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Texas: Laws & Legal Considerations

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Rainwater harvesting: actively encouraged, not just permitted

Where Utah, Oregon, and California each carve out a narrow rooftop exemption from a broader permit system, Texas goes further: the state actively incentivizes rainwater collection.

RuleTexas
Source water Rooftop or other catchment; no state permit required for collection or on-site use
Sales tax Exempt: equipment, labor, and materials for a rainwater harvesting system are exempt from state sales tax
Property tax Local option: taxing units may exempt part or all of the assessed value added by an approved rainwater harvesting system
HOA restrictions Barred: a homeowners association cannot prohibit a rainwater harvesting system
Underlying statutes Tax Code §151.355 (sales tax); Tax Code §11.32 (property tax); Property Code §202.007 (HOA protection)

How to actually claim the sales tax exemption

It isn’t automatic at checkout. The purchaser fills out Texas Comptroller Form 01-339 (the sales tax exemption certificate) and gives it to the supplier at time of purchase, covering rain barrels, cisterns, tanks, gutters and diverters routed into a collection system, roof washers, and filtration screens.

Where to find it: the Texas Water Development Board maintains rainwater harvesting guidance at twdb.texas.gov.

Water rights: a genuinely distinct third system

Utah and Oregon use pure prior-appropriation law for their water. California splits surface water between riparian and appropriative rights. Texas does something different again: it treats groundwater and surface water as two entirely separate legal regimes, governed by different rules and, in the case of groundwater, largely different logic than any other state covered so far.

Water typeGoverning ruleKey feature
Groundwater Rule of capture A landowner may pump essentially unlimited water from beneath their own land, regardless of the effect on a neighbor's well or the water table, subject only to local Groundwater Conservation District rules where one exists
Surface water Prior appropriation State-owned; "first in time, first in right" permits issued and administered by TCEQ, the same underlying doctrine as Utah's and Oregon's systems

Rule of capture is not the same as 'no rules at all'

The rule dates to a 1904 Texas Supreme Court ruling and remains the default, but it isn’t absolute in practice: roughly 177 counties fall under a local Groundwater Conservation District with permitting and pumping-limit authority, and regional Groundwater Management Areas set longer-term availability targets. Whether a given well is meaningfully regulated depends entirely on which district, if any, covers that specific property.

Where to find it: the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (tceq.texas.gov) administers surface water rights; check the Texas Water Development Board’s district map for groundwater regulation in a specific county.

Permitless carry since 2021

Texas is one of the states, alongside Utah, that allows most adults to carry a handgun, openly or concealed, without any permit at all.

RequirementDetail
Standard Permitless ("constitutional") carry for handguns; a License to Carry remains available and is useful for reciprocity when traveling to other states
Minimum age 21, with narrower exceptions for 18-20-year-olds following a 2025 federal court ruling and for active-duty military 18 and older
Disqualifiers Federal or state firearm prohibition; certain misdemeanor convictions within the past 5 years; active criminal street gang membership
Governing statute House Bill 1927 (2021), effective September 1, 2021

Permitless carry applies to handguns only

HB 1927 changed the default rule for handguns specifically; it didn’t alter separate state and federal rules governing rifles, short-barreled firearms, or carry in specifically restricted locations (schools, courts, polling places, and others). A License to Carry still matters for anyone who travels regularly to a state that recognizes Texas LTC reciprocity but not permitless carry itself.

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