HB135

HB135 expressly adds two categories to Texas’s sales-and-use-tax exemptions for agricultural items: exotic animals defined by Tax Code 23.51 and game animals described by Parks and Wildlife Code 63.001. The fiscal analysis says this puts common industry and comptroller enforcement practice into statute, rather than creating a large new tax break from scratch. Final law; official history; latest fiscal note.

The definitions limit the exemption. The game-animal provision lists mule and white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope, desert bighorn sheep, specified squirrels and collared peccary/javelina, with an indigenous-to-Texas condition. The exotic-animal definition covers nonindigenous game species, including axis deer, nilga antelope, red sheep, other cloven-hoofed ruminant mammals and qualifying exotic fowl. The incorporated fowl definition has its own exclusions, including nonindigenous birds on publicly owned land. It is not an exemption for anything a seller casually calls “exotic.” Tax Code 23.51; game-animal definition; exotic-fowl definition.

What it does not change. This is a tax rule for the animals, not a general exemption for hunting trips, licenses, equipment or every ranch expense. Existing agricultural exemptions and their conditions remain separate. The law also does not authorize possession or sale that wildlife law otherwise prohibits. Although Section 151.316 begins with a reference to the agricultural-registration rule, Section 151.1551’s listed registration-number categories do not include these new animal paragraphs; HB135 does not add them to that list. Final law; registration provision; existing game-animal possession rule.

The bill received the votes for immediate effect and became law May 13, 2025. It expressly preserves tax liability that accrued before that date, including collection and civil/criminal enforcement under prior law; it does not wipe out old tax debts or create a retroactive refund entitlement. Final law, Sections 2–3; history.