/ED.25.htm

Last reviewed: July 2026. The day is not recorded.

Homeschool law changes, and a page like this goes stale without saying so. Before a filing deadline, read the statute above for yourself. If we are behind, we would rather hear it from you than have you find out at the district office.

All fifty states and DC, each with its statute cited.

Filing is one half of it. Keeping the records is the other, and that is what our Records System is for: the editable transcript with the GPA already wired, 131 course descriptions, and this same statute-cited summary for all fifty states and DC. Thirty-nine dollars, one household, however many children you have.