Does your Hill Country shop or commercial building need TDLR registration?

Coverage first. Rule 68.10(3) defines a building as any structure in Texas used or intended for supporting or sheltering any use or occupancy, so a red-iron commercial metal building is treated like a stick-built one. Rule 68.20(d) makes a commercial facility subject to the Act if it is intended for non-residential use by a private entity and its operations will affect commerce. Rule 68.20(c) names public accommodations outright: retail establishments, shopping centers, professional offices, banks, medical facilities. Everything listed in Rule 68.20 complies regardless of the estimated cost of construction unless Rule 68.30 exempts it.

Registration is the $50,000 line. Sec. 469.101 requires plans and specifications to go to the department for review and approval when the building is subject to the chapter and the estimated construction cost is at least $50,000. Below the line, TDLR's FAQ is plain: no registration and review required, but the project is still required to comply with TAS. At $50,000 or more you submit a full set of construction documents under Rule 68.50.

Remodels count. An alteration is a change that affects or could affect usability; re-roofing, painting and mechanical or electrical changes are not alterations unless they affect it. The tenant-funded exception in TAS 202.4 applies to renovation only, never to new construction.

Rule 68.30 carries five exemptions and no more: federal property; areas used primarily for religious ritual; van-accessible parking in garages started before April 1, 1994 with under 98 inches of clearance; the portions of apartments, condominiums, townhomes and single-family dwellings used exclusively by residents and their guests; and a place of lodging with no more than five rooms for rent that the proprietor occupies as a primary residence.

That fourth one is the residence exemption, and it lives in the rule, not the statute. Chapter 469 carries no private residence exclusion of its own. Its only residential provision, Sec. 469.003(d), tells the executive director to consider only the non-residential portion of a mixed-use building, and it applies to publicly funded buildings. The parts of a metal building home that its residents and their guests use exclusively sit inside Rule 68.30(4).

A shop or garage behind the house is the question people actually ask, and nothing read here addresses it: not the statute, not the rules, not TDLR's public pages. What the rules give you is the test in Rule 68.20(d): non-residential use by a private entity whose operations will affect commerce. If your building sits between the two, TDLR's technical information line is (877) 278-0999 and [email protected].

TDLR describes compliance as three steps: registration, plan review, inspection. A Registered Accessibility Specialist, RAS for short, is an individual certified by the department to perform its review and inspection functions. Sec. 469.201 bars anyone without a certificate of registration from performing them for an owner, and Sec. 469.105(b) limits the required inspection to TDLR, an entity under contract with the commission, or a specialist.

Registration happens online in TABS, and registration alone is not compliance. Form EAB-205N says so: this is only the registration of a construction project, and the owner is responsible for making sure a specialist completes the plan review and the inspection. You supply that specialist's license number to finish registering, and you can switch specialists only before a plan review is completed.

Construction documents and any review or inspection fees go to the specialist, not the department, and specialists set and collect their own fees. Plan review findings go to the owner and the submitting design professional no later than 30 days from the date of the report. TDLR publishes no deadline for the review itself. Its FAQ says only that a registered project must have a plan review some time before inspection, unless TDLR registered it as a special registration, and that a specialist who accepts a shared plan review has 30 days to finish it.

TDLR enforces the state Architectural Barriers Act and the 2012 Texas Accessibility Standards, effective March 15, 2012. It does not enforce the federal ADA.

Sec. 469.054(b) puts these on the owner. None of these fees is refundable, and each one is paid before TDLR performs the service; the filing fee goes on a credit card during online registration.

TDLR does not publish what a specialist charges, so get that number in writing before you name one in TABS.

Rule 68.10(13) defines it as all costs for construction of a project except site acquisition, architectural, engineering and consulting fees, furniture, and equipment unless the equipment is part of the mechanical, electrical or plumbing systems. TDLR's fee schedule sets its own fee basis on the estimated cost of construction, not including site acquisition, furnishings or equipment that is not part of the building mechanical systems, and Form EAB-205N repeats the full definition next to the estimated cost field.

Read the list as written. Land does not count. The engineer's fee for the foundation plan does not count. The slab, the building, the electrical and the plumbing do. Nothing else comes out, because the definition excludes only what it names. Total it before deciding which side of the line you are on; the cost calculator keeps shell, interior finish and site work as three layers.

