Get City of Houston Services Done

A Straight Answer to Everyday Houston Questions

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the country, and its services are spread across the City of Houston, Harris County, and a handful of separate districts and appraisal offices. That structure is one reason a simple question, like which day your recycling goes out or how to lower your property tax bill, can send you clicking through several official sites before you find the one page you needed. ACE Houston exists to close that gap. We read the official rules, follow the real steps ourselves, and write them up in plain language so you can act in minutes instead of an afternoon.

Every guide points you back to the official source. When we explain a homestead exemption, we link to the Harris Central Appraisal District form. When we cover a water bill dispute, we link to the city department that handles it. We are an independent publication, not the government, so our job is to translate and to route you to the right official page, never to replace it. If a rule changes, the official site is always the final word, and we say so on every page.

The site is organized around the tasks residents search for most: reporting a problem through 311, handling trash and recycling, paying and understanding a water bill, navigating property taxes and exemptions, and pulling building permits. Use the finder at the top of the page to jump straight to what you need, browse the guides below, or start with the most requested resources. New guides are added as we work through the questions Houstonians ask, and local experts are welcome to contribute.

Who this site is for

ACE Houston is written for renters, homeowners, and small landlords who just need to get a city task done. A renter who wants to report a pothole outside the building, a first-time homeowner filing a homestead exemption, a family sorting out heavy trash before a move, and a small-business owner pulling a permit for a build-out all run into the same problem: the answer exists on an official page, but finding the right page and the right step takes longer than it should. Every guide here is built to get you from question to action quickly, then hand you off to the official site to finish.

We keep the writing plain on purpose. City processes are full of terms that make sense to the department and no one else, so we define them, put the steps in order, and flag the deadline or fee that trips people up. When a rule has an exception that matters, we say so. When a task is genuinely simple, we keep the guide short rather than padding it. The goal is a resource you can read on your phone in a few minutes and act on the same day.

How to use ACE Houston

Start with the finder at the top of the page if you know the task, since typing a word like water, trash, permit, or tax jumps you straight to the right guide. Browse the guide list if you are not sure what you need, or scan the most-requested resources for the tasks Houstonians look up most. Each guide ends with the official link, so you always finish on a government site, and each one carries the date we last reviewed it so you can judge how current it is. If something looks out of date or wrong, tell us, and we will check it against the source and fix it.