Texas Education Freedom Accounts

TEFA, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, explained

By the research team at School, Clearly.

AI-assisted research. Our method.

State program pages, Comptroller releases and Odyssey support articles read September 8, 2026.

At a glance

TEFA is the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, the state education savings account that many parents call the Texas voucher program. All three names describe one program. For the 2026-27 school year it pays $10,474 toward a participating private school, up to $30,000 for a child with a current IEP (an Individualized Education Program, the public school special education plan), or $2,000 for homeschooling. Eligibility is broad, but an award is not automatic: in the first year a lottery inside the income tiers decided who was funded, and the 2027-28 dates and amount are not published as of September 8, 2026.

What is TEFA?

The Texas Legislature created the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program in 2025 through Senate Bill 2, with $1 billion in funding. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts runs it. Odyssey, the certified educational assistance organization the Comptroller selected, runs the application, the parent portal, the accounts and the marketplace where the money is spent. The state calls it an education savings account. The phrase Texas voucher program is a common name for the same thing, and this page uses the state's names.

An award is an account in the child's name, funded by the state in installments and spent through Odyssey on approved expenses. The largest of those is tuition and fees at a participating private school. It is not a check to the parent, and purchases made outside the marketplace are not reimbursed, according to the Comptroller's June 30, 2026 release.

The program does not apply to tuition-free public schools. A child who enrolls in a Texas public school or an open-enrollment charter school in a way that counts toward that school's attendance funding leaves the program. Our magnet, charter and private comparison covers how those applications differ.

What TEFA pays for 2026-27

The amounts below are the state's published figures for the 2026-27 school year, read on educationfreedom.texas.gov on September 7 and again on September 8, 2026. The private school amount is set each year by the Texas Education Agency at 85% of the statewide average state and local funding per student, so it changes when that average changes.

Setting	2026-27 award	Condition
Participating private school, pre-K or kindergarten program	$10,474	The child attends a school or program that is in the state's finder. Paid in three installments.
Participating private school, child with a disability	Up to $30,000	The child has an individualized education program (IEP) on file with the Texas Education Agency from 2023-24 or later by the close of the application window. The amount depends on the child's district of residence and the IEP's instructional setting code, is capped at $30,000, and the state says most receive less. A 504 plan does not qualify.Sources: the state's special education funding post, May 18, 2026, and Odyssey's disability article, read September 8, 2026.
Homeschool or any other setting	$2,000	Paid in full on the first funding date.

When the money arrives

Private school awards are paid in three installments, and each later installment requires the child to still be enrolled in a participating private school.

Funding date	Share of a private school award	Confirmation deadline for that date
July 1, 2026	25%	Parent selected the school by June 1 and the school confirmed enrollment by June 15, 2026. Families confirmed by July 31 received this installment in mid-August instead.
October 1, 2026	25%	Confirmed by September 15, 2026 for the full award. A child confirmed after that date receives 75% of the award for the year.
February 1, 2027	50%	Confirmed by January 15, 2027. A child confirmed after that date receives 50% of the award for the year.

Source for the dates and the proration: the state's Funding Timelines and Installments post, June 4, 2026, read September 8, 2026. The homeschool amount arrives in one installment on the first date. To see what is left of a specific Houston school's tuition after the award, use our TEFA net-tuition calculator, a separate page that subtracts the award from each school's published 2026-27 tuition and splits it by these dates.

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Who qualifies for TEFA

The state's eligibility rule has three parts, and all three must hold. The child is a citizen or national of the United States or lawfully admitted. The child is eligible to attend a Texas public school or open-enrollment charter school, or to enroll in a public school's pre-K or kindergarten program. And the parent lives in Texas.

Age follows the public school rule. Odyssey's article of January 12, 2026 gives it as age 3 to 5 by September 1, 2026 for pre-K and age 5 to 25 by September 1, 2026 for kindergarten through grade 12.

Pre-K is narrower

A pre-K child must also meet one of the state's free public pre-K categories: unable to speak and understand English, household income at or below 185% of the federal poverty level, homeless, a parent on active duty or injured or killed on active duty, current or former foster care, a parent who received the Star of Texas Award, or a parent who teaches at a public school in a district that offers free pre-K. The state lists a pre-K child who met none of these first among its four common reasons a 2026-27 applicant was found ineligible, beside unconfirmed income, lawful presence and residency. Early childhood special education is not one of the categories.

