Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock today said state sales tax revenue totaled $4.3 billion in December 2025, 5.7 percent more than in December 2024. The majority of December sales tax revenue is based on sales made in November and remitted to the agency in December.
“December state sales tax collections were robust, with growth compared to a year ago outpacing inflation — evidence of continued strength in the Texas economy,” Hancock said. “Remittances from the major sectors influenced mainly by consumer spending indicated a strong start to the Christmas holiday shopping season.”
While collections from the mining and construction sectors both showed sharp declines compared with the same month a year ago, receipts from the manufacturing sector grew moderately and remittances from the information and wholesale trade sectors showed very strong monthly year-over-year gains. Remittances from machinery, equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers were particularly strong within the wholesale trade sector.
Among the major sectors driven mostly by consumer spending, receipts from the retail trade and service sectors both increased soundly compared with December 2024. The retail trade sector, the largest sector, was up more than 5 percent compared with December 2024. Receipts from electronic shopping surged by double-digits for the second consecutive month, in part driven by Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday promotional sales after Thanksgiving.
Receipts from restaurants were up less than 2 percent from a year ago, less than the rate of inflation for food away from home in November.
Total sales tax revenue for the three months ending in December 2025 was up 5.2 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Sales tax is the largest source of state funding for the state budget, accounting for 58 percent of all tax collections.
Texas collected the following revenue from other major taxes:
- motor vehicle sales and rental taxes — $614 million, up 5 percent from December 2024;
- motor fuel taxes — $324 million, up 4 percent from December 2024;
- oil production tax — $394 million, down 9 percent from December 2024;
- natural gas production tax — $169 million, down 21 percent from December 2024;
- hotel occupancy tax — $61 million, up less than 1 percent from December 2024; and
- alcoholic beverage taxes — $148 million, down 2 percent from December 2024.
