Texas Landlord-Tenant Laws: A Verified 2026 Guide for Rental Owners

The short answer. There is no single Texas landlord-tenant law. An ordinary residential rental in Texas is governed by a stack: Property Code Chapters 92, 91, and 24, the Texas Supreme Court's eviction rule, federal fair-housing and consumer-report duties, your signed lease, and the rules of your city, county, and justice precinct. Which layer controls depends on the tenancy stage and the specific address. Build that stack for your property before you send a notice, charge a fee, withhold a deposit, or act on a screening report — and note that both the eviction statute and the eviction court rules changed on January 1, 2026, so any Texas eviction guide published before then is stale on procedure.

On this page

• Texas landlord-tenant laws: the statewide answer
• What this guide covers, and what it does not
• Texas landlord-law matrix by tenancy stage
  • Before signing
  • Money: rent, fees, and deposits
  • During the tenancy
  • Ending the tenancy
• Before signing: fair housing, screening, applications, and the lease
• Money rules: rent, late fees, receipts, and security deposits
  • Late fees: the trigger, the cap, and the daily-fee trap
  • Security deposits: the amount and the accounting are two questions
• Repairs, safety devices, utilities, and retaliation
  • What to do when a repair notice arrives
  • Security devices, alarms, utilities, and lockouts
• Ending a tenancy and the current eviction process
• What it costs to get these wrong
• Verify the local and private rule stack for your property
  • If you have already acted
  • Local rules by metro: where to check
  • Locally protected classes in the five largest metros
• What changed recently and how this page is verified
• Choosing screening and record-keeping help at a glance
• Frequently asked questions
• Build the property rule stack before acting
• Sources and last verified date

Texas landlord-tenant laws: the statewide answer

Statewide rules verified July 28, 2026; the 2025–2026 changes and the disclosure, entry, occupancy, and security-device rows re-verified August 9, 2026; the eviction-notice, late-fee, deposit-penalty, and every local row re-verified August 10, 2026 · next scheduled verification November 9, 2026.

The layers do not carry equal weight, and knowing which one you are reading matters as much as knowing the rule. Texas Property Code Chapter 92 carries most day-to-day duties. Chapter 91 governs terminating a periodic tenancy. Chapter 24, plus the current Rule 510 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, governs eviction. Above all three sit federal fair-housing and consumer-report duties. Below them sit your signed lease and the local and court overlays attached to the specific address, which can add requirements but cannot erase a nonwaivable statutory duty. Which layer controls a given question depends on the tenancy stage, the property type and unit count, the city, county, and justice precinct, and what the lease says. "Texas is landlord-friendly" is a slogan, not a compliance rule: the statutes attach specific conditions, deadlines, records, and penalties to almost every routine landlord action.

Where to start

• You bought or inherited the property and someone is already living in it. Start with the signed lease and the tenancy type — you took the tenancy on the terms it already has — then work the local checklist for the address before you change anything.
• You have not advertised the property or accepted an application yet. Start with fair housing, written selection criteria, the consumer-report rules, and the disclosures that must accompany the lease.
• You are setting rent, a late fee, or a deposit — or holding a deposit after a move-out. Start with the money rules, and treat the amount, the trigger, the disclosure, and the accounting as four separate questions.
• A tenant has given you notice of a needed repair. Go straight to the repair-response sequence and start the clock; the retaliation window attaches the moment the notice arrives.
• A tenant has stopped paying, or you want them out. Do not change the locks, cut utilities, or remove belongings — those are separately actionable no matter what the tenant owes. Read the termination and eviction section, and note that the form of notice you must send now depends on whether the tenant was late before this month.
• You are ending a tenancy for another reason. Read the termination and eviction section before you send any notice, because the statute and the court rules both changed on January 1, 2026.
• The tenancy is contested, subsidized, covered by a special housing regime, in active litigation, or two sources in your rule stack appear to conflict. Stop and bring in a qualified Texas landlord-tenant attorney, your insurance professional, or the relevant permit or court office before you act.

The Texas landlord rule stack

Rule class	Who sets or holds it	What it changes for you
Federal law and agency guidance	Congress; HUD; FTC	Sets the fair-housing and consumer-report floor for every screening and leasing decision.
Texas statute	Texas Legislature — Property Code Chapters 91, 92, 24; Local Government Code Chapters 214, 250	Sets the statewide baseline for applications, leases, fees, deposits, repairs, retaliation, and pre-eviction notice, and limits what a city may regulate.
Statewide court rule	Texas Supreme Court — Rule 510	Controls how an eviction case actually proceeds in justice court.
Local rule	City, county, and the property's justice court	Can add registration, inspection, property standards, protected classes, and court-specific forms and orders.
Lease and private terms	You, the tenant, and any HOA, lender, or insurer	Can add or adjust obligations where the law permits; cannot erase nonwaivable statutory duties.
Editorial workflow	Rental Income HQ	A verification sequence for owners — transparent guidance, not law.

Every consequential row on this page carries one of six statuses: Verified, Verified with limitation, Partial, Blocked, Not applicable, or Superseded. A missing field is labeled — it is never treated as permission, zero, or "no rule."

Your first action, and when to get help

The first action is the same for every situation: build the rule stack for your specific property before you act on it. Record the address, city, county, and justice precinct, the property type and unit count, whether you live in the property, and the tenancy type; pull the signed lease; then open the current statewide source for your tenancy stage and save dated copies of everything you rely on. The rest of this page gives you the statewide lifecycle matrix, the workflows behind its highest-risk rows, what each failure actually costs, the 2025–2026 change log, and the local verification work — including named city rules for the five largest Texas metros — that makes the matrix true for your address.

What this guide covers, and what it does not

This page is a statewide baseline for ordinary residential long-term rentals in Texas: a house, condo unit, duplex, or small multifamily dwelling rented as someone's residence under a lease. It is maintained by an independent publisher and is legal information with dated sources — not legal advice, and not a substitute for the current statute, your lease, or qualified Texas counsel.

The answer to almost every question below depends on inputs you supply: the exact address and its city, county, and justice precinct; the property type and unit count; whether you occupy part of the property; the tenancy type; any special program status; and the signed lease and management agreement.

Covered by this statewide baseline	Needs its own official source or counsel first
Ordinary residential long-term rentals under Property Code Chapter 92	Manufactured-home communities and lot leases
Single-family homes, condo units, duplexes, small multifamily	Public, subsidized, or otherwise federally covered housing programs
Self-managed properties and properties under a manager	Commercial leases and mixed commercial use
Month-to-month and fixed-term residential tenancies	Hotel stays and short-term rentals — see Texas short-term rental rules
Pre-lease screening through move-out accounting	Properties in active litigation, receivership, or under court order

Five things this page deliberately leaves to their owning source, so you can tell an omission from a gap: eviction procedure past the four stages below — filing deadlines, service mechanics, appeals, bonds, and writs — which belongs to the current rule text and your specific court; the mechanics of comparing screening and software products, which belongs to the tenant-screening services page; the national state-by-state deposit comparison, which belongs to security-deposit rules by state; the choice between a long-term and a short-term rental, which belongs to lease or host; and the tax treatment of rental income — depreciation, Schedule E, and what converting a homestead to a rental does to your property-tax exemption — which is a question for a CPA or a qualified tax professional, not a landlord-tenant question. Everything below assumes the long-term path.