What the application asked for in 2026-27

Income was verified only from a federal Form 1040 for 2024 or 2025, the first two pages, showing the child as a dependent. Pay stubs, W-2s and benefit letters were not accepted. Residency came from a Texas driver license or state ID, or else a utility bill, lease, mortgage statement or voter registration certificate. Lawful presence was checked against the parent's license or the child's Social Security number, with a birth certificate or similar document requested if that failed. A child with an IEP needed the IEP's instructional code, the next annual review date and the state student identifier. Source: Odyssey's document article of February 3, 2026 and the state FAQ, read September 8, 2026. A future cycle can change this list.

When eligibility ends

A participating child leaves the program on enrolling in a Texas public or charter school in a way that counts toward its attendance funding, on moving out of Texas, on graduating from high school, or on withdrawing. Moving within Texas keeps the child eligible. The state runs enrollment checks against public school records and removes a child who appears in them.

This page describes the state's published rules. It does not determine whether any child is eligible, and eligibility is not an award. The state decides both.

TEFA tiers and income limits

There is no income cap for applying. Income sets the priority tier, and the tier sets the order in which awards are made when applications exceed the money, which they did in 2026-27. The state's first-year order is below, with the state's own dollar examples for a family of four from the 2026 federal poverty guidelines. Other household sizes have different lines.

Tier	Who	Family of four example	Note
1	A child with a disability in a household at or below 500% of the federal poverty level, plus that child's siblings	At or below $165,000 a year	Disability means an IEP on file with TEA when the window closed, or a program-approved proof-of-disability form. Only the IEP brings the higher award.
2	A household at or below 200% of the federal poverty level	At or below $66,000	In 2026-27 the money ran out inside this tier.
3	A household between 200% and 500% of the federal poverty level	$66,000 to $165,000	Waitlisted at first; later rounds reached this tier in August 2026.
4	A household above 500% of the federal poverty level	Above $165,000	The state's tier table says above 500% and its statute summary on the same page says at or above, so a household exactly at the line should ask the program which tier applies. Children who spent at least 90% of the prior year in a Texas public or charter school come first within this group. Awards to this group may not exceed 20% of the year's appropriation. Odyssey labels the two halves tier 4 and tier 5.

Two rules sit alongside the tiers. If one child in a household is accepted, every eligible sibling who applied in the same window is accepted too. And from the second year on, the law puts siblings of participating children first, then new applicants, then former participants who left for a public school, with the income tiers applied inside each of those groups. That is the only 2027-28 mechanic the state has published. Source: the state's Families page and homepage FAQ, read September 8, 2026.

How the 2026-27 cycle ran

This is the first year as the state and the Comptroller published it, in date order. It is history, labeled as the 2026-27 cycle. It is not a schedule for 2027-28, whose dates are not published as of September 8, 2026.

Date	What happened	Source
December 9, 2025	Private schools could begin applying to participate. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.	State homepage FAQ
February 4, 2026	The parent application opened. The Comptroller says the program was not first come, first served.	State homepage; Comptroller release, March 17, 2026
March 17, 2026	The original deadline. The Comptroller extended it to 11:59 p.m. on March 31 to comply with a federal court order.The state's Families page FAQ still gives March 17 as the close while its homepage gives March 31. Both were on the site on September 8, 2026; the Comptroller's release explains the difference.	Comptroller release, March 17, 2026
March 31, 2026	Applications closed. More than 274,000 were received; approximately 25,500 were found ineligible.	State homepage; Comptroller release, April 2, 2026
April 16 to 23, 2026	Ineligible applicants were notified by email, with 30 days to appeal.	State lottery update, May 18, 2026
April 22 to 24, 2026	Every eligible tier 1 child and their siblings received award notices, more than 42,600 students, because the money covered the whole group.	Comptroller release, April 22, 2026
Week of April 27, 2026	A random-number lottery ordered every remaining applicant. Tier 2 was funded in that order until the money ran out; everyone else was placed on the waitlist by tier and then by lottery position.	State lottery update, May 18, 2026
Week of May 4, 2026	Tier 2 award notices began. The week of May 11 the portal showed approximate waitlist positions and opened opt-in for awarded families.	State lottery update, May 18, 2026
June 1 and June 15, 2026	Deadlines to select a school and for the school to confirm enrollment for July 1 funding. July 15 and July 31 were the deadlines for mid-August funding.	State waitlist post, May 18, 2026
July 1, 2026	Nearly 73,000 accounts were set to receive their first installment, and the marketplace opened the same day.	Comptroller release, June 30, 2026
September 15, 2026	Last date to confirm enrollment and receive the full 2026-27 award. After it, 75%.	State funding post, June 4, 2026
January 15, 2027	Last confirmation date for the February 1 installment. After it, 50%.	State funding post, June 4, 2026

