All guides/Texas

Guides for working in Texas

Name: AEC Stack
Author: AEC Stack

Explore Texas trade licensing, public bids, business taxes, bonds and mechanics lien workflows.

38 guides in this market. Search and every subject below stay within Texas.

California Florida Ontario United Kingdom

Browse a section

1
Set the business up
The entity, the registrations and the accounts, in the order the paperwork actually happens.
- Start a Texas construction business
- Form the LLC: what $300 buys you
2
Find the work
Permits, tenders and bid lists, read the way an estimator reads them.
3
Win the bid
Prequalification packets, bid-ready checklists and the paperwork that gets you on the list.
4
Price it
What an hour really costs, the markup you set on purpose, and assumptions in writing.
5
Get paid
Invoices, the statutory clocks, and the remedy that matches the amount.
6
Stay compliant
The tax, comp and licensing regimes that decide whether the work was legal to begin with.

No license to wait for6

Texas has no contractor licenseTexas does not issue a general contractor license: GC, framing, roofing, painting, concrete, drywall and flooring are state-unregulated on purpose. Only electrical and HVAC (TDLR), plumbing (TSBPE), irrigation (TCEQ) and fire sprinkler (TDI) are gated. The real gates are your city and the certificate of insurance.Register in the right Texas cityTexas has no state contractor license, so the permit desk decides. Houston asks a general contractor for nothing and Austin is free, Dallas is $120 a year, Fort Worth is $168.75, and San Antonio wants $150 plus an FBI background check. Five cities, with the fees, the terms and what each one asks you to attach.Roofing in Texas without a licenseTexas issues no roofing license, so you can be quoting re-roofs this month. What actually gates the work is the WPI-8 certificate across 14 first-tier coastal counties, the ASTM D7158 Class H shingle spec, and city registration that runs from free in Austin to $120 a year in Dallas.Bid your own concrete work in TexasTexas licenses electricians and plumbers, not concrete. What actually gates your first bid is a folder: city registration, a certificate with completed operations on it, commercial auto, and the comp decision. Plus the yield table, the pour date cash gap and the subgrade change order that concrete crews argue most.The Texas framing sub they call firstTexas licenses no framers, so you can be on site next week. What the square foot bid has to include, labor-only versus turnkey, a lumber escalation clause a builder will sign, the three-draw schedule, and the 10 percent Tex. Prop. Code s.53.101 already holds for you.Drywall and painting in TexasTexas does not license drywall contractors or painters, so the quote decides the money instead of a board. What gates you is the city permit desk, the insurance certificate, the comp election, and the EPA lead rule on pre-1978 homes. Then the finish level table that stops a level 4 price buying level 5 work.

Setting the business up2

Start a Texas construction business Form the LLC: what $300 buys you

Finding work3

Where work is starting in Texas Find Texas construction bids Get on Texas GC bid lists

Bidding and prequalification3

Find Texas construction bids Get on Texas GC bid lists Texas bid ready checklist

Pricing and estimating3

What an hour costs you in Texas Price a Texas job Bid your own concrete work in Texas

Getting paid5

Get paid in 35 days, or stop workTexas Property Code Chapter 28 gives a private owner 35 days to pay your written payment request, then 1.5 percent a month on what is late. Ten days after one written notice you can suspend work without breaching the contract, and bill demobilization and remobilization before you come back.Get your Texas retainage backTexas makes the owner reserve 10 percent under Prop. Code s.53.101, through the job and for 30 days past completion. The retainage written into your own contract is a second claim with its own notice under s.53.057. Two piles, two notices, two clocks, with the dates counted for you.When a Texas client stops payingFive moves in order, cheapest first: the Chapter 28 interest line at 1.5 percent a month, the ten day letter that lets you stop work and bill remobilization, the monthly notice that makes the owner hold your money, the lien affidavit, then suit. Homestead jobs run their own path.Bill the month, get paid in TexasIn Texas the month you did the work is a legal fact: lien notices count from it, so an invoice that blurs March into April costs you a notice. This is what goes on the face of a Texas invoice, from the sales tax election your contract already made to the ten percent shown as held instead of missing.Take the Texas hail workTexas hail is a repair market with a season, and the state's own rules favor the local crew. The deductible ban in Bus. & Com. Code 27.02, the Chapter 58 deposit exemption for a one-year local address, the three-day cancellation that voids a rival's paperwork, and the labor tax exemption after a declared disaster.

Lien rights and deadlines5

Make the owner hold your moneyA Texas sub or supplier who sends one page a month puts the owner on the hook for holding money back against the claim. Commercial notice is due the 15th of the third month after the work, residential the second, and the month worked is a bucket you can miss. Worked 2026 dates inside.Texas lien dates that do not come backTexas counts your lien deadline in whole months and lands it on the 15th, so settle your role once and the date falls out. Deadline table for original contractors and subs, commercial and residential, plus the five day copy rule under s.53.055 and the one year you get to sue under s.53.158.Get paid in 35 days, or stop workTexas Property Code Chapter 28 gives a private owner 35 days to pay your written payment request, then 1.5 percent a month on what is late. Ten days after one written notice you can suspend work without breaching the contract, and bill demobilization and remobilization before you come back.Get your Texas retainage backTexas makes the owner reserve 10 percent under Prop. Code s.53.101, through the job and for 30 days past completion. The retainage written into your own contract is a second claim with its own notice under s.53.057. Two piles, two notices, two clocks, with the dates counted for you.When a Texas client stops payingFive moves in order, cheapest first: the Chapter 28 interest line at 1.5 percent a month, the ten day letter that lets you stop work and bill remobilization, the monthly notice that makes the owner hold your money, the lien affidavit, then suit. Homestead jobs run their own path.

