HB2012

HB2012 lets additional counties regulate roadside and parking-lot vendors and people soliciting money. It extends existing authority for counties with more than 1.3 million residents to a second category: counties with more than 600,000 residents that are adjacent to a county with more than four million residents. It does not give every Texas county this authority. Final law.

An eligible county’s commissioners court may adopt an order, for public safety, covering the county’s unincorporated areas. The activities must occur