How far the awards reached

Announced	Round	Tier reached
May 18, 2026	28,233 tier 1 children and 16,520 siblings awarded; 51,181 tier 2 children awarded. Waitlisted: 20,383 in tier 2, 65,368 in tier 3, 66,951 in tier 4 (13,245 with prior public school enrollment, 53,706 without).	Partway through tier 2
May 29, 2026	3,317 tier 2 children awarded from the waitlist as families opted out or chose the homeschool amount, plus 294 special education awards and 183 siblings.	Tier 2
June 23, 2026	5,499 tier 2 children awarded from the waitlist. Nearly 107,000 active awards.	Tier 2
August 11, 2026	Nearly 15,000 tier 3 children awarded. Odyssey's waitlist FAQ of the same day says the August 8 round used the remaining budget, and that further awards depend on families opting out.	Tier 3
August 13, 2026	Funding delivered to 101,600 students. More than 100,000 students remained on the waitlist.	Comptroller release
August 28, 2026	Nearly 4,500 more tier 3 children awarded. Over 118,000 active awards, almost 50,000 of them from the waitlist.	Tier 3

No award to the fourth group appears in any state or Comptroller post we had read by September 8, 2026. All figures are the state's and the Comptroller's own published counts, some labeled preliminary. They describe what happened once, in a first year funded at $1 billion. They are not a forecast for any tier or any family, and this page does not estimate anyone's chance of an award.

The TEFA waitlist

A waitlisted child's status in the Odyssey portal stays Eligible, with no dollar amount. Awards from the list go strictly in order: priority tier first, then the household's lottery number. If one child in a household is reached, every eligible child in that household is awarded at the same time. The state says families are notified and the portal status changes, and they then have four weeks to opt in and confirm enrollment.

The state said in May that it could not predict how far down the list awards would reach, and Odyssey's August 11, 2026 FAQ says there is no set schedule for further rounds and no set deadline for the last one. A child still on the list when the cycle ends has to apply again in the next window. The position does not carry over. A child may stay enrolled in public school while waiting. A child awarded after September 15, 2026 receives a prorated amount. The state also reports the waitlist to the Legislature, which is what informs the next appropriation.

Odyssey and the TEFA login: what the family does there

Odyssey's parent portal, reached from the login button on the state site, is where the whole family side of the program happens. This page is not the portal and cannot see any account. What it can do is name the steps, in order, so the status words make sense when you see them.

Apply during the state's window, uploading the documents above. Applications are reviewed after the window closes, and the order in which they arrive does not affect priority.
Watch the application status. Eligible means the child qualifies and is on the waitlist. Approved, Awaiting Opt-In means an award is offered and the family must accept it.
Opt in from the dashboard announcement, then select a participating private school or homeschool/other for each child. Choosing a school in Odyssey does not enroll the child at that school. Admission is the school's own process on the school's own calendar, and both have to happen.
The school confirms the enrollment request in its own portal and enters the year's tuition and fees. The family reviews that amount and confirms or denies it. A denied amount goes back to the school to revise.
When an installment lands, the family pays tuition from the Wallet section of the portal and buys other approved items in the marketplace. Anything the award does not cover stays with the family, so Odyssey suggests planning tuition before marketplace purchases.

Four checks before you treat tuition as settled

Check each child's record separately. Award approval, school enrollment confirmation, your approval of the tuition amount and an actual payment are separate steps. Odyssey's Texas school instructions and parent tuition guide were checked September 10, 2026.

Award: check the child's application status and opt-in. Eligible alone does not establish funding.
Enrollment: confirm admission with the school and ask its office whether it has verified enrollment in Odyssey. The school performs that verification and enters annual tuition and fees.
Tuition: use Confirm Tuition on the dashboard, or Student Profiles, then Review Tuition & Fees. Compare the amount with the school's quote. Confirm a correct amount; Deny an incorrect one so the school can revise it. Reopen the child's record to check for any remaining action.
Payment: tuition confirmation does not send money. Once funds are available, use Wallet, Tuition, Make a Payment. Keep the payment record and ask the school to confirm receipt and the remaining balance.

