This website and the documents it makes are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
Audits, reports, rules and contracts about towing in Texas, each with a short summary in plain words and a link to the agency's own copy.
These are government documents. We link to the official copies. Summaries are ours; read the record itself before you rely on it.
TDLR's yearly enforcement numbers for the towing program: 31,755 licensees, 2,205 consumer complaints, cases taking about 291 days on average to close, and $55,899.74 in consumer restitution. Most consumer complaints end without discipline.
Official copy:
Last checked .
The same yearly numbers for storage lots: 4,547 licensees, 612 consumer complaints, an average of about 329 days to close a case, and $6,504.45 in consumer restitution.
Official copy:
Last checked .
A 2025 proposal for a one-time catch-up of storage, impoundment and notification fees and a $70 daily storage fee for electric and hybrid cars. Its background lists the dates of TDLR's past storage-fee rules: October 25, 2019, October 29, 2021 and January 5, 2024.
Official copy:
A committee report. We have not confirmed whether the bill passed; TDLR's fee page still showed the 2023 amounts on October 7, 2026. The exact report date is not shown on the page we read.
Last checked .
TDLR's notice of the 2023 inflation adjustment: $22.85 a day for vehicles 25 feet or less (was $21.03), $39.99 for longer vehicles (was $36.80), and a $22.85 impoundment fee.
Official copy:
Last checked .
A 2023 proposal to make a one-time inflation catch-up from 2005 to 2019 on storage, impoundment and notification fees. Its background explains that those fees were frozen in the statute from the mid-2000s.
Official copy:
A committee report. We have not confirmed its final status. The exact report date is not shown on the page we read.
Last checked .
TDLR's notice that the commission adopted new private-property tow maximums on October 5, 2021, effective November 1, 2021. It lists the old and new amounts for each weight class and the drop charges.
Official copy:
Last checked .
The Legislature's review of TDLR. It found that staff had informally prioritized vehicle 'flipping' cases, a scheme it said was common in the Houston area, and that some tow operators avoid discipline by getting a license under a new business name. It also notes TDLR stopped routine tow inspections in February 2019.
Official copy:
Last checked .
TDLR told licensees they may add a credit card surcharge, but no more than the amount or percentage the card issuer charges them.
Official copy:
The notice does not name the rule or statute it relies on.
Last checked .
TDLR's notice of H.B. 1140 (2019), which lets the commission adjust storage and impoundment fees for inflation, and the first adjusted amounts from January 1, 2020: $20.64 a day (25 feet or less), $36.11 (longer) and a $20.64 impoundment fee.
Official copy:
Last checked .
TDLR announced it would stop routine inspections of tow companies and tow trucks, saying other bodies already oversee them. It said it would still investigate complaints, check insurance and do spot inspections.
Official copy:
Last checked .
The 2017 law that ended state licenses for booting companies and boot operators as of September 1, 2018, and left booting to cities, counties and universities to regulate. Austin wrote its booting chapter in response.
Official copy:
Date shown is the effective date of most sections in the statute history; the analysis itself is undated on the page we read.
Last checked .
Explains the 2009 towing law: TDLR must set private-property tow maximums based on a cost study, tow hearings move to the justice court where the car was towed from, the 14-day hearing clock waits for the paperwork, storage lots must take cards, and licenses are suspended for unpaid tow-hearing judgments.
Official copy:
Last checked .
We are reviewing these before we post them: