How long does plat approval take in Texas?

A Texas municipality has 30 days to approve a plat, approve it with conditions, or disapprove it, and if it does none of those three things within that window the plat is approved by operation of law. The deadline is in Texas Local Government Code §212.009 as rewritten by House Bill 3167, 86th Legislature (2019). Counties reviewing plats in unincorporated territory run on the same 30-day rule under §232.0025. Before HB 3167 the review had no enforceable outside date and a plat could sit. After it, platting is a clock, and the clock runs against the reviewing authority rather than against you.

What starts the 30 days?

The two statutes are worded differently, and the difference is where most of the friction between developers and city staff now lives. §212.009 measures the municipal deadline from the date the plan or plat is filed. §232.0025 measures the county deadline from the date the completed application is received. Cities routinely read a completeness requirement into the municipal section by way of a locally adopted application checklist, and applicants routinely read the statute literally.

The practical consequence is that your filing date and the city's start date can be different dates, and you will not find out which one governs until day 31. Get a date-stamped receipt at intake, in writing, and ask the reviewing department in writing what date it is running the clock from. If those two dates differ, you have identified the dispute on day one instead of on day forty-five.

What happens if the city does nothing?

Inaction is approval. If the responsible authority neither approves, conditionally approves, nor disapproves within the statutory period, §212.009 provides that the plat is approved. That is not a courtesy and it is not discretionary. It is the operative remedy HB 3167 created, and it is the reason the review timeline is now something a land acquisition team can underwrite rather than guess at.

Can the 30 days be extended?

Only in 30-day increments, and only at the applicant's written request. A city cannot grant itself more time, and it cannot condition intake on your agreement to more time. §212.0097 — titled "Approval Procedure: Waiver Prohibited" — bars a municipal authority from requesting or requiring an applicant to waive the approval deadlines or procedures.

That distinction matters and it is frequently blurred at the counter. A voluntary written extension you ask for because your engineer needs another cycle is lawful and often sensible. A form handed to you at submittal that waives the deadline as a condition of acceptance is not. If you are asked to sign one, that is worth a call to your land use counsel before you sign anything.

A disapproval that does not cite its own authority is defective

§212.0091 governs what a disapproval or a conditional approval has to look like. It must be in writing, it must state each specific reason, and each reason must identify the specific ordinance or statutory provision the reason rests on. "Does not meet city standards" is not a reason. "Incomplete" without a citation is not a reason. A reviewer who cannot point to the text that a plat violates has not, in the statutory sense, disapproved it.

This is the single most useful piece of leverage HB 3167 gave developers, and it is underused. When a disapproval arrives with three real citations and four adjectives, the four adjectives are not enforceable conditions, and you are entitled to say so in writing.

What does the process look like after a disapproval?

1. Receive the written disapproval or conditional approval, with each reason and its specific ordinance or statutory citation, under §212.0091.
2. Prepare a written response under §212.0093 that satisfies each condition or remedies each reason. The municipality may not impose a deadline on you for submitting that response.
3. Submit the response. Under §212.0095 the reviewing authority must approve or disapprove it not later than the 15th day after the date the response is submitted.
4. If the response adequately addresses every stated condition or reason, the plat is to be approved. A second disapproval may rest only on a condition or reason already given to you with the first one, and it must again cite the regulation it is based on.
5. If the authority does not act on the response within the 15 days and in the manner §212.0091 requires, the plat is approved.

§212.0096 separately allows you to elect an alternative approval process the city has adopted, if that process is shorter. It is worth asking whether one exists; not every city advertises it.

How did HB 3167 change the review?

Who approves the plat if the tract is outside city limits?

That depends on whether the tract sits in a municipality's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Chapter 232 governs subdivision plats in the unincorporated area of a county: §232.001 is the platting requirement, and §232.0015 sets out the exceptions to it — divisions that, by their terms, do not trigger the plat obligation. Do not assume an exception applies because a broker told you it does; the exceptions are specific and they are read narrowly.

ETJ reach is set by §42.021 and scales with the municipality's population.

The tier is a function of population, so a fast-growing North Texas city can cross a threshold and push its ETJ outward while you are still in feasibility. Confirm the current population figure the city is operating under, not the one on a three-year-old map.

Since Senate Bill 2038, 88th Legislature (effective September 1, 2023), Chapter 42 also contains Subchapters D and E, which let the owner or owners of the majority in value of an area of land in a municipality's ETJ petition for release from it. Where a petition meets the statutory requirements, the municipality has no discretion to refuse. That statute has been litigated since enactment, so confirm its current posture before you build a feasibility model on it.

What the clock does not do

It does not shorten zoning, it does not shorten a development agreement negotiation, and it does not shorten utility capacity commitments. It governs the plat decision. It also does not freeze the rules — that is Chapter 245, the vested rights statute, which ties a project to the regulations in effect when the first permit application for that project was filed. Platting timing and vesting are separate questions and both belong in your schedule.

If the tract is raw ground, the diligence that precedes the plat matters more than the plat itself. Our land due diligence checklist and our page on subdividing land in Texas cover the survey, access, and utility questions that decide whether a plat is even worth filing. If the land carries an open-space valuation, read rollback taxes in Texas before you model the carry — the lookback is three years with no interest for a change of use on or after June 15, 2021, and most published sources still quote the old numbers. On the entitlement side, impact fees and MUD and PID disclosure are the two items that most often surface late and reprice a deal.

How we sourced this

Written from Texas Local Government Code §212.009, §212.0091, §212.0093, §212.0095, §212.0096, and §212.0097 as amended by House Bill 3167, 86th Legislature (2019); from Local Government Code §232.001, §232.0015, and §232.0025; from Local Government Code §42.021 and Chapter 42 Subchapters D and E as added by Senate Bill 2038, 88th Legislature; and from Local Government Code Chapter 245. Verified August 2026 and current as of that date. Statutes change and Senate Bill 2038 has been the subject of litigation; confirm the current text and posture before you rely on it. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

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