Texas HVAC permit requirements

The first thing to know about Texas is what is missing. There is no state agency that reviews or inspects residential HVAC work. The state sets a code, then hands enforcement to cities. The statute that adopts the residential code says so in its first sentence: ‘the International Residential Code, as it existed on May 1, 2012, is adopted as a municipal residential building code in this state’.

It then limits where that code reaches: ‘The International Residential Code applies to all construction, alteration, remodeling, enlargement, and repair of residential structures in a municipality.’ That sentence says “in a municipality”. Nothing in this section extends the code to the unincorporated parts of a county, which is why the answer for a rural address can differ from the answer one town over.

2012 IRC, as the state-level floor. The edition is fixed by the statute at a date, not by a rolling adoption. Cities are not locked to it: ‘A municipality may review and consider amendments made by the International Code Council to the International Residential Code after May 1, 2012.’

So the 2012 IRC is the floor, and your reviewer may be working from a newer edition the city adopted. Which edition applies is a city-by-city question. The Austin page on this site shows what one city does.

Cities may change the code, with two conditions: ‘A municipality may not adopt a local amendment under Subsection (c) unless the municipality: (1) holds a public hearing on the local amendment before adopting the local amendment; and (2) adopts the local amendment by ordinance.’

That is why a mechanical requirement can be real in one Texas city and absent in the next. If a reviewer asks for something that is not in the IRC, ask for the ordinance number.

Residential energy code is set by the state, separately. The Health and Safety Code adopts the energy chapter of the IRC for single-family construction: ‘On September 1, 2016, the energy efficiency chapter of the International Residential Code, as it existed on May 1, 2015, is adopted as the energy code in this state for single-family residential construction.’

The State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) is the agency that can move it forward: ‘On or after September 1, 2021, the State Energy Conservation Office may adopt and substitute for that energy code the latest published edition of the energy efficiency chapter of the International Residential Code’. Its single-family page, as we read it on 2026-10-12, still says: ‘Effective Sept. 1, 2016, SECO adopted the Energy Efficiency Chapter 11 of the 2015 International Residential Code (IRC) as the state’s Building Energy Efficiency Performance Standards for residential construction’.

This is the one place the state does speak to unincorporated land. For construction outside a municipality, the statute gives three ways to comply: ‘a building certified by a national, state, or local accredited energy efficiency program shall be considered in compliance’; ‘a building with inspections from private code-certified inspectors using the energy efficiency chapter of the International Residential Code or International Energy Conservation Code shall be considered in compliance’; or the builder certifies on a laboratory form.

Builders keep the paperwork: ‘A builder shall retain until the third anniversary of the date on which compliance is achieved the original copy of any documentation that establishes compliance under this section.’

The energy statute puts the work on the city: ‘A municipality shall establish procedures: (1) for the administration and enforcement of the codes; (2) to ensure that code-certified inspectors shall perform inspections and enforce the code in the inspectors’ jurisdictions’. Plan review, fees and what goes in the submittal are set by the city, not the state.

Varies — not set by a Texas statute. We read the sections quoted on this page in full, and none of them writes “Manual J”. The requirement, where it exists, arrives through the model code a city enforces. The IRC’s equipment-sizing section is M1401.3. A Texas agency’s guidance quotes the 2015 edition of it as: ‘Heating and cooling equipment shall be sized in accordance with ACCA Manual S or other approved sizing methodologies based on building loads calculated in accordance with ACCA Manual J or other approved heating and cooling calculation methodologies.’

Not verified for the 2012 edition. The statute adopts the 2012 IRC, and we could not retrieve ICC’s own text of that edition, so we are not quoting its wording as if we had. Whether your city asks for a submitted load calculation, and in what form, is a question for the city. Austin is covered on its own page.

Not verified. No Texas statute we read names Manual D. Duct requirements, where they exist, come from the code edition a city enforces and from its local amendments.

For a Texas job, the state page gets you the framework and the city gets you the answer. The statutes above set the floor, then every city decides its edition, its amendments and its submittal. We have researched one Texas city in full so far: Austin. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and the rest are not yet verified here, and we would rather say so than guess.