Public work and bond claims1

Payment bonds on Texas public jobs

Sales tax1

Stop eating the Texas sales tax

Franchise tax3

The tax bill Texas does not send Form the LLC: what $300 buys you Texas Contractor Taxes

Workers' comp2

Workers comp is optional in Texas Running a 1099 crew in Texas

Storm and insurance work2

Roofing in Texas without a license Take the Texas hail work

The electrical ladder4

Texas electrician license ladderTexas counts the whole electrical ladder in hours worked: 4,000 for residential wireman on a $20 application, 8,000 for journeyman, 12,000 plus two years held for master. The top rung is the TECL, a business license you can hold in your own name. Every licensed rung renews annually on 4 hours of CE.Master electrician: own the shopTexas gates the master license at 12,000 hours, two years holding a journeyman license and one exam, for a $45 fee. The rung matters because a master can be assigned to just one electrical contractor, so every TECL in the state runs through somebody, and it may as well be your own company.Journeyman electrician in TexasTexas counts the electrical trade in hours, not semesters: 8,000 of on the job training under a master, with the exam open at 7,000. Plan the test date around the hour count and the card lands the week your hours do. The hours table, the annual 4 hour CE, and how to keep a record no employer can lose.TECL: contract under your own nameThe TECL is the Texas license that sits on the business, not the person: your company must be or employ a master electrician, carry $300k per occurrence under 16 TAC 73.40, and pay about $110 a year. Here is the filing, the startup cost table, and how to price the work so it pays for itself.

The plumbing ladder4

Texas plumbing license, rung by rungPlumbing is the one Texas trade the state licenses on its own board, and the top rung is the right to contract with the public. Here is the full TSBPE ladder: 4,000 hours to tradesman, 8,000 to journeyman, three doors into master at a $25 fee, and the insurance certificate that makes you an RMP.Become a Texas master plumberTexas issues no license to a plumbing company. A plumbing business is a master plumber who holds the Responsible Master Plumber designation, so the $25 TSBPE exam application is the form for owning your own shop. Three qualifying routes, the real fees, and what a master on staff is worth.Journeyman plumber in TexasTexas journeyman plumber is 8,000 hours under a licensed plumber, 48 hours of board-approved classroom and the exam. The rung underneath it, Tradesman Plumber-Limited at 4,000 hours and 24 classroom hours, is a real licence for one-family and two-family dwellings that plenty of apprentices walk straight past.RMP: plumb in your own nameTexas issues no plumbing company license. The Responsible Master Plumber designation attaches to you, and the only gate on top of your master license is a $300,000 general liability certificate filed with the board before you work. The filing order, the startup cost and how to price the work are all here.

HVAC and irrigation2

Texas HVAC license: Class A or B Irrigation license: TCEQ, not TDLR

Insurance and certificates1

Your COI is the Texas license

Count it instead of reading about it

Hourly rate calculator
Overhead, billable days and the wage you want in. The hourly rate that pays for all three.
Markup and margin calculator
Add twenty percent to your costs and you keep sixteen point seven. Enter one job and see the price, the profit, both percentages, and what the mix-up is worth in dollars.
Texas lien deadline calculator
Texas counts to the 15th of a month. Tell it the month you did the work and it counts the notice that traps the owner money, the affidavit, and the day the lien has to be sued on.
Texas prompt payment calculator
One date in: the day you sent the payment request. Out comes the day the owner was legally late, the day the money reaches you through the general, and the day you can put the tools down without breaching.

The dates that cost Texas contractors money

One email a month. The lien deadline and prompt payment arithmetic this site already does for you, the dates it turns on, and every new guide the day it goes up.

Texas lien deadline calculator: The 15th-of-the-month arithmetic, done. Monthly fund-trapping notices and the affidavit deadline, commercial or residential.
Texas prompt payment calculator: When the money was legally due under chapter 28, counted the whole way down: the owner period plus the pass-through to you.
Every new guide the day it goes up. 38 are live for Texas right now, the most recent being "What an hour costs you in Texas" on 20 August 2026.

No account. AEC Stack sends this and every email carries a one-click unsubscribe. Privacy policy.

Read it, or run it

Put the next step into practice. Explore opportunities, quotes, project work and finances in a connected sample business.

Open a working business

AEC Stack.

For the business you are building.
For the projects you are moving forward.

TikTok Instagram X LinkedIn YouTube

Platform

Business setup
Find work
CRM & proposals
Workshop
Invoicing & Books

Solutions

Starting a business
Running a business

Resources

Who's hiring now
Guides & playbooks
Canadian AI for Construction
Help & support
FAQ
About AEC Stack

Let's talk

A question about your business or a project?

[email protected]

Privacy Terms Disclaimer

Set the business up

Find the work

Win the bid

Price it

Get paid

Stay compliant