If a step is missing or the two sides disagree, ask the school which action it has completed and contact Odyssey support with the status you see. An award notice alone cannot confirm all four checks.

Application status	Meaning, in Odyssey's words
Eligible	The child qualifies under the program rules. Not approved or funded yet. Children in this status are on the waitlist.
Approved, Awaiting Opt-In	Approved, but the family must complete the opt-in before funds can be received.
Approved	Opt-in complete. The child will receive funds.
Approved, On Hold	Approved, with account activity paused while Odyssey reviews the account.
Opted Out	The family left the program for the rest of the program year. Unused funds return to the state.
Under Review	Odyssey is still determining eligibility.
Ineligible	The child does not qualify under current guidelines. Appeals run 30 calendar days from the notification email.
Closed	The application was closed so a new one could be submitted or corrections made.

Source: Odyssey's portal status article of May 13, 2026, opt-in article of May 12, 2026 and tuition confirmation article of June 29, 2026, read September 8, 2026. For help with an account, the state points to Odyssey's support site and its toll-free line, 737-379-2362. Program questions go to the Comptroller at educationfreedom@cpa.texas.gov.

What the account can and cannot pay for

The state's approved list starts with tuition and fees at a participating private school, and adds textbooks and instructional materials, required uniforms, academic assessments, private tutoring, transportation to and from approved providers, educational therapies not covered by another public benefit, computer hardware and software up to 10% of the year's transfer, and meals the school provides. Funds cannot pay a family member. Unused money rolls over to the next year while the child stays in the program, and it cannot move to a sibling.

Three exclusions matter to a family budget. Fees for before-school or after-school care and other non-educational supervision are not eligible. Neither are capital campaign or fundraising charges, nor parent organization membership fees. Those come from the state's tuition and fee guidance of May 28, 2026, which also tells schools that a TEFA child should not be charged a different tuition, that a general discount should not change because of the award, and that 2026-27 funds may be used to prepay 2027-28 tuition.

TEFA approved schools

The only list that counts is the state's own participating school finder, which has a Houston Area region and changes as schools sign on. This page lists no schools. To participate, a private school must be accredited by an organization recognized by the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission or by the Texas Education Agency, have operated a campus for at least two years, give a nationally norm-referenced test to participating students in grades 3 to 12, and be in Texas.

Two of our pages carry the Houston detail. Private schools in Houston shows which of twenty schools appeared in the finder on the day we checked, with each school's own application dates. The TEFA net-tuition calculator subtracts the award from each of those schools' published tuition. A school's presence in the finder means it can accept the account. It does not mean the school has a seat, and admission stays the school's decision.

What is published for 2027-28, and what is not

As of September 8, 2026, the state has published no 2027-28 application dates, no 2027-28 award amount and no 2027-28 funding level. The private school amount is recalculated each year by the Texas Education Agency, so the $10,474 figure is a 2026-27 figure and nothing more. What the state has published is the second-year priority order described in the tiers section above, that participants in good standing stay in the program by confirming they wish to continue, without reapplying, and that a child who was not awarded this year must apply again.

The state offers two ways to hear when the window is announced: a 2027-28 interest list and family email updates from the Comptroller. We recheck the state site and will date any change here the day we see it. The first cycle's window ran February 4 to March 31, 2026. That is a reason to have documents ready in winter, and it is not a prediction of the next window's dates.

How this page works

Every fact here comes from the state program site, a Texas Comptroller release or an Odyssey support article, read on the date shown. Where the sources disagree with each other, the page shows both. Where a figure sits in our calculator, this page prints the same figure and the two are checked against each other before publication, so they cannot drift apart. Research is AI-assisted and a person reviews it. No school pays us, and none can pay to appear here.

The state determines eligibility and makes awards. Each school decides admission. This page does neither, and it does not estimate any family's chance of an award. The $195 School Decision Report applies the same sourcing to the specific schools your family is weighing, including which of them can take the account and what the tuition looks like after it.

Audio details

AI-generated narration, listened to in full and approved by a person. Full rules and sources are in this guide.

Audio transcript

Alex & Jordan · 5 min 11 sec

Alex: Hi, I'm Alex. Welcome to School, Clearly.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan. We're your hosts. Today we're covering the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program. Most parents type the four-letter short name, and plenty call it the Texas voucher program. It's all one program.

Alex: It is. The Legislature created it in twenty twenty-five with one billion dollars. The Texas Comptroller runs it, and Odyssey runs the accounts and the parent portal.

