Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced on Monday, February 3rd, that the state’s sales tax revenue for January totaled $4.3 billion, marking a 6.8% increase compared to January 2024. Most of the January sales tax revenue is derived from sales made in December, which are reported to the agency in January.
The City of Brownfield performed slightly better than the state average, bringing in $141,023.18 in January 2025, which is an increase of 7.87% from January 2024. Since these figures reflect January totals, the year-to-date amounts are the same.
In contrast, Terry County experienced a decline, generating $59,662.29 in sales tax revenue, down 3.71% from $61,961.67 in the same month last year. The City of Meadow saw a significant drop of 28.72%, with revenue decreasing from $2,439.73 to $1,738.96 compared to the previous year. Similarly, the City of Wellman reported a decrease in sales tax revenue, falling to $875.14 from $933.19 in January 2024, a decline of 6.22%.
According to Hegar, state sales tax collections have shown steady growth compared to January 2024, surpassing the rate of general price inflation, which remains slightly elevated. This growth follows a period of minimal increases in the prior month, but the average growth over the last three months has slightly outpaced inflation.
Hegar also said, “There were gains in receipts from most sectors, most notably from the services, information and retail trade sectors, with retail trade results improving as holiday spending shifted into December following a Thanksgiving shopping season that was somewhat muted and fell late in the month.”
Hegar noted that increases in technology services and facilities management companies primarily drove growth in the services sector. However, remittances from live entertainment events declined compared to the previous year. Overall, sectors influenced mainly by business spending showed positive performance last month, with a slight uptick in the construction sector and moderate growth in manufacturing and wholesale trade. The only exception was the mining sector, which experienced a decline for the tenth consecutive month.
Retail trade, the largest sector, grew by more than 5 percent compared to the same period last year. Within the retail sector, there were strong holiday-driven sales from online shopping and general merchandise stores. Conversely, receipts from home improvement and furniture stores decreased compared to the same month a year ago. Restaurant receipts increased slightly from a year ago, although they remained below the rate of inflation for dining out in December.
Total sales tax revenue for the three months ending in January 2025 rose by 4.2 percent compared to the same period the previous year. Sales tax is the largest source of state funding for the budget, accounting for 58 percent of all tax collections.
Texas collected the following revenue from other major taxes:
- motor vehicle sales and rental taxes — $589 million, down 5 percent from January 2024;
- motor fuel taxes — $313 million, up 2 percent from January 2024;
- oil production tax — $471 million, down 6 percent from January 2024;
- natural gas production tax — $174 million, down 8 percent from January 2024;
- hotel occupancy tax — $47 million, up 90 percent from January 2024, which was unusually low because of a high transfer to the city of Dallas project finance zone; and
- alcoholic beverage taxes — $155 million, up 1 percent from January 2024.
