Texas Exempt Assets
Separate from the homestead exemption, Texas law protects a defined category of personal belongings from creditors — no LLC, no trust, and no filing required. Under Texas Property Code Section 42.001, personal property described in Section 42.002 is exempt from garnishment, attachment, execution, or other seizure, up to an aggregate fair market value of $100,000 for property provided for a family or $50,000 for property owned by a single adult who is not a member of a family. Unlike the homestead exemption's uncapped protection of a qualifying home, this is a dollar-capped basket that covers a specific, itemized list of belongings — and none of it is adjusted for inflation. The $100,000 and $50,000 figures are the flat numbers the statute sets, not a floor that moves with the cost of living.
Both figures are measured exclusive of any liens, security interests, or other charges encumbering the property, so the cap applies to the debtor's actual equity in the listed items rather than what they would sell for including debt against them. And the protection only reaches property actually described in Section 42.002 — something that is not on that list gets no protection from this exemption, regardless of how modest its value is.
The Dollar Caps and What Sits Outside Them — Property Code §42.001
A second slice of property is exempt outright and does not count against the $100,000/$50,000 aggregate at all. Section 42.001(b) exempts current wages for personal services (except to enforce court-ordered child support), professionally prescribed health aids, and alimony or separate maintenance received for the debtor's support — none of it chips away at the cap. A narrower rule covers a religious bible or other book of sacred writings, though a lessor who seizes one while enforcing a lease-breach lien is allowed to take it. Unpaid commissions are treated differently again: Section 42.001(d) exempts them too, but only up to 25 percent of the aggregate limit, and unlike wages or health aids, they do count against it.
What Counts as Exempt Property — Property Code §42.002
Section 42.002(a) lists what actually qualifies: home furnishings and family heirlooms; provisions for consumption; farming or ranching vehicles and implements; tools, equipment, books, and apparatus used in a trade or profession, including boats and motor vehicles used that way; wearing apparel; jewelry, capped at 25 percent of the family's or single adult's aggregate limit; two firearms; athletic and sporting equipment, including bicycles; one two-, three-, or four-wheeled motor vehicle for each family member or single adult who holds a driver's license — or who does not hold one but relies on someone else to drive it for them; and a defined set of animals with the forage on hand to feed them: two horses, mules, or donkeys with a saddle, blanket, and bridle for each, 12 head of cattle, 60 head of other livestock, and 120 fowl. Household pets round out the list with no numeric limit.
The exemption does not erase debt the owner voluntarily put on the property itself. Section 42.002(b) confirms that exempt personal property can still be encumbered by a security interest or a lien fixed by other law, and that lien stays enforceable — a truck bought on credit is exempt from an unrelated creditor's seizure, but not from the lender who financed it.
Retirement and Savings Accounts Are a Separate, Uncapped Bucket — Property Code §42.0021
The largest exempt category is not on the Section 42.002 list at all, and it is not capped the way personal property is. Section 42.0021 exempts a person's interest in a qualified savings plan — employer and self-employed retirement plans, IRAs and Roth IRAs (including inherited IRAs and inherited Roth IRAs), health savings accounts, Coverdell education accounts, and 529 or ABLE education-savings plans — from attachment, execution, and seizure, in addition to the Section 42.001 exemption. The statute sets no dollar ceiling on this category. A distribution out of one of these plans stays exempt for 60 days after it is paid, and keeps its exemption indefinitely if it is rolled into another qualifying plan.
What This Exemption Does Not Reach
What is not on Section 42.002's list gets no protection from this statute. Cash, bank deposits, brokerage and investment accounts, and business equipment beyond the tools of an actual trade or profession fall outside the enumerated categories entirely. So does any real estate beyond the one home the homestead exemption protects — a rental house, a second property, or land held for investment is neither personal property under Chapter 42 nor a homestead under Chapter 41; see our page on Texas Homestead Protection for how that separate exemption works. Closing that gap — investments, cash, and extra real estate — is what LLC-based planning is for; see our Texas Investment Holding Company page for one way to hold those assets inside an entity instead of personally.
Two more rules keep the exemption from being gamed or from silently overflowing. Section 42.004 strips the exemption from property acquired by converting nonexempt assets into exempt ones with intent to defraud, delay, or hinder a creditor — a purchase made in the ordinary course of business stays protected, a conversion made to defeat a claim does not, and a creditor has two years from the transaction, or one year after a contingent claim is reduced to judgment, to raise it. And Section 42.003 does not automatically strip anything when a debtor owns more of a category than the itemized or dollar limits allow — the debtor gets to designate which specific items are the protected ones, with the officer or a court stepping in only if the debtor does not.
One more limit deserves naming directly. Section 42.005 removes this exemption's protection against a child support lien: Sections 42.001, 42.002, and 42.0021 do not apply against a properly established one, with a single exception — the education-savings accounts described in Section 42.0021(a)(8) through (10) stay protected even against a child support lien.
How This Fits Alongside an LLC
The personal property exemption and an LLC solve different-shaped problems, and neither substitutes for the other. This exemption is automatic, requires no filing, and covers a fixed list of belongings up to a dollar cap that does not move with inflation or with what is actually owned. An LLC's protection — covered in full on our Asset Protection Strategies page — has to be formed correctly and kept genuinely separate from personal finances, but it is not limited to $100,000 or to a statutory list; it can hold a rental property, a brokerage account, or a growing business, none of which Chapter 42 touches. Most Texans end up needing both: the homestead and personal-property exemptions covering what the law already protects automatically, and an LLC covering everything the statute leaves exposed.
Conclusion
None of the Section 42.001/42.002 protection takes any paperwork — it attaches automatically to the listed categories up to the dollar cap the moment a creditor comes looking, and the retirement-account exemption in Section 42.0021 goes further still, with no cap at all. What none of it will do is stretch to cover cash, investments, a second property, or a business, and it will not survive a transfer made specifically to defeat a known claim. For everything the statute does not reach, the plan is the same as it is everywhere else on this site: build the entity before the claim arrives, not after.