How to start a lawn care business in Texas: sales tax, spray licenses and irrigation

Most of what you need to start a lawn care company is national: a truck, a trailer, a mower, a price list and a customer route. This page covers only what changes in Texas. Three things do. The Comptroller treats your service as taxable. The Department of Agriculture licenses anyone who sprays for hire. And a separate state agency licenses anyone who touches an irrigation system. For the national basics, start with our guide to starting a lawn care business, then come back here for the Texas layer. Statewide formation and tax filings are on our Texas startup page.

Texas taxes lawn care, and the details change how you invoice

The Texas Comptroller lists planting, pruning, spraying, fertilizing and watering plants, plus mowing and edging grass, as taxable landscape services. It also lists trimming, spraying and maintaining trees. You charge the state rate plus any local tax on the whole invoice, then report and pay on your sales tax return. A few specifics from the Comptroller's lawn care and landscaping publication, read in October 2026:

• Solo exception. Lawn care is not taxable if you do the work yourself, have no employees or partners, and had $5,000 or less in gross receipts from the service during the most recent four calendar quarters. Once you pass $5,000, you start collecting tax on the first day of the next quarter.
• Buying supplies. You give your supplier a resale certificate for fertilizer, plants, flowerbed edging, herbicides and processed dirt, sand or gravel that goes into taxable work. Equipment and supplies such as mowers and gloves are taxable when you buy them.
• Separate the nontaxable lines. If a job mixes a nontaxable service with taxable work and you do not state them separately, the entire charge is presumed taxable when the taxable part is more than 5 percent. Landscape design fees and trimming trees away from power lines are on the nontaxable list.
• Subcontractors. If you hire someone to do part of a taxable job, you give that person a resale certificate and charge your customer tax on the full amount, including their fee.

The practical step is a quote and invoice template with separate lines for mowing, chemical applications, design and any nontaxable work. Our guide to sales tax on services covers the general mechanics, and the mowing pricing guide shows how to build a price that stays profitable after tax and local fees.

Spraying anything for hire needs a TDA license

Texas draws the line at pesticides, not at the size of the job. The Texas Department of Agriculture says anyone who applies pesticides to ornamental plants, trees, lawns or weeds for hire must be licensed by TDA. That includes general-use products you could buy at a hardware store, and it covers weed killers as well as insecticides and fungicides.

TDA offers two routes. The Agricultural Pesticide license, with the Landscape Maintenance category (3A), and the Vegetation Management category (5), is the usual path for a lawn company. The Structural Pest Control Service license, with a Lawn and Ornamental or Weed Control category, is the other route and sits under TDA's structural program. Which one fits depends on what you apply and where, so read TDA's guidance on lawns, trees and ornamentals before you apply.

What the Agricultural Pesticide route asks of you, as listed by TDA in October 2026:

• You pass the General Standards exam and at least one category exam. TDA says commercial and noncommercial applicators pay $64 for each category exam, and its contracted vendor, Metro Institute, administers them. Confirm the General Standards fee and retake charges with Metro before you book.
• TDA defines a commercial applicator as someone who runs or works for a business that applies pesticides to other people's property for hire, and a noncommercial applicator as someone who does not solicit pest control and works only on their employer's property. A lawn company selling spray work is on the commercial side. The applicator business also registers with TDA on its Pesticide Applicator Business Registration form, which TDA calls a registration, not a license.
• A registered business shows proof of financial responsibility of $100,000 for property damage and $100,000 for bodily injury per occurrence, or a $200,000 general aggregate.
• Applicators earn five continuing education units before the license expires, including one each from two of three categories: laws and regulations, integrated pest management, and drift minimization. Approved internet or correspondence courses can supply all five only every other year.
• Each vehicle an applicator business employee drives for Landscape Maintenance work must carry a TDA applicator business vehicle identification decal, placed on the rear window, front fender or front door panel.

TDA also states that applicators who apply only fertilizer do not need a TDA license. That is a statement about the TDA license. Your city or your customer's homeowners association may set its own terms, so ask before you write fertilizer-only work into a contract. If you plan to sell a program that mixes fertilizer with weed control, you are in licensed territory.

Sprinklers have their own state license

Lawn care companies in Texas often get asked to fix a broken head or adjust a controller. That is where a different agency enters. Under Texas Occupations Code section 1903.251, a person must hold a license from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to sell, design, install, maintain, alter, repair or service an irrigation system, to provide consulting services about one, or to connect one to a water supply. TCEQ says licensed irrigators must have the seal and license in their physical possession while providing landscape irrigation services, and that complaints against unlicensed irrigators can be filed in municipal and justice of the peace courts under section 1903.256.

Section 1903.002 of the same chapter lists exemptions, so read Chapter 1903 and TCEQ's Landscape Irrigation Program pages before deciding that a task is outside the license. If irrigation is where you want to grow, plan to hire or become a licensed irrigator rather than letting a mowing crew handle valves and backflow devices on the side. If you add it later, list it on your website as its own service so customers can find it. Our lawn care add-on services guide covers other upsells that do not need a separate license.

Insurance and employees in Texas

Texas lets most private employers choose whether to carry workers' compensation. The Texas Department of Insurance calls employers without it nonsubscribers and expects them to file a notice of no coverage with the Division of Workers' Compensation each year between February 1 and April 30, after hiring a first employee, and after ending a policy. They also post a notice in English and Spanish and give written notice to new hires. If you bid on a government contract, Labor Code section 406.096 requires the contractor to certify coverage for every employee on that project. Lawn crews work with blades, chemicals and heat, so talk with an insurance agent about coverage before you hire, even where the law leaves the decision to you.

The TDA financial responsibility figures above are a separate requirement from workers' compensation. General liability insurance is what usually satisfies them, so ask your agent for a certificate that matches the dollar amounts TDA lists.

The Texas season and what to do first

Texas covers several climates, and the grass differs from the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast. The state's own startup data notes long, hot summers across most of the state, so the mowing season is long and many companies bundle fertilizer, weed control and irrigation checks around it. Hurricane season on the Gulf Coast runs June through November, which brings storm cleanup and tree work as well as route disruptions. Hard freezes are rare but can burst pipes and kill turf.

1. Form the entity and get your EIN. Our Texas page has the Secretary of State filing and the franchise tax calendar.
2. Apply for a Comptroller sales tax permit before your first taxable job, unless you qualify for the solo exception.
3. Decide whether you will spray. If yes, start the TDA application, book the exams and get insurance in the amounts TDA lists.
4. Decide who services sprinklers. If it will not be you, write that into your service list and refer those calls.
5. Set up invoices that separate taxable and nontaxable lines.
6. Buy equipment. Our lawn care equipment list covers what a starting crew needs.
7. Build your website around town and neighborhood names you serve, and answer every call. A lawn company lives on recurring routes, so a missed first call costs a season of weekly visits. See our website service and lawn care SEO guide.

Confirm the details

This page offers general information on starting a lawn care company in Texas as of October 2026. Do not treat it as legal or tax advice. Fees, exam vendors and category names change, and cities can add registration or permit rules. Confirm each item with the agency named in the sources before you act.

Frequently asked questions