Terms that decide the outcome

Term	What it means here, and why it decides something
Surrender	The tenant giving up possession. Chapter 92 keys the deposit clock to surrender, not to the lease end date, and the two are frequently different. Fix the date in writing at move-out.
Normal wear and tear	Under § 92.001, deterioration from the intended use of the dwelling, including breakage or malfunction from age or deteriorated condition — but not deterioration from negligence, carelessness, accident, or abuse by the tenant, the tenant's household, or a guest. You may never deduct for it.
Materially affects health or safety	The threshold that triggers the statutory repair duty in Subchapter B. It is a legal line, not a severity scale — a condition below it can still be a genuine hazard.
Diligent effort within a reasonable time	The repair standard in § 92.056. Seven days is presumed reasonable and the presumption is rebuttable in both directions.
Bad faith	In the deposit context, the state of mind that triggers the penalty in § 92.109 — and it is presumed against you when the accounting is late.
Consumer report	A third-party screening report, score, or recommendation. It is not the same as a landlord reference you call yourself or information the applicant hands you, and it carries permissible-purpose, authorization, adverse-action, and disposal duties the others do not.
Notice to vacate vs. termination notice	Two different instruments at two different stages. Ending the tenancy comes first; the pre-suit notice to vacate under Chapter 24 comes after. Using one for the other is the most common defect in owner filings.
Quiet enjoyment	The tenant's right to possess and use the dwelling without unreasonable interference from you. Because Chapter 92 sets no entry-notice period, quiet enjoyment plus your lease clause is what actually constrains your entry.
Habitability	Not one statutory standard in Texas. Your statutory repair duty runs to conditions that materially affect an ordinary tenant's health or safety; city property-standards codes, the security-device subchapter, and the smoke-alarm subchapter each impose their own separate obligations.
Justice precinct	The geographic division of a county whose justice court hears the eviction. The suit belongs in the precinct where the property sits, and each court posts its own local rules, forms, and standing orders.

Texas landlord-law matrix by tenancy stage

Statuses use the vocabulary above and carry the date the row was verified. Effective dates appear next to recently changed rules. Each row links to the section or official page that supports it. The local-overlay column tells you what must still be checked for your specific address — a check requirement, not a claim about your city.

Two reading rules make this matrix safe to use. First, every baseline below is conditional — the trigger and property scope travel with the number, so quoting "30 days" or "12 percent" without its condition misstates the law. Second, a Partial or Blocked status means the field has not been fully verified; it never means the rule doesn't exist or that you have permission. As of this verification date, no row in the four stage tables below carries either status; one row in the local tables further down does, and says so.

Before signing

Texas rule and owner question	Statewide baseline: trigger and condition	Authority, status, and verification date	Record to keep	Local or private overlay
Texas — Advertising and criteria. What standards may I use to pick a tenant?	Federal and Texas fair-housing law prohibit discrimination on protected characteristics in advertising, terms, and selection. Use written criteria decided before you advertise and applied identically to every applicant.	Federal and state agency — HUD and TWC Civil Rights Division · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026	Written criteria; copies of every ad	Some Texas cities add locally protected classes — check the city's fair-housing ordinance before finalizing criteria
Texas — Consumer reports. What must happen before I act on a screening report?	A consumer report requires a permissible purpose and the applicant's authorization. If the report influences any unfavorable decision, an adverse-action notice is required, with dispute rights and secure disposal of report data.	Federal — FTC landlord guidance on the FCRA · Verified · Jul 28, 2026	Authorization; criteria worksheet; adverse-action notice copy	Local rules can restrict how records are used — check before adopting criteria
Texas — Application criteria notice. What notice goes with the application form?	When you provide a rental application, you must make printed selection criteria and grounds for denial available and collect a signed acknowledgment. Reject an applicant without having made the notice available and you must refund the application fee and any application deposit.	Texas statute — § 92.3515 · Verified · Jul 28, 2026	Signed acknowledgment with each application	Program rules can add requirements
Texas — Required disclosures. What must be handed over at or before signing?	Two flood notices under § 92.0135: whether you are aware the dwelling is in a 100-year floodplain, and — if you know the dwelling has flooded at least once in the five years before the lease — whether you are aware of that flooding. Both go in a written document signed by landlord and tenant at or before execution. Separately, § 92.201 requires disclosure of the record title holder's name and address, and any off-site management company's name and street address, to a tenant or a government official on request. Federal law adds the lead-based paint disclosure for housing built before 1978.	Texas statute — § 92.0135 and § 92.201 · Verified · Aug 9, 2026	Signed disclosure documents filed with the lease; dated response to any § 92.201 request	Cities can require additional notices; HOA and lender documents can add their own
Texas — Lease copy. When must the tenant receive the signed lease?	At least one complete copy must go to a tenant who is a party to the lease no later than the third business day after the lease is signed by each party; additional tenant copies follow the same clock after a written request.	Texas statute — § 92.024 · Verified · Jul 28, 2026	Proof of delivery	None identified statewide as of Aug 9, 2026
Texas — Occupancy limits. How many people may I allow to live there?	The maximum number of adults a landlord may allow is three times the number of bedrooms. "Adult" means 18 or older, and "bedroom" excludes kitchens, dining rooms, bathrooms, living rooms, utility rooms, closets, and storage areas. A higher rate is allowed where fair-housing law requires it, and for an adult seeking temporary sanctuary from family violence for up to one month. This is a ceiling on what you may allow — it is not authority to set a lower limit that excludes families with children.	Texas statute — § 92.010 · Verified · Aug 9, 2026	Written occupancy standard and the physical basis for it	City building and housing codes can set their own occupancy standards

Money: rent, fees, and deposits

Texas rule and owner question	Statewide baseline: trigger and condition	Authority, status, and verification date	Record to keep	Local or private overlay
Texas — Late fees. When can I charge a late fee, and how much?	Only if the written lease includes notice of the fee, the fee is reasonable, and some portion of rent remains unpaid two full days after the due date. A fee is presumed reasonable at or below 12% of the rental period's rent for a structure with four or fewer dwelling units, or 10% for more than four; combined initial and daily fees count as a single fee.	Texas statute — § 92.019, current text effective September 1, 2019 under S.B. 1414 · Verified · Aug 10, 2026	Lease clause; rent ledger	The lease sets the amount within the statute
Texas — Cash rent. What if a tenant pays in cash?	A landlord who receives a cash rental payment must give the tenant a written receipt and record the date and amount.	Texas statute — § 92.011 · Verified · Jul 28, 2026	Receipt copy; payment record	The lease can specify payment methods
Texas — Deposit amount. How much may I collect?	No cap on a residential security deposit appears in Chapter 92. The amount comes from the lease, market practice, and your own consistent screening criteria. Limitation: this is a negative finding read from the chapter's text rather than an affirmative statutory statement — confirm against the current chapter before relying on an unusually large deposit.	Texas statute — Chapter 92, Subchapter C · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026	Written, consistently applied deposit standard	Program rules and insurer requirements can cap or condition it
Texas — Deposit accounting. When must the refund and itemization go out?	Refund on or before the 30th day after the tenant surrenders the premises. The duty to refund or itemize is not triggered until the tenant gives a written forwarding address — but the tenant never forfeits the deposit by omitting one. Deductions require a written itemized list and may not cover normal wear and tear. Since September 1, 2025, notice and other communications under this subchapter may be sent by e-mail if the tenant and the landlord or the landlord's agent have previously communicated by e-mail.	Texas statute — §§ 92.101–92.110 and § 92.113, added by H.B. 2037 · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026	Move-in and move-out photos; itemization; mailing or delivery proof	Advance-notice-of-surrender conditions must be conspicuous in the lease
Texas — Fee in lieu of deposit. Can I offer a monthly fee instead of a deposit?	Only as a true option: the tenant must also be offered a deposit, the choice cannot affect approval, the agreement must be written and signed, required disclosures apply — including the tenant's right to switch to a deposit and stop the fee — and a fee used to buy insurance is capped at the reasonable cost of obtaining and administering that insurance.	Texas statute — § 92.111 · Verified with limitation · Jul 28, 2026	Signed fee agreement and disclosures	None identified statewide as of Aug 9, 2026

