VIA Metropolitan Transit wants to add a tax to local phone bills to help it improve bus frequency and reduce wait times for riders.
The new line item on residents’ and businesses’ cellphone bills would run about 9 cents for every $100, VIA told the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week, which agreed to send the request to the full council for approval.
The money VIA hopes to raise from the proposed tax, between $6 million and $8 million, would help fund its Better Bus Plan, which aims to shorten wait times for half of VIA’s ridership from an hour to 30 minutes or less.
“We believe the impact to the cellphone user is minimal, but the impact to VIA and even the City of San Antonio can be significant,” Rod Sanchez, VIA’s senior vice president of planning and development, said at the Monday committee meeting.
But why is the local transit system asking the city to allow it to add this tax to local cellphone bills, given that it already receives a share of local sales tax from the city — and is poised in January 2026 to get slightly more?
It’s complicated, involving a tax on phone services that was taken away, then put back — sort of. And it’s also simple, said Jon Gary Herrera, VIA’s senior vice president of public engagement.
VIA is “the most underfunded transit agency in Texas,” he said, and is one of the last transit agencies to take advantage of the ability to add the cellphone bill tax to raise additional funds.
How is VIA funded?
In Texas, 6.25% of sales taxes collected go to the state. Municipalities can add up to 2% local sales tax, with up to 1% going to transit systems. In San Antonio, VIA receives three-quarters of that 1%.
In January 2026, VIA will start to get another one-eighth cent, which is now going to the city’s Ready to Work workforce development program. That will bring its tax revenue up to seven-eighths of a penny.
Now onto the new-but-not-really cellphone tax.
Once upon a time, telecommunication services in Texas were taxed like other goods. But in 1987, the Texas Legislature removed those services (back then mostly landlines) from its list of taxable items, which eliminated those local sales tax charges on customers’ monthly phone bills.
The caveat was that municipalities could vote to remove the exemption and charge the tax. Like a lot of cities, San Antonio did just that — but it only added back 1.25% of the total 2% it could have been charging.
VIA is now seeking that additional .75%, which would put it in line with transit agencies across the state. According to the Texas comptroller, more than 255 cities, 40 counties and 200 special purpose districts have added the tax to monthly cellphone bills, including in Austin, Corpus Christi and Dallas.
Incorporated cities inside San Antonio have already agreed to add the tax onto monthly cellphone bills, including Leon Valley, Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills, Shavano Park, Castle Hills and Balcones Heights. Olmos Park will vote on the tax in November.
San Antonio City Council will discuss the tax at a future B session meeting.
If all jurisdictions approve, the state comptroller’s office will notify the telecom companies so that the tax is added to the cellphone bill of all customers in VIA’s service area.
The average cellphone bill in San Antonio is $144, according to the city. Exactly how much the tax would add to a bill depends on the services each customer has with its cellphone provider — the tax only applies to certain goods and services, not the entire bill.
City Council’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee expressed concern over the request but agreed to send it to the full council for a vote later this month.
“A few years ago we authorized giving VIA $10 million a year to increase service. I think most of us would agree, we haven’t increased service,” said District 9 Councilman John Courage.
VIA officials reassured council members that in addition to improving bus frequency, the Better Bus Plan would expand VIA Link services, add design enhancements and explore more transit solutions, by phases at routes most used.
But even adding the tax won’t bring in enough revenue to fully fund the five-year plan, said Sanchez, and the transit authority will have to seek other sources of funding.
That’s why this additional revenue is critical to getting VIA closer to its goal, Herrera told the San Antonio Report. “San Antonio, we’re pretty spread out. We need to be able to reach those locations people need to go.”
Reporter Tracy Idell Hamilton contributed to this article.
Disclosure: VIA Metropolitan Transit is a financial supporter of the San Antonio Report. For a full list of our business members, click here.