Jordan: Start with the money. What does an award pay?

Alex: For the twenty twenty-six to twenty twenty-seven school year, a child at a participating private school gets ten thousand four hundred and seventy-four dollars. A child with a current individualized education program on file with the state can get up to thirty thousand, though most get less. The homeschool amount is two thousand.

Jordan: And it doesn't arrive all at once.

Alex: Private school awards come in three parts. Twenty-five percent on July first, twenty twenty-six, another twenty-five percent on October first, and the remaining half on February first, twenty twenty-seven. The homeschool amount comes in full on the first date. The award table in the article has all of that.

Jordan: Who qualifies?

Alex: Three conditions. The child is a U.S. citizen or national, or lawfully admitted. The child is eligible to attend a Texas public school, a charter school, or a public pre-K program. And the parent lives in Texas. Pre-K is narrower. A child applying for pre-K also has to meet one of the state's free pre-K categories, like household income or a parent on active duty.

Jordan: Here's what surprised people in year one. Being eligible didn't mean getting an award.

Alex: Right. When applications exceed the money, a lottery decides, and the law sets a priority order first. Tier one is children with a disability whose household income is at or below five hundred percent of the federal poverty level. Tier two is household income at or below two hundred percent. Tier three is between two hundred and five hundred percent. Tier four is above five hundred percent.

Jordan: Put dollars on that.

Alex: The state's own example is a family of four. Two hundred percent is sixty-six thousand dollars a year. Five hundred percent is one hundred and sixty-five thousand. Other family sizes have different lines, and the tier table in the article links to the federal guidelines.

Jordan: So how did the first year actually go?

Alex: More than two hundred and seventy-four thousand children applied between February fourth and March thirty-first, twenty twenty-six. Every eligible tier one child and their siblings got an award. Then the money ran out partway through tier two, and a lottery decided who in tier two was funded. Everyone else went on a waitlist.

Jordan: And the waitlist moved?

Alex: It did. As families opted out or chose the smaller homeschool amount, the Comptroller made more awards, in order. By late August the rounds had reached tier three. As of September eighth, twenty twenty-six, no tier four award had been announced, and in mid-August the Comptroller counted more than one hundred thousand children who were still waiting. The timeline in the article dates every round.

Jordan: I want to be careful here. That's what happened once. It isn't a forecast.

Alex: It isn't. Funding and demand can both change, and we don't tell any family what its chances are. Nobody can.

Jordan: What does a waitlisted family see?

Alex: The portal keeps saying eligible, with no dollar amount. Awards go strictly by tier and then by lottery number, and a whole household is awarded together. A position doesn't carry into the next year. A child still waiting when the cycle ends has to apply again.

Jordan: Let's talk about Odyssey, because the login is one of the most searched questions.

Alex: Odyssey is where the family applies, watches the status, and later accepts the award, which the portal calls opting in, and picks the school. The school then confirms the enrollment and enters its tuition and fees, the family confirms that amount, and once money lands the family pays tuition from the wallet in the portal.

Jordan: One thing parents get wrong.

Alex: Choosing a school in Odyssey doesn't get your child into that school. Admission is the school's own process, on the school's own calendar. Do both.

Jordan: What can the money not pay for?

Alex: Before and after school care, fundraising, and parent organization fees are out. Tuition, required fees, uniforms, books, tutoring and transportation are in. And a school can't charge a family more because they have an award.

Jordan: Approved schools?

Alex: The state's finder is the only list that counts. We don't list schools on this page. Our Houston private schools article shows which of twenty schools were in the finder on the day we checked, and our net-tuition calculator, which is a separate page, subtracts the award from a school's published tuition.

Jordan: And next year?

Alex: As of September eighth, twenty twenty-six, the state has published nothing for twenty twenty-seven to twenty twenty-eight. No application dates and no award amount. The law does say that after year one, siblings of participating children go first. Families already in the program don't reapply. Everyone else waits for the state to publish dates, and the article says how to sign up for that notice.

Jordan: You'll find the tables, plus the official links, in the Texas Education Freedom Accounts guide at school clearly dot com.

Alex: We provide AI-assisted research and decision support. No school pays us for inclusion, referrals or advertising. We don't determine eligibility, and we don't guarantee an award, a seat or any outcome. Your family owns the decision.

Jordan: This is AI-generated narration. Thanks for listening with us. I'm Jordan.

Alex: And I'm Alex. Read the state's page before you act, and note the date on everything.

Download the audio guide