During the tenancy

Texas rule and owner question	Statewide baseline: trigger and condition	Authority, status, and verification date	Record to keep	Local or private overlay
Texas — Repair duty. What triggers my duty to repair?	After the tenant gives notice and is not delinquent in rent, you must make a diligent effort to repair a condition that materially affects an ordinary tenant's health or safety within a reasonable time — presumed seven days, rebuttable by the condition's severity and the availability of materials, labor, and utilities.	Texas statute — §§ 92.052–92.056 · Verified with limitation · Jul 28, 2026	Tenant notice; work orders; invoices; dated photos	City property standards can add duties
Texas — Repair and deduct. Who may do the work, and how much can the tenant take?	A tenant's deduction may not exceed one month's rent under the lease or $500, whichever is greater. Repairs made under a tenant's notice of intent to repair must be made by an independent company, contractor, or repairman — licensed where the municipality requires a license. The independence requirement replaced the old telephone-directory listing rule effective September 1, 2025.	Texas statute — § 92.0561, amended by H.B. 2037 · Verified · Aug 9, 2026	Tenant's repair bill and receipt	Municipal contractor licensing
Texas — Security devices. What locks must the property have, and when do I rekey?	Subchapter D requires specified devices without any tenant request — a window latch on each exterior window, a keyless bolting device and a door viewer on each exterior door, keyed locking on the door the statute designates, and a pin lock plus a handle latch or security bar on each exterior sliding glass door, with height and installation requirements per section. Rekeying is at your expense not later than the seventh day after each tenant turnover date.	Texas statute — Subchapter D, §§ 92.151–92.170, rekeying at § 92.156 · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026 · Limitation: which doors require which device turns on § 92.153(b), which this page summarizes rather than reproduces	Rekey and installation invoices	Local fire and property codes
Texas — Smoke alarms. What must be installed, where, and when?	At least one alarm in each separate bedroom; inside the room where a unit uses a single room for dining, living, and sleeping; at least one in a corridor serving multiple bedrooms, in their immediate vicinity; and at least one on each level of a multi-level unit. Mounting follows the manufacturer's procedure — on a ceiling, no closer than six inches to a wall; on a wall, six to twelve inches from the ceiling — unless a local ordinance or fire marshal approves otherwise. You must determine the alarm is in good working order at the start of the tenant's possession. During the term, the inspect-and-repair duty arises only on the tenant's notice of malfunction or request, and you need not supply batteries after possession if the alarm worked at move-in.	Texas statute — § 92.255, § 92.257, § 92.258 · Verified · Aug 9, 2026	Signed move-in acknowledgment that alarms were tested and working; dated repair records	Unusually, § 92.252 makes this subchapter's duties and remedies apply in lieu of common law, other statutes, and local ordinances on the same subject — read it before assuming a city rule adds to them
Texas — Entry. How much notice must I give before entering?	No advance-notice requirement for landlord entry appears in Chapter 92. Entry is governed by your lease and the tenant's right to quiet enjoyment, which means the lease clause is the operative rule — write the notice period and permitted purposes into it and follow them. Limitation: this is a negative finding read from the chapter's text; confirm against the current chapter and your lease.	Texas statute — Chapter 92 · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026	Lease entry clause; dated notice of each entry	The lease controls; city ordinances and HOA rules can add requirements
Texas — Utilities and lockouts. May I cut services or change the locks?	No interruption of utility service paid by the tenant directly to the utility except for bona fide repairs, construction, or an emergency; landlord-furnished utilities carry their own strict statutory conditions and penalties. Lockouts are governed by § 92.0081 and the conditions are narrow and easy to breach, and a tenant unlawfully locked out has reentry and damages remedies under § 92.009. Neither is a collection tool.	Texas statute — § 92.008, § 92.0081, § 92.009 · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026	Documentation of any bona fide interruption	None identified statewide as of Aug 9, 2026
Texas — Retaliation. Which actions are restricted after a tenant complaint?	For six months after a tenant in good faith exercises a legal right, requests repairs, complains to a government entity, or participates in a tenant organization, listed responses — including eviction filing, service cuts, and lease termination — are restricted, subject to statutory exceptions such as independent nonpayment grounds.	Texas statute — § 92.331 · Verified with limitation · Jul 28, 2026	Written, dated non-retaliatory basis for any action inside the window	None identified statewide as of Aug 9, 2026
Texas — Tenant early-termination rights. When can a tenant end the lease without penalty?	A tenant who is a victim of family violence, or of certain sex offenses or stalking, may terminate and avoid future rent liability after complying with the statute's documentation and notice steps; military service triggers a separate right. These are statutory rights you cannot lease away, and a refusal carries damages and fee-shifting exposure.	Texas statute — § 92.016, § 92.0161, § 92.017; tenant-side procedure at TexasLawHelp · Verified with limitation · Aug 9, 2026	The tenant's documentation and notice, dated on receipt	Federal programs add their own protections

Ending the tenancy

Texas rule and owner question	Statewide baseline: trigger and condition	Authority, status, and verification date	Record to keep	Local or private overlay
Texas — Ending a month-to-month tenancy. How much notice is required?	Either party may terminate. With a rent-paying period of at least one month, the tenancy ends on the later of the day stated in the notice or one month after the notice is given — unless both parties signed an agreement setting a different period or none.	Texas statute — § 91.001 · Verified · Jul 28, 2026	Dated notice and delivery proof	The signed lease can change the period
Texas — Notice to vacate before filing. What must precede an eviction suit, and in what form?	A written notice must precede filing — by default at least three days, a period the lease can validly change where the statute permits. The form now depends on the tenant's payment history. Where possession is terminated solely for nonpayment and the tenant was not late or delinquent before the month in which the notice is given, § 24.005 requires a notice to pay rent or vacate, which gives the tenant the chance to cure by paying. Where the tenant was late or delinquent before that month, either a notice to pay rent or vacate or a notice to vacate may be used. Delivery must be in a manner the parties agreed to in writing or, absent that, a manner in which the tenant has communicated in writing with you, or one reasonably expected to give actual notice. Federally covered properties can carry longer federal notice periods, which now run concurrently.	Texas statute — Chapter 24, § 24.005, as amended by S.B. 38 effective January 1, 2026 for suits filed on or after that date; plain-language confirmation at the Texas State Law Library · Verified with limitation · Aug 10, 2026 · limitation: subsection lettering summarized rather than reproduced	Notice copy, the payment-history basis for the form you chose, and proof of the delivery method	Lease terms; federal program overlays
Texas — Eviction court procedure. What rules govern the case itself?	The Texas Supreme Court comprehensively rewrote Rule 510 to effectuate S.B. 38, effective January 1, 2026, and it applies to eviction suits filed on or after that date. File in the justice precinct where the property is located and follow the current rule text and the court's posted materials. Any eviction walkthrough, form packet, or timeline published before January 2026 should be presumed stale for procedure.	Statewide court rule — Texas Supreme Court Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9096 and Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9105; current text via Rules and Standards · Verified · Aug 9, 2026	Petition; proof of service; complete ledger	Justice-precinct forms and standing orders

Before signing: fair housing, screening, applications, and the lease

Screening is where well-meaning owners create their largest legal exposure, because two bodies of law apply at once: fair-housing law governs what criteria you may use, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs how you may use a screening report.