Plans issued, then 20 days. The architect, interior designer, landscape architect or engineer with overall responsibility submits the plans no later than the 20th day after the date they issue them, and Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays are not counted. Issue means releasing sealed plans for construction, a permit application, or regulatory approval, and each new issue date restarts the clock. Rule 68.50 sends the submission to a specialist with a department form, and plans may be submitted electronically.

When there is no design professional. The owner submits the documents instead, before filing a building permit application, or before commencement of construction in an unincorporated part of a county that does not issue building permits (Rule 68.50(b); Rule 68.40(e) states the same duty without the county clause). Commencement of construction is itself defined: engineering stakes, delivery of materials, batter boards, formwork, or other construction related work. Setting slab formwork is inside that definition.

The permit desk. Sec. 469.102(c) bars the owner from letting a permit application be filed, or construction begin, before the plans are submitted, and requires proof of submission at application. Sec. 469.102(d) bars a permit official from accepting the application unless they verify the project is registered.

Inspection within one year. Sec. 469.105(a) makes the owner responsible for having the building inspected no later than the first anniversary of the date construction is completed, by a specialist under Rule 68.41(a). Completion is the date the project results in occupancy or the issuance of a certificate of occupancy. The request is made in writing, and the owner or a designated agent has to be onsite for it.

Then 30 and 270. The specialist completes the inspection report within 30 days of the inspection and gives it to the owner within 30 days of the report date. If corrections are required, the owner responds on a department form by the 30th day after the report and completes the corrections by the 270th day after that date. Those are calendar days; the 20-day plan window is the stated exception. TDLR may impose an administrative penalty on the owner, and each uncorrected day is a separate violation.

All four cities point at the state program, in four different documents. The permits guide covers what else each desk wants.

Boerne

The city's 2023 development-process training lists a TAS registration number among the building permit submittal documents. Boerne's ordinance adopting the 2021 International Building Code lists "Section 101.4.1 of Chapter I and Chapter II (Accessibility)" in its exclusion clause, as printed. Outside the city in Kendall County, the Fire Marshal's building permit application carries a line for the TDLR registration number. More at Boerne.

Kerrville

Kerrville writes it into the code twice. Its IBC amendment 1101.1 says the city applies and enforces applicable federal and state accessibility laws, including those administered by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, and its 2018 International Existing Building Code adds section 305.1.1: all structures shall conform to the State of Texas Accessibility Standards. Offices outside the city: Kerr County.

Fredericksburg

The Fredericksburg building permit application has a commercial section with a TDLR number field, an asbestos abatement survey line and a departmental approval form requirement, plus the estimated cost of construction. Gillespie County sends accessibility questions to the same program: (800) 803-9202 in state, or [email protected].

New Braunfels

The city's commercial permit checklist says all projects over $50,000 must be registered and asks for the TDLR Project Registration Confirmation Page. City Code Sec. 14-27(k) requires all buildings to meet the accessibility standards adopted by the State of Texas and projects to go to TDLR for review, inspection and approval; where the code and the state standard conflict, the state standard governs. Outside the city in Comal County, the Fire Marshal's office takes no permit application and allows no work to start until the project carries a TDLR registration. The applicant supplies that registration number plus a proof of submission form, which Comal calls AB042 and TDLR lists as EAB-242N. Comal adds an Edwards Aquifer layer too, taken up in the aquifer guide. More at New Braunfels.

A church is covered. Rule 68.20(e) makes a religious organization's building subject to the Act, the chapter and TAS except for the areas Rule 68.30 exempts, and the statute excludes only a place used primarily for religious rituals within that building. The exemption never reaches parking facilities, accessible routes, walkways, hallways, toilet facilities, entrances, public telephones, drinking fountains or exits.

An event barn, a tasting room or a feed store runs on the test already quoted: non-residential use by a private entity whose operations will affect commerce. Rule 68.30 does not carve out an agricultural building either. It has five exemptions, and an agricultural or storage building is not among them. An ag valuation is a property tax matter, which the ag-exempt buildings guide covers.

None of these documents says what TAS requires inside a small shop once it is covered, such as restroom and parking counts. Take that to the specialist before the plans are drawn. A building with a restroom also raises the on-site sewage question outside city sewer, which the septic guide takes up.

One independent builder prices the building and the slab. Who does what is on the about page.