Last updated September 21, 2026 · Written by Meredith Sherwood, TREC License No. 0832882
You will find a lot of pages confidently stating the average Texas commission to two decimal places. Nearly all of them trace back to lead-generation companies whose business model depends on you concluding the number is too high. Here is what can actually be sourced.
The honest answer first
There is no credible Texas-specific commission figure. No state agency, university research centre, or REALTOR® association publishes one. Every Texas or Dallas percentage in the search results traces to a self-reported agent survey with no published methodology, run by a company with a commercial interest in the answer.
What can be sourced is national transaction data — actual closed transactions rather than surveys — plus the plain fact that since August 2024 these rates are negotiated individually, which makes quoting a “going rate” both inaccurate and precisely the conduct the antitrust litigation was about.
What the transaction data shows
Two sources are worth your attention because both measure real closings rather than opinions.
| Source | Period | Listing side | Buyer side |
|---|---|---|---|
| AccountTECH, 224,000+ transactions | as of Jan 2025 | 2.73% | 2.55% |
| Redfin | Q3 2025 | — | 2.42% |
Redfin’s price-tier breakdown is the part most relevant if your house sits in the $400,000 to $1,000,000 range, because the rate genuinely varies with price:
| Sale price | Average buyer-side compensation, Q3 2025 |
|---|---|
| Under $500,000 | 2.52% |
| $500,000 – $999,000 | 2.32% |
| $1,000,000+ | 2.22% |
A $450,000 seller and a $900,000 seller are not in the same market for this, and treating a single percentage as universal costs one of them money.
For longer-run context, the Federal Reserve published an analysis of nearly three decades of MLS data showing average buyer-agent compensation drifting down from around 3% in the late 1990s to roughly 2.7% by the end of its sample, with a strong tendency toward splitting evenly. Worth reading for the trend — but its data ends in 2023 and measures a field that no longer exists, so it is not a current rate.
What actually changed in August 2024
Four things, and consumer coverage muddles two of them constantly.
- Offers of compensation are prohibited on the MLS. Not moved to a hidden field — removed. Per NAR, offers are no longer allowed on MLS platforms at all.
- Written buyer agreements are required before an agent tours a home with a buyer.
- Sellers may still compensate a buyer’s broker — just not through the MLS. Off-MLS, it remains entirely permissible.
- Seller concessions are still allowed on the MLS.
A general concession toward the buyer’s closing costs may be advertised in the MLS. A targeted offer of compensation to the buyer’s broker may not. These are different instruments and the MLS treats them differently — and confusing them is the single most common error in articles about this.
How this works on Texas paper, specifically
This is where a Texas seller needs something better than national content, because the mechanics live in particular paragraphs of particular forms.
On the listing agreement, Paragraph 5A is the structure where the seller agrees to pay the listing broker a single negotiated fee covering both sides, with the buyer-broker portion inserted at 5A(2) — which then becomes a binding obligation on the listing broker. Paragraph 5B is the alternative: the seller pays only the listing broker, and buyer-broker compensation gets negotiated at the offer stage. Which of those you sign changes your position considerably, and it is worth knowing which one is in front of you.
On the purchase contract, there is a change most competitor pages have not caught up with. The TREC contract forms effective July 1, 2026 moved brokerage compensation into its own new Paragraph 12B. Paragraph 12A(1)(b) is now a general seller contribution toward buyer expenses explicitly other than brokerage compensation.
That matters because guidance written in 2024 and early 2025 — including Texas REALTORS®’ own published explainer, dated January 2025 — still describes the old structure where the buyer-broker contribution lived inside 12A(1)(b). If someone is walking you through Paragraph 12 using that framing, they are describing a form that expired on June 30, 2026.
One more Texas detail: buyer representation agreements must state compensation as an objectively ascertainable amount. Not a range, and not “whatever the seller is offering.”
Did any of it lower what sellers pay?
On the evidence so far, not meaningfully. The transaction data above shows buyer-side compensation roughly flat, and Redfin’s Q3 2025 figure was actually slightly higher than a year earlier.
Separately, the Consumer Federation of America reported in April 2026 that in a survey of housing counsellors, only 7% saw clients paying lower commissions while 36% said they had held steady or increased. That is a survey of professional impressions rather than transaction data, so weigh it accordingly — but it points the same direction.
Worth one more note: the framework is not necessarily settled. The Supreme Court declined to take up NAR’s petition in January 2025, and the Department of Justice’s interest in industry practices has continued. Rules may keep evolving.
What to actually do with this
Three things are more useful than knowing an average.
Ask what the fee covers, in writing. Photography, floor plans, print, syndication, open houses, video — the range of what is actually included varies far more than the percentage does. Two agents at the same rate can be offering substantially different things.
Decide the buyer-broker contribution deliberately. This is now yours to set, and it is the largest single variable in your total cost of selling. Offering nothing is permitted. It also affects how your listing competes, which on a house that has already failed once is not a small consideration. Treat it as a marketing decision with a price attached, not a box to tick.
Separate the rate from the plan. A lower rate on a listing that repeats whatever went wrong the first time is not a saving. If your house already sat unsold, what you are buying is a correct diagnosis and a real relaunch — the six reasons listings fail is a fair test of whether the agent in front of you has one.
What Meredith charges
It is negotiated per listing, as it now has to be, and she will put the number and exactly what it covers in writing before you decide anything. There is no obligation attached to asking, and the re-evaluation of why your house did not sell happens before any of that conversation, not after it.
Call 806-781-7464, or send the address.
Every rate cited here is national closed-transaction data, attributed and dated. No Texas-specific average appears on this page because none exists from a credible source, and quoting one would be inventing a going rate rather than reporting a fact. Contract paragraph references are to the TREC forms effective July 1, 2026.