On the fair-housing side, federal law enforced by HUD prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and disability, and Texas fair-housing law, administered by the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division, parallels those protections at the state level. Some Texas cities add locally protected classes, so the state list is a floor, not the ceiling — Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas each protect characteristics the state list does not, as set out in locally protected classes in the five largest metros below, and every other city needs its own check before you finalize criteria. The operational discipline is simple to state and easy to drift from: written criteria, decided before you advertise, applied in the same way and the same order to every applicant, with the reason for every decision documented. Blanket bans and shortcuts that function as substitutes for a protected characteristic are exactly the patterns enforcement targets; if a criterion needs an exception, the exception should be written, justified, and applied consistently too.

Two criteria deserve a lawyer's eye before you publish them rather than after someone complains. A criminal-record standard is the first: a policy applied without individualized consideration is a familiar disparate-impact theory, and Texas gives you no safe harbor for one. An occupancy standard is the second: § 92.010 caps what you may allow at three adults per bedroom, but nothing in it authorizes a lower limit, and a restrictive per-unit cap is one of the more common familial-status problems. Have a Texas attorney review your written criteria once, before you advertise. Reviewing criteria once is cheaper than defending a single complaint, and locally protected classes make that review jurisdiction-specific.

Stop before you decide. A consumer report — a third-party screening report, score, or recommendation — is not the same as a landlord reference you call yourself or information the applicant hands you directly. Before pulling one, you need a permissible purpose and the applicant's authorization. If the report influences any unfavorable decision — a denial, a larger deposit, a co-signer requirement — the FCRA's adverse-action workflow applies: notify the applicant, identify the reporting agency, and preserve their dispute rights. Store report data securely and dispose of it securely. A score never makes the decision for you; a human applying written criteria does.

How you evaluate screening services — pricing, consent workflows, adverse-action support — is a separate product question that belongs on the tenant-screening services page. This page owns the legal gate those services operate inside.

Texas adds three statutory steps at the paperwork stage, all already in the matrix: the § 92.3515 selection-criteria notice and acknowledgment that must accompany a rental application — with a fee-refund consequence if you skip it and later reject the applicant; the signed flood disclosures under § 92.0135, which are a separate signed document rather than a lease paragraph you can bury; and the § 92.024 duty to deliver a complete signed lease copy on a third-business-day clock. None is burdensome; all three are the kind of rule owners learn about only after a dispute. For the full operational sequence around these steps — make-ready, marketing, showing, and move-in — use the first-tenant checklist.

Money rules: rent, late fees, receipts, and security deposits

The monetary rules in Chapter 92 regulate five different things that owners tend to collapse into one: the amount of a charge, the timing that triggers it, the disclosure that must precede it, the accounting that must follow it, and the remedy when any of those fails. A fee is not safe merely because it appears in the lease; it is safe when its trigger, disclosure, and documentation all line up with the statute.

Late fees: the trigger, the cap, and the daily-fee trap

Late fees show the pattern. Under § 92.019, the fee must be disclosed in the written lease, must be reasonable, and cannot be collected unless some rent remains unpaid two full days after the due date. The safe harbor in the matrix — 12 percent of the period's rent for structures of four or fewer units, 10 percent above that — is a presumption of reasonableness, not a mandate: you may charge less, and charging more moves you from a presumption to proving your actual and uncertain damages. Because initial and daily fees are counted together as one fee, a modest daily charge can quietly walk a lease out of the safe harbor by month's end. On $1,800 rent in a four-unit-or-smaller structure the presumption covers $216 for the period; a $50 initial fee plus $10 a day reaches $210 after sixteen daily charges and crosses $216 on the seventeenth. Cash payments carry their own small duty: a written receipt and a payment record under § 92.011.

The presumption is a percentage, so the ceiling moves with the rent and with the size of the structure. Three rent levels, both rates:

Monthly rent for the period	Presumed reasonable ceiling — structure with four or fewer dwelling units (12%)	Presumed reasonable ceiling — structure with more than four dwelling units (10%)
$1,200	$144	$120
$1,800	$216	$180
$2,500	$300	$250

The line that drives the gap is the unit count, not the rent: the same $1,800 tenancy carries a $216 ceiling in a duplex and a $180 ceiling in a mid-rise. If you own both, the safe fee is not the same number, and one lease template cannot carry both.

One point worth checking against anything else you read: the trigger is two full days, not one. S.B. 1414 amended § 92.019 effective September 1, 2019 — replacing "one full day" with "two full days," extending the rule to any portion of the rent, and adding the 12 and 10 percent presumption. Guides that still describe a one-day trigger are describing the pre-2019 statute, and several currently published ones do.

Security deposits: the amount and the accounting are two questions

Subchapter C is where the money rules bite hardest, and the two questions come apart cleanly: Subchapter C regulates the refund, the itemization, and the remedies, while the amount for an ordinary rental is left to the lease and the market — subject to program rules, insurer requirements, and your own screening consistency.

Once the tenancy ends, the sequence is fixed: the tenant surrenders, the tenant provides a written forwarding address, and the refund with any written itemized deduction list goes out on or before the 30th day after surrender. The forwarding address never extinguishes the tenant's right — a tenant who omits one does not forfeit the deposit. What the address does to your deadline is the one point in this section where careful Texas sources disagree. Some read § 92.103 literally, so the thirty days runs from surrender and the obligation simply crystallizes when the address arrives; others treat the deadline as anchored to the later of the two events. Rental Income HQ's editorial rule is to work from surrender, for a reason found in the penalty section rather than the deadline section: § 92.109 presumes bad faith when the refund or the itemization has not gone out on or before the thirtieth day after surrender, and says nothing about the forwarding address. Send the accounting within thirty days of surrender — to the last known address, which can be the rental itself, if nothing better has arrived — and keep proof of the mailing. That is the conservative position under either reading, and it is an editorial decision rule, not a statutory statement.

Deductions cover damages and charges the tenant is legally liable for, never normal wear and tear, and the bad-faith exposure in § 92.109 makes a sloppy deposit file the most expensive small mistake in Texas landlording. One 2025 change helps here: under § 92.113, notice and communications under the deposit subchapter may be sent by e-mail where you and the tenant have already been corresponding that way — which makes the delivery record easier to keep, not the deadline easier to miss.

If you are withholding more than a nominal amount, or the tenant disputes the itemization in writing, price a short consultation with a Texas landlord-tenant attorney against the § 92.109 exposure before you send the accounting — not after.

The fee-in-lieu-of-deposit option under § 92.111 is not a deposit with better marketing. It is a separate, conditioned product: the tenant must genuinely be offered a deposit as the alternative, the choice cannot influence approval, the agreement must be written and signed with the statute's disclosures — including the tenant's right to stop the fee and switch to a deposit — and when the fee funds insurance, the fee is capped at the reasonable cost of obtaining and administering it. Marketing a fee program as interchangeable with a deposit, without the conditions, is how the option turns into a claim.

To see how the Texas deposit framework compares with the rest of the country, the national matrix lives at security-deposit rules by state; this page owns the Texas-specific rows.

Repairs, safety devices, utilities, and retaliation

What to do when a repair notice arrives

The statute rewards a boring, documented response and punishes improvisation. The owner-side sequence looks like this:

1. Log the notice. Record how it arrived and when; the delivery method affects the tenant's later remedy steps, and your file should show the date you received it.
2. Classify the condition honestly. The statutory duty in Subchapter B attaches to conditions that materially affect an ordinary tenant's physical health or safety; a genuine hazard deserves an urgent response regardless of where the legal line sits.
3. Check the rent status — but don't weaponize it. The tenant-remedy framework conditions the tenant's statutory remedies on the rent not being delinquent when notice was given. That is a fact for your file, not a reason to ignore a hazard.
4. Make a diligent effort within a reasonable time. § 92.056 presumes seven days is reasonable, and the presumption is rebuttable in both directions: a failed air-conditioning compressor in a Texas August argues for faster, a back-ordered specialty part argues for a documented explanation, not silence.
5. Document the completion. Work orders, invoices, and dated photos close the loop and are the record the statute expects you to be able to produce.

