Permitting Authorities / Travis County Development Services (Transportation and Natural Resources)
Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Travis County, TX?
Adopted code
Travis County Development Services (Transportation and Natural Resources)
The permitting authority for unincorporated areas of Travis County, Texas. Travis County Development Services, under the Transportation and Natural Resources department, requires a "Basic Development Permit" for construction outside incorporated city limits (Travis County Code §482.901), and its own application form treats "Remodel/Repair" as a covered project category. No page on the county's site names roofing or reroofing specifically, and the county's adopted residential code (Chapter 480) applies only to new construction or additions that grow a home's square footage or value by more than 50% — so whether a routine roof replacement is treated as permit-triggering "construction/repair" in practice is not clearly documented from the county's own published materials. This record deliberately does not assert a firm roofing-permit-required answer; confirm directly with the Permit Center (512-854-4215) before relying on it for a specific job. No county-level contractor-registration requirement was found (Texas has no statewide roofing license, and Austin's city contractor-registration program does not reach unincorporated county land).
Jurisdiction
Travis County, Texas
Address
700 Lavaca St, Suite 540, Austin, TX 78701
Contact
- url: https://www.traviscountytx.gov/tnr/development-services/permitting-center
- phone: 512-854-4215
Contractor registration required
Not required
Permit process note
Travis County Code §482.901: "Permits. The County requires permits for the construction of all driveways accessing public roads, utility installation and servicing within public rights-of-way, and Basic Development Permit for all construction outside incorporated areas for residential and commercial development and soils disposal sites." The official Basic Development Permit application (form BP-01) states "A Travis County Basic Development Permit is required for all development outside corporate city limits in Travis County," and its project-type field lists "Remodel/Repair" as a category, along with a separate "Substantial Improvement" flag for repairs valued at 50% or more of the structure's value. No page found on traviscountytx.gov names "roof," "reroof," "roofing," or "shingles" as its own permit category, as exempt, or as included work — the applicable bucket, if any, would be the generic "Remodel/Renovation Permit." A widely-repeated claim that Travis County exempts simple repair/replacement work could not be traced to an actual county page and is not represented as fact in this record.
Adopted code
Travis County Code Chapter 480 ("Residential Construction Standards"), §480.004(a): "New residential construction of a single-family house or duplex shall conform to the version of the International Residential Code published as of May 1, 2008, or the version of the International Residential Code that is applicable inside the corporate limits of the City of Austin." Applicability (§480.002-.003) is limited to new construction on a vacant lot or an addition that increases square footage or value by more than 50% — the chapter does not mention roofing or reroofing and does not apply to ordinary repair/replacement on an existing structure short of that threshold.