Texas is one of the few states with a statutory shot clock on municipal building permits. Local Government Code §214.904 gives a city 45 days to do one of three things: grant or deny the permit, send you written notice of the reasons it hasn't been able to do either, or reach a written agreement with you on a deadline. It isn't a 45-day decision deadline — and the Legislature has kept tightening the screws on cities that drift. Here's what the framework actually provides, and how a permitting team uses it without burning bridges.
The baseline: §214.904
The core rule predates the recent reforms: within 45 days of submission, a municipality must grant or deny the permit, provide written notice stating why it hasn't been able to grant or deny it, or reach a written agreement with you on a deadline (§214.904(b)). The written-notice option is the one cities actually use, because it's unilateral — and when a city uses it, §214.904(c) gives the city 30 more days from the date you receive that notice. A city that follows the statute can be at roughly 75 days and still be compliant, so plan your escalation around the notice, not around day 45. The Legislature's own bill analyses acknowledged the historical weakness — applications could sit in "pending limbo" with little enforcement, costing applicants real money in carried interest and rising costs. That acknowledgment is why the 2023 session produced reinforcements.
The 2023 reinforcements
HB 14 — the third-party review escape hatch. House Bill 14 (2023) added Chapter 247, which provides that when a city still hasn't approved, conditionally approved, or disapproved by the 15th day after the deadline the law sets for it, the review may be performed outside the city's queue — by a reviewer the city employs, by a reviewer employed by another political subdivision the city has approved, or by an engineer licensed under Chapter 1001, Occupations Code. The city can't charge a fee for that review (§247.003). For solar installers, this converts an unbounded wait into a bounded one: once the city is 15 days past its own deadline, you have a lawful path to keep the project moving. Confirm the target city's reviewer-approval and notice process before invoking it — that part varies, but the 15-day trigger is state law, and §247.005 bars a city from asking you to waive it.
Fee consequences. §214.904(d) bars a city from collecting permit fees — and requires refunding anything already collected — if it misses the 30-day deadline under (c) or the deadline in a written agreement under (b)(3). Note the trigger: it's the missed follow-on deadline, not day 45 itself. Still an escalation lever that gets a permitting manager's email answered.
One caution on scope: much of what circulates online about "the Texas shot clock" is actually about plats and subdivision plans (Chapter 212, amended by HB 3699 in 2023). That's a different regime from building permits. For a rooftop retrofit, §214.904 and HB 14 are your framework; the plat shot clock isn't.
Using the clock without torching the relationship
You'll pull permits in the same city hundreds of times. The clock is leverage, not a lawsuit-starter:
- Log the true submission date and whether the city deemed the application complete — completeness disputes are how clocks get restarted. Keep the confirmation.
- Count in business terms the city recognizes. Know whether comments toll the clock in that city's practice.
- Escalate in tiers. Day 30: friendly status check referencing the submission date. Day 45: written request citing §214.904, and confirm in writing whether the city sent (b)(2) notice — that resets its clock to 30 days from the date you received it. Only once you're 15 days past whichever deadline actually applies: third-party review under Chapter 247.
- Track it per AHJ, not per anecdote. One late permit is noise. A pattern of a specific city averaging 50+ days is a data-backed conversation with the building official — and cities do respond to their own numbers.
That last item is the quiet advantage of tracking everything: most installers feel which cities are slow; very few can prove it. TexPTO timestamps every submittal and decision, so the day a deadline passes, the job flags itself — and your city-by-city evidence builds automatically.
What the clock doesn't fix
The statute binds the city's review, not your resubmittals. A rejected application restarts the practical timeline no matter what the law says, which is why first-pass approval quality (here's what gets permits rejected) matters more than any statutory remedy. The 45-day rule is the floor under a good process — not a substitute for one.
FAQ
Does the 45-day rule apply to solar permits? It applies to municipal building permit applications, which is how most Texas cities process rooftop solar. Cities differ on how electrical-only permits are handled.
What happens on day 46? Usually nothing automatic. §214.904(b) gives the city three ways to make the 45th day: grant or deny, send written notice explaining why it can't decide yet, or reach a written agreement on a new deadline. If it sent notice, its deadline is the 30th day after you received that notice. And the HB 14 third-party path doesn't open at the deadline — under §247.002(a) it opens only if the city still hasn't approved, conditionally approved, or disapproved by the 15th day after whichever deadline applies. With no notice and no agreement, that's day 61 at the earliest. Day 46 is the day to escalate in writing, not the day to hire a reviewer.
Does the rule apply to counties? No — it's municipal. Most Texas counties don't require building permits for residential work at all; see Solar Outside City Limits.
Do correction comments stop the clock? Practice varies and completeness determinations matter. Document submission and completeness dates and confirm the city's interpretation early.
Sources
- Tex. Local Gov't Code §214.904 (statutory text): https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.214.htm
- HB 265 (79R, 2005), enrolled text, which added §214.904: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/79R/billtext/html/HB00265F.HTM
- HB 14 (88R, 2023), enrolled text, which added Local Gov't Code ch. 247 (third-party review): https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB00014F.HTM
- Texas Legislature, SB 560 bill analysis — describes §214.904's structure and enforcement gaps; note SB 560 did not pass, so the written-agreement option it proposed deleting remains in the statute: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/analysis/doc/SB00560S.docx
- Texas Municipal League summaries of the 2023 permitting/platting reforms (HB 3699 scope): https://www.tml.org/905/September-1-2023-Number-35
General information, not legal advice. Statutes and city implementations change — verify before relying on any remedy.