If the repair stalls and the tenant properly invokes the repair-and-deduct remedy, the contractor rule and the ceiling both matter: the deduction is capped at one month's rent or $500, whichever is greater, and the work must be done by an independent company, contractor, or repairman under § 92.0561 — licensed where the municipality requires it. The independence requirement is the September 2025 change in the log below; before you dispute a tenant's choice of contractor, check which version of the section governs your lease.

Security devices, alarms, utilities, and lockouts

Security devices and smoke alarms are the duties owners most often discover late, because both run without anyone asking. § 92.156 puts rekeying on a seven-day clock from each tenant turnover date at your expense, and § 92.258 makes confirming the alarms work a move-in step rather than a maintenance ticket. Both are cheap to do on a make-ready and expensive to reconstruct later, which is why the matrix asks for a signed move-in acknowledgment rather than a note in your file.

The utility rule needs no nuance at the headline level: § 92.008 bars interrupting tenant-paid utility service except for bona fide repairs, construction, or an emergency, and landlord-furnished utilities carry their own strict conditions and penalties. A shutoff is never a collection tool, and neither is a lockout. Lockouts are governed by § 92.0081; the conditions are narrow and easy to breach, and a tenant unlawfully locked out has reentry and damages remedies under § 92.009. Do not attempt one. Use the eviction process below, and talk to a Texas attorney first.

Finally, the retaliation window shapes everything above. For six months after a tenant in good faith exercises a legal right, requests a repair, complains to a code authority, or participates in a tenant organization, § 92.331 restricts the classic retaliatory responses — filing an eviction, cutting services, or terminating the lease — subject to statutory exceptions such as genuinely independent nonpayment grounds. The defensive habit is not to freeze all decisions for six months; it is to document a legitimate, non-retaliatory basis, dated before you act, for any adverse step taken inside the window.

Ending a tenancy and the current eviction process

Texas separates ending a tenancy into distinct legal stages that casual usage collapses into "eviction notice," and using the wrong instrument at the wrong stage is the most common self-inflicted defect in owner filings. Terminating the tenancy, sending the correct pre-suit notice, filing the suit, and navigating the court's procedure are four different acts with four different sources — and since the 2026 amendments, the second one has two possible forms.

The current four-stage sequence:

1. End the tenancy if it hasn't ended. A fixed term ends by its own dates; a month-to-month tenancy ends under § 91.001 — on the later of the day stated in the notice or one month after notice, unless a signed agreement sets a different period.
2. Send the correct pre-suit notice — and check which form the statute requires. Chapter 24 requires a written notice before any filing, by default at least three days, a period the lease can validly change where the statute permits. Since January 1, 2026, the form of that notice depends on the tenant's payment history. If you are evicting solely for nonpayment and the tenant was not late or delinquent before the month you send the notice, § 24.005 requires a notice to pay rent or vacate — a notice the tenant can defuse by paying within the period. If the tenant was late or delinquent before that month, either form is available. Sending a plain notice to vacate to a first-time-late tenant is the defect most likely to end a 2026 filing, and it is invisible until the hearing. Federally covered or subsidized properties can carry longer federal notice periods, which now run concurrently with the state period — that is a stop-and-get-counsel trigger, not a footnote.
3. File in the correct justice precinct under the current rules. The suit belongs in the justice precinct where the property is located, and the case runs under Rule 510 as comprehensively rewritten to match the amended statute.
4. Check the specific court's posted materials. Use the Texas Judicial Branch local rules, forms, and standing orders portal to find your court's current requirements rather than another county's blog post.

The freshness warning is the point of this section, and the date is precise. Chapter 24 was amended by S.B. 38 effective January 1, 2026 for eviction suits filed on or after that date, and the Texas Supreme Court comprehensively rewrote Rule 510 to effectuate that act with the same January 1, 2026 effective date, in Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9096 and the revisions at Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9105. The Judicial Branch rules page identifies the currently approved text. Any eviction walkthrough, form packet, or timeline published before January 2026 should be presumed stale for procedure, including confident-sounding ones — and note that a consolidated rules PDF carries a compilation date, which is not the same thing as the date an amendment took effect. This page deliberately does not publish filing deadlines, service mechanics, appeal steps, bonds, or writ instructions: those belong to the current rule text and your specific court, read at the moment you need them.

Escalate before you file, not after, when the case is contested, when the tenant raises repair or retaliation issues, when the property is in a federal program, or when the amounts at stake justify it. A qualified Texas landlord-tenant attorney at the notice stage costs a fraction of a dismissed case with a defective notice. The Texas State Law Library's eviction guide is a neutral starting point for the process itself.

What it costs to get these wrong

Most Texas landlord guides state the duty and stop. The statutes attach specific remedies, several of them fee-shifting, which is what makes small disputes economically asymmetric: the tenant's downside in bringing one is often close to zero.

If you get this wrong	What the statute attaches	What that looks like in practice
Deposit refund or itemization, in bad faith	$100, plus three times the portion wrongfully withheld, plus the tenant's reasonable attorney's fees — and bad faith is presumed when the accounting is late (§ 92.109)	A $600 deduction found to be wrongfully withheld in bad faith carries $100 plus $1,800 — $1,900 — before the tenant's fees
The itemized list, in bad faith	Forfeiture of the right to withhold any portion of the deposit and of the right to sue the tenant for damage to the premises, plus the tenant's fees — and in any deposit suit, the burden of proving the retention was reasonable sits on you, not the tenant (§ 92.109)	The larger loss is usually not the penalty but the forfeited counterclaim: real damage you could have recovered becomes unrecoverable because the paperwork was late
Wrong notice form in a nonpayment eviction	No statutory penalty runs against you — the cost is the case. A notice that does not satisfy § 24.005 will not support a judgment for possession, so the suit is subject to dismissal and you start over (§ 24.005)	Filing fee, service fee, the weeks already lost, and a tenant who now knows the defense — against the days it would have cost to send the correct notice first
Late fee charged outside the statute	$100, plus three times the late fee collected in violation, plus reasonable attorney's fees (§ 92.019)	The exposure is driven by fees collected, so a small monthly fee compounding across a year is the expensive version
Selection-criteria notice not made available, then denial	Refund of the application fee and any application deposit (§ 92.3515)	Small in dollars, but it establishes a documented procedural failure at the exact moment a fair-housing complaint would be filed
Occupancy limit exceeded	$500 for each violation, plus court costs and reasonable attorney's fees; suit may be brought by a nearby owner or lessee, or by a governmental entity or civic association (§ 92.010)	This is the rare rule a neighbor can enforce against you, not just a tenant
Flood notice not given, and the tenant suffers substantial property loss from flooding	The tenant may terminate the lease by written notice within 30 days after the loss (§ 92.0135)	A signed one-page disclosure at lease signing is the whole defense
Utility interruption or lockout	Statutory tenant remedies including reentry and damages (§ 92.008, § 92.009)	The cheapest of these to avoid entirely, and the most damaging in a courtroom
Refusing a statutory early termination	Damages and fee-shifting under the termination sections (§ 92.016, § 92.0161)	The documentation the tenant supplies is the trigger; date-stamp it on receipt and comply

Nothing here is a prediction about your case. These are the remedies the sections attach, which is why the record-keeping column in the matrix is the practical defense for each one.

