When is the Texas monthly notice due?

On the 15th day of the third month after the month the work was done on a commercial job, and the 15th day of the second month after it on a one to four family residential job. Texas counts from the month, so the day of the month you worked makes no difference to the deadline.

What does the monthly notice actually do?

It traps funds. Once the owner has your notice under Tex. Prop. Code s.53.056, the money still owed to the original contractor is money the owner is on notice to hold back for you. A month you never sent a notice for is a month of unsecured work, whatever you do afterwards.

When must a Texas lien affidavit be filed?

On the 15th day of the fourth month after the month the indebtedness accrued on a commercial job, and the third month on residential. If you are the original contractor, the clock runs from the month the contract was completed, terminated or abandoned instead of from the month of the work.

Is contractual retainage covered by the monthly notices?

No. Retainage held under your own written contract carries its own notice under s.53.057, counted from your agreement being completed, terminated or abandoned rather than from a calendar month. It is a separate claim with a separate clock, and it is the one most often missed.

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Texas, United States

Texas lien deadline calculator

Texas counts to the 15th of a month, not in days from your last day on site. Tell it the month you did the work, and it counts the notice that traps the owner's money, the affidavit, and the day the lien has to be sued on.

The job

Who did you contract with?

Sub, sub-sub or supplierOriginal contractor

You contracted with someone other than the owner. The monthly notice is yours, and it is what puts the owner on the hook to hold money back for you.

What kind of property?

CommercialResidential

Anything that is not one to four family residential. The monthly notice and the affidavit each get a month longer than they do on residential work.

Month you did the work

Not the day. Texas counts whole months, so a job worked on the 2nd and a job worked on the 30th of the same month share a deadline. One month of work, one notice.

If you have already filed

Filing starts one more clock, and it is short.

Date you filed the lien affidavit

A copy goes to the owner, and to the original contractor if you are not one, within five days of filing under s.53.055.

Enter the month you did the work

Every obligation below is listed either way, dated or not. A deadline that could not be counted says which input it is waiting for, because the obligation nobody dated is the one that costs somebody their lien.

Why the notice is the whole game

The monthly notice under s.53.056 is not a formality you send so a lien is valid later. It is the instrument itself. Once the owner has it, the money still owed to the original contractor becomes money the owner is on notice to hold for you, which is why Texas practitioners call it fund trapping. That is leverage arriving months before anybody is arguing.

It runs per month of work, so it is a monthly habit rather than a one-off at the end of a job. A month you never noticed is unsecured for good, and no amount of correct filing afterwards reaches back to it.

Retainage held under your own written contract sits outside all of this. It carries its own notice under s.53.057, counted from your agreement ending rather than from a calendar month, and it is the claim most often lost by a contractor who did everything else right.

Questions this page answers

When is the Texas monthly notice due?: On the 15th day of the third month after the month the work was done on a commercial job, and the 15th day of the second month after it on a one to four family residential job. Texas counts from the month, so the day of the month you worked makes no difference to the deadline.
What does the monthly notice actually do?: It traps funds. Once the owner has your notice under Tex. Prop. Code s.53.056, the money still owed to the original contractor is money the owner is on notice to hold back for you. A month you never sent a notice for is a month of unsecured work, whatever you do afterwards.
When must a Texas lien affidavit be filed?: On the 15th day of the fourth month after the month the indebtedness accrued on a commercial job, and the third month on residential. If you are the original contractor, the clock runs from the month the contract was completed, terminated or abandoned instead of from the month of the work.
Is contractual retainage covered by the monthly notices?: No. Retainage held under your own written contract carries its own notice under s.53.057, counted from your agreement being completed, terminated or abandoned rather than from a calendar month. It is a separate claim with a separate clock, and it is the one most often missed.

Or stop counting months by hand

Every invoice you raise carries the month it covers, so the notice date for that month is already known. Put the job on the board once and the deadlines sit against it with a countdown, instead of living in a calendar reminder somebody has to remember to set.

The held-back money gets the same treatment: one tracker, one countdown, and a heads-up on the day it becomes claimable. There is no monthly charge for any of it.

Open the demo business Read the monthly notice guide

Where these figures come from

notice_day_of_month (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
monthly_notice_months_commercial (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
monthly_notice_months_residential (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
lien_affidavit_months_commercial (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
lien_affidavit_months_residential (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
post_filing_copy_service_days (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
retainage_claim_notice_days (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.
lien_foreclosure_months (US-TX) Published source Last read from the source Aug 12, 2026.

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