Verify the local and private rule stack for your property

The matrix above is statewide by design; this section is what makes it true for one address. Work the checklist once per property, and again whenever the tenancy, ownership, or rules change.

1. Record the rental address, city, county, ZIP, property type and unit count, whether you occupy any part of the property, and the tenancy type.
2. Confirm whether a special regime applies — public or subsidized housing, a manufactured-home lot, commercial use, hotel or short-term use, or an active court order. If one does, stop and get the regime's own official source or counsel before applying this page.
3. Open the current statewide source for your tenancy stage from the matrix, and record the section, effective date, access date, and status of what you relied on.
4. Read the signed lease and any property-management agreement for notice methods and periods, fees, renewal terms, entry rules, and delegated duties.
5. Check the official city and county pages for rental registration, inspections, property standards, locally protected classes, and required notices — starting with the metro table below if your property is in one of the five largest cities.
6. Identify the property's justice precinct and pull the court's current posted rules, forms, and standing orders from the official portal.
7. Save dated PDFs or screenshots of everything supporting a decision, and escalate any conflict between sources — or any high-consequence action — before acting.

If you have already acted

Most owners find a page like this after the step, not before it. None of these situations is hopeless, and all of them get worse with delay.

• The deposit accounting is already past thirty days. Send the refund and the written itemization now, to the last known address if you have no forwarding address, and keep proof of the mailing. Lateness feeds the bad-faith presumption in § 92.109; it does not extinguish your deductions. Before you send anything on a disputed or substantial withholding, price a short consultation against the exposure.
• You already served a notice and are not sure it was the right instrument. Do not file on it. Serving a fresh, correct notice and restarting the clock costs days; filing on a defective notice costs the case and the filing fee, and hands the tenant the defense.
• You collected a late fee outside the statute. Stop charging it, recalculate the period, credit or refund the difference, and paper the correction with the date. Exposure under § 92.019 is driven by fees collected, so the correction is what limits it.
• You never registered with the city. Contact the administering department and register. Self-reporting is ordinarily cheaper than a citation, and in Dallas and Fort Worth the penalty structure is per-occurrence or per-day.
• A tenant has raised a repair, retaliation, or discrimination issue in writing. Stop and get a qualified Texas attorney's read before your next communication, not after it. What you write in the next week is the record.

Local rules by metro: where to check

This table covers the five largest Texas cities. It is not a statewide municipal survey, and no Texas city rule applies to your property unless your property is inside that city's limits. Each row states what the city requires of rental owners, which properties it reaches, and the department that administers it. Verify against the linked page before you rely on it — municipal programs and fees change on the city's schedule, not the Legislature's.

City	What the city requires of rental owners	Which properties it reaches	Governing authority and page	Status
Houston	Registration of multi-family rental property, at no fee, with habitability inspections on a rotating basis and on service request. The city states that failure to register draws citations with fines ranging from $500 to $2,000.	Apartment communities with three or more units. Houston has no citywide registration program for single-family rentals.	Houston Code of Ordinances Chapter 10; Ordinance 2009-1043 — Multi-Family Habitability, Houston Permitting Center	Verified · Aug 9, 2026
San Antonio	Registration in the Proactive Apartment Inspections Program, triggered by enforcement history rather than by ownership, followed by monthly inspections of up to 5 percent of units for a minimum of six months.	Complexes with five or more units that receive three designated citations in a rolling six-month period, or are ordered in by the Building Standards Board. Owners of one to four units are outside the program.	City of San Antonio Development Services — Proactive Apartment Inspections	Verified · Aug 9, 2026
Dallas	Annual registration and renewal, an Owner's Self-Inspection Checklist with affidavit for each unit, and a city comprehensive inspection at least once every five years. The program page states a non-refundable annual fee of $74 beginning October 1, 2025; the city's own program FAQ still states $43. The later-dated program page governs — budget $74 and confirm at payment.	Single-family homes, duplexes, and condominium units offered for rent — the program most likely to reach a one-to-four-unit owner. Exemption worth checking first: the city's program FAQ states that a property on which the owner held a homestead exemption within the last two years does not need to be registered, which is the ordinary accidental-landlord case. That FAQ is the document carrying the outdated fee, so confirm the exemption and its current terms with Code Compliance before you skip registration.	Dallas City Code Chapter 27 — Single Family Rental Registration and Inspection Program and the city's program FAQ	Verified with limitation · Aug 10, 2026 · limitation: two city documents disagree on the fee, and the exemption appears only in the document carrying the stale figure
Austin	No universal rental registration. Registration in the Repeat Offender Program within 14 days of notification, with an annual fee, annual inspections, and a minimum two-year term.	Non-owner-occupied single-family and multi-family rentals that hit the program's violation thresholds in a 24-month period. Owner-occupied rentals are excepted.	Ordinance No. 20130926-012 — Repeat Offender Program, Austin Development Services	Verified · Aug 9, 2026
Fort Worth	Annual rental registration, in two separate articles of City Code Chapter 7: Article IX for multifamily dwelling complexes and Article X for one- and two-family dwellings. Violating the one- and two-family article is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to $500, each day a separate offense, and the code compliance director may require you to produce lease agreements during an investigation.	Multi-unit complexes under Article IX; non-owner-occupied one- and two-family dwelling units under Article X — so a single rented house is inside the program, not outside it.	Fort Worth City Code Chapter 7, Articles IX and X — Rental Registration, Code Compliance; enforcement and penalty at § 7-429.8	Verified with limitation · Aug 10, 2026 · limitation: article scope and penalty read from the city's code publisher, whose posted text carries its own accuracy disclaimer

Locally protected classes in the five largest metros

Registration is not the only thing a Texas city can add. Several add protected classes to the federal and Texas lists, which changes what your written selection criteria may say and how they must be applied. This table covers the same five cities and nothing else; the same "check your own city" instruction applies everywhere.

City	Classes protected beyond the federal and Texas lists	Governing ordinance and page	Status
Austin	Creed, student status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and source of income.	Austin City Code Chapter 5-1, § 5-1-1 — Chapter 5-1 text; City of Austin renter and landlord page	Verified · Aug 10, 2026
San Antonio	Sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, and age.	San Antonio Code of Ordinances Chapter 2, Article X, § 2-621 — Local Ordinances Related to Rental Housing, City of San Antonio	Verified · Aug 10, 2026
Dallas	Sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression, under a chapter separate from the city's fair-housing chapter. Source of income appears in the city's fair-housing policy statement.	Dallas City Code Chapter 46 and Chapter 20A — City of Dallas ordinance summary	Verified · Aug 10, 2026
Fort Worth	None identified for housing. The city's own housing-discrimination page lists the federal and state classes only, while the Human Relations Ordinance reaches further in other contexts — so this is unresolved rather than settled. Confirm current housing coverage with Civil Rights Enforcement before you finalize criteria.	Fort Worth City Code Chapter 17, Human Relations — Housing, Employment and Public Accommodation, City of Fort Worth	Partial · Aug 10, 2026
Houston	None identified. Chapter 17 states its purpose as providing rights and remedies substantially equivalent to those granted under federal law.	Houston Code of Ordinances Chapter 17 — Fair Housing	Verified with limitation · Aug 10, 2026 · limitation: a negative finding read from the chapter's stated purpose

Two of those rows collide with a state statute, and the collision is worth naming rather than leaving for you to find. Austin and Dallas both list source of income, while Local Government Code § 250.007 — described below — preempts municipal source-of-income ordinances to the extent they cover federal housing assistance. Which layer controls a particular voucher policy in a particular city is precisely the kind of conflict this page tells you to stop on: save both sources with their dates and get a qualified Texas attorney's read before you write a voucher rule into your criteria.

One editorial rule goes with the table as a whole, because a blank cell invites the wrong inference: the absence of a local overlay is not permission. Whether the federal Fair Housing Act's protection against sex discrimination reaches sexual orientation and gender identity has been treated differently by different administrations and courts, and it is still moving. Criteria that turn on documented, consistently applied, housing-related facts survive that question in every city; criteria that turn on a personal characteristic do not survive it anywhere. Have a Texas attorney review your written criteria for the city your property sits in.

Two things your city cannot do, which resolve a pair of questions owners often ask about local rules. First, rent control: under Local Government Code § 214.902, a Texas municipality may adopt rent control only if its governing body finds a housing emergency caused by a disaster and the governor approves the ordinance — which is why no Texas city operates a routine rent cap. Second, source of income: under Local Government Code § 250.007, a municipality or county may not adopt or enforce an ordinance prohibiting an owner from refusing to rent because the applicant's lawful source of income includes funding from a federal housing assistance program. That preemption has a carve-out for military veterans, it does not touch voluntary municipal incentive programs, and it is not a shield: a policy that operates as a proxy for a protected characteristic is still a fair-housing problem, and any voucher policy has to be written down and applied to every applicant the same way.

Every other Texas city and county. If your property is outside the five cities above, this page does not publish a verified row for it, and you should not assume the absence of a row means the absence of a rule. Four routes get you the answer today. Start with your city's own code of ordinances: most Texas municipal codes are published online by one of two codifiers, so look for your city in American Legal Publishing's Texas library or in Municode's Texas library, and read the buildings, minimum-property-standards, and human-relations or fair-housing chapters. Then call the department that administers the program — code compliance or development services — because registration scope, fees, and exemptions change faster than the posted code. Identify your county's justice of the peace courts page for the precinct and its posted materials. And use the Texas State Law Library's landlord-tenant guides, a neutral state-maintained starting point that routes to statutes and local resources. Save dated copies of whatever you find, and record it in your rule stack the same way you record a statute.

What changed recently and how this page is verified

Change	Effective and verified	What it means for owners
H.B. 2037 — repair-and-deduct contractor requirement, and e-mail notice for security-deposit communications	Effective September 1, 2025 · verified August 9, 2026	Tenant-initiated repairs must be made by an independent contractor, licensed where the municipality requires it, replacing the old telephone-directory listing rule. The act also added § 92.113, allowing notice under the deposit subchapter to be sent by e-mail where the parties have previously communicated by e-mail.
S.B. 38 — Chapter 24 eviction amendments	Effective January 1, 2026, for suits filed on or after that date · verified August 9, 2026	Use the current Chapter 24 text for notice and filing. See the Texas State Law Library's note on the change; pre-2026 eviction guides are unreliable.
Rule 510 comprehensive rewrite — Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9096, revised at Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9105	Effective January 1, 2026 · verified August 9, 2026	The Texas Supreme Court rewrote Rule 510 to effectuate S.B. 38, with the same January 1, 2026 effective date as the statute. Re-read the current rule text and your court's posted materials before every filing.

Methodology: every consequential claim on this page is classified by authority — federal, Texas statute, statewide court rule, local rule, lease or private term, or editorial workflow — linked to the section or official page that contains it, and labeled with one of the six verification statuses defined at the top, alongside the date that row was checked. The eviction-notice, late-fee, and deposit-penalty rows and every local row were reviewed on August 10, 2026; the 2025–2026 changes and the disclosure, entry, occupancy, and security-device rows on August 9, 2026; the remaining Chapter 92 rows on July 28, 2026.

Three things about how that verification works, because they explain the labels you see. Where a row states that no statewide rule exists — the deposit cap and the entry-notice rows — it is labeled Verified with limitation, because a negative finding read from a chapter's text is weaker evidence than an affirmative statutory statement, and the limitation is printed in the row rather than left for you to infer. Where two official sources disagree, as the City of Dallas's program page and its own program FAQ do on the registration fee, the disagreement is printed in the row along with which source governs and why, rather than resolved silently. And where a claim is read from a code publisher's posted text rather than a city's printed official copy, as the Fort Worth rows are, the row says so. The next scheduled verification is November 9, 2026, or sooner upon a legislative, court-rule, or agency change; if you find a claim here that no longer matches its source, the source link in the row is the thing to check first, and a correction is worth more to us than a compliment.

Review status: the statements above are source-verified as described. This page has not yet had independent review by Texas counsel or a fair-housing and consumer-report compliance review; when those reviews are complete they will be credited here. Source-level verification is not legal sign-off. Rental Income HQ is an independent publisher — not a law firm, government agency, court, property manager, lender, insurer, or screening agency — and nothing here is advice about your specific facts.

Choosing screening and record-keeping help at a glance

A provider that cannot answer in writing has answered. The free, official actions come first: the statutes, the court portal, your city and county pages, and the checklist above cost nothing and answer the legal questions no product can. Tools earn a place only for implementation — keeping the records, clocks, and workflows this page describes. No software, screening product, or template creates compliance, and none of the option classes below is a named endorsement; the named comparisons live on the owning pages.

None yet: if your criteria are not yet written down, or the property's city, county, and justice-precinct overlays are unchecked, finish the free official steps first. A paid tool at this stage automates an unverified process.

Your situation	Shortlist move	Confirm before you pay
Self-managing 1–4 Texas units, screening applicants yourself	Shortlist screening services on the tenant-screening services page against your written criteria	Written consent workflow? Adverse-action notice support and templates? Dispute and secure-disposal process? Per-screening price and who pays?
Self-managing and drowning in paper — receipts, notices, deposit files	Shortlist record-keeping tools on the best landlord software page	Dated, exportable records for ledger, notices, and deposit itemization? Per-unit-per-month price all-in? Cancellation and data-export terms in writing?
Outsourcing to a manager or service from out of area	Shortlist providers that state Texas coverage in current, first-party documentation	Texas availability confirmed in writing? Who performs the fair-housing and FCRA steps, and who is liable? Contract term, fee basis, and exit terms?

One scorecard for every candidate: the questions in your row, plus this page's own evidence rule — current first-party documentation, dated, with any limitation stated.

Frequently asked questions

Does this guide apply to a duplex or a home I also live in?

Generally yes for an ordinary residential duplex or a home where you rent out a dwelling under Chapter 92 — but owner-occupancy, unit count, and property type are inputs, not trivia: they change specific rows, such as which late-fee safe harbor applies and whether a city registration program reaches you. If the property is a manufactured-home lot, subsidized housing, or commercial space, use that regime's own official source instead.

Can a lease change or shorten the notice periods in this guide?

Sometimes — and only where the statute says so. Section 91.001 lets a signed agreement set a different termination-notice period, and Chapter 24 lets a lease validly adjust the notice to vacate where the statute permits. Other duties are nonwaivable and survive any lease language. Read the specific section's own waiver terms; never assume a clause is enforceable because it was signed.

What happens when a city rule and a state rule conflict?

Treat it as a stop sign, not a puzzle to solve yourself. Cities can add requirements — registration, inspections, protected classes — on top of the statewide baseline, though the Legislature has preempted them on rent control and on source-of-income protection for federal housing assistance. Which layer controls depends on the rule and sometimes on active litigation. Save both sources, note their dates, and get a qualified Texas attorney's read before acting on either one.

How long does it take to get a Texas rental leased the first time?

There is no universal answer; the clock is set by your slowest dependency. For a long-term rental that is usually make-ready and repairs, then marketing and showings, then screening — including report turnaround and the § 92.3515 notice and acknowledgment — then lease execution, the signed flood disclosures, and the third-business-day copy delivery. Any local registration or inspection your city requires runs on the city's schedule, so verify that first.

Do I need a license to be a landlord in Texas?

Nothing in the statewide sources on this page establishes a state license for owning and renting an ordinary residential long-term rental — labeling that the way this page labels its other negative findings, it is read from the absence of a requirement rather than from an affirmative statement, so treat it as a starting point and not a clearance. In practice the licensing question in Texas is a municipal registration question, and the answer turns on your city: Dallas registers single-family rentals annually, Fort Worth registers one- and two-family rentals, Houston registers only three-or-more-unit properties, and Austin and San Antonio register only after enforcement history triggers it. Check your city before you conclude no one wants to hear from you.

How much should I collect as a security deposit in Texas?

No cap on a residential security deposit appears in Chapter 92, so the amount comes from your lease, market practice, and consistent screening criteria, subject to program and insurer constraints — and it is a negative finding, so confirm it against the current chapter before setting an unusually large deposit. Whatever the amount, a deposit is refundable tenant money you hold: it is not income, and it never belongs in a gross or net revenue figure. How Texas's framework compares with other states' caps and deadlines is the national matrix's job, linked from the money-rules section above.

Build the property rule stack before acting

The next step is concrete and free: identify your property's city, county, and justice precinct, pull the signed lease, open the current official source for your tenancy stage from the matrix above, and save dated copies of everything you rely on. Document the decision before you send the notice, charge the fee, or withhold the deposit — and bring in a qualified Texas attorney before any contested or high-consequence step. If this rental is part of a larger first-time conversion — insurance, pricing, make-ready, and operations — the full sequence lives at how to rent out your house.

Sources and last verified date

Last verified: August 10, 2026 Next review: November 9, 2026, or sooner upon a legislative, court-rule, or agency change.

• Texas Property Code, Chapter 92 — Residential Tenancies — Texas Legislature — statewide baseline for definitions (§ 92.001), utilities and lockouts (§§ 92.008, 92.0081, 92.009), occupancy limits (§ 92.010), cash receipts (§ 92.011), flood disclosures (§ 92.0135), tenant early-termination rights (§§ 92.016, 92.0161, 92.017), late fees (§ 92.019), lease copies (§ 92.024), applications (§ 92.3515), repairs (Subchapter B), security deposits and fee in lieu (Subchapter C, §§ 92.101–92.113), security devices (Subchapter D), smoke alarms (Subchapter F), ownership disclosure (§ 92.201), and retaliation (§ 92.331).
• Texas Property Code, Chapter 91 — Provisions Generally Applicable to Landlords and Tenants — Texas Legislature — month-to-month termination notice framework (§ 91.001).
• Texas Property Code, Chapter 24 — Forcible Entry and Detainer — Texas Legislature — pre-suit notice framework at § 24.005, as amended by S.B. 38 effective January 1, 2026.
• S.B. 38, 89th Legislature — House Amendment No. 23 — Texas Legislature — the enacted § 24.005(a) text setting when a notice to pay rent or vacate is required and when either form may be used.
• S.B. 38, 89th Legislature — bill analysis — Texas Legislature — the notice-form requirement, the concurrent-running rule for longer federal notice periods, and the delivery-manner provisions.
• S.B. 1414, 86th Legislature — enrolled — Texas Legislature — the September 1, 2019 effective date for the current § 92.019 late-fee text, including the two-full-day trigger and the 12 and 10 percent presumptions.
• Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 214 — Texas Legislature — § 214.902, the conditions under which a municipality may establish rent control.
• Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 250 — Texas Legislature — § 250.007, preemption of municipal and county source-of-income ordinances covering federal housing assistance, with the military-veteran carve-out.
• H.B. 2037, 89th Legislature — bill analysis — Texas Legislature — the September 1, 2025 amendment to § 92.0561(f) and the addition of § 92.113 e-mail notice.
• Preliminary Approval of Amendments to Rule 143a and Part V, Misc. Docket No. 25-9096 — Supreme Court of Texas — the comprehensive Rule 510 rewrite effectuating S.B. 38, effective January 1, 2026.
• Misc. Docket No. 25-9105 — Supreme Court of Texas — revisions to the Rule 510 rewrite, same January 1, 2026 effective date.
• Rules and Standards — Texas Judicial Branch — identifies the currently approved court rules and amendment dates.
• Local Rules, Forms, and Standing Orders portal — Texas Judicial Branch — official pathway to each justice court's current local materials.
• Landlord/Tenant Law — Eviction Process — Texas State Law Library — state-maintained guide noting the January 1, 2026 change to eviction procedure.
• Eviction Process FAQs — Texas State Law Library — plain-language confirmation that a notice to pay rent or vacate is required in certain nonpayment cases and when the tenant paid on time the prior month.
• Landlord/Tenant Law guides — Texas State Law Library — neutral routing hub for statutes and local resources outside the five metros.
• Early Lease Termination for Victims of Family Violence — TexasLawHelp — the documentation and notice steps a tenant must follow under § 92.016.
• Housing Discrimination — Fair Housing — Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division — Texas fair-housing protections and complaint path.
• Fair Housing — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — federal fair-housing baseline and protected classes.
• Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know — Federal Trade Commission — permissible purpose, adverse-action, dispute, and disposal duties for landlord use of consumer reports.
• Multi-Family Habitability Inspections — Houston Permitting Center, City of Houston — Houston's three-or-more-unit registration requirement, inspection program, and stated penalty range.
• Proactive Apartment Inspections — City of San Antonio Development Services — San Antonio's citation-triggered registration and inspection program for complexes of five or more units.
• Single Family Rental Registration and Inspection Program — City of Dallas Code Compliance — Dallas's annual registration, self-inspection, $74 fee beginning October 1, 2025, and five-year inspection cycle under City Code Chapter 27.
• Single Family Rental Program — Frequently Asked Questions — City of Dallas Code Compliance — the homestead-exemption carve-out from registration; also the source of the superseded $43 fee figure disclosed on this page.
• Repeat Offender Program — Austin Development Services — Austin's violation-triggered rental registration program and its thresholds.
• Rental Registration — City of Fort Worth Code Compliance — Fort Worth's annual registration requirement for multi-unit complexes and one- and two-family rentals.
• Fort Worth City Code § 7-429.8, Enforcement — American Legal Publishing — the penalty for violating the one- and two-family registration article, current through 2026 S-20.
• Fort Worth, TX Code of Ordinances — Texas library, American Legal Publishing — codifier library used in this page's routing instructions for cities outside the five covered metros.
• Housing, Employment and Public Accommodation — Civil Rights Enforcement, City of Fort Worth — the classes the city states its Human Relations Ordinance covers in housing.
• Austin City Code Chapter 5-1, Housing Discrimination — Municode — Austin's locally protected classes for housing under § 5-1-1.
• Tenant Stabilization and Renters Rights — City of Austin — the city's own summary of the classes its fair-housing ordinance adds.
• Local Ordinances Related to Rental Housing — City of San Antonio Neighborhood and Housing Services — San Antonio's protected classes for housing under Code Chapter 2, Article X, § 2-621.
• Dallas City Code Chapter 46 — Unlawful Discriminatory Practices Relating to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression — City of Dallas — the Dallas prohibitions covering the sale and rental of housing.
• City of Dallas Ordinance — Office of Equity and Inclusion — the city's fair-housing policy statement, including source of income.
• Houston Code of Ordinances, Chapter 17 — Fair Housing — Municode — the chapter's stated purpose of providing rights and remedies substantially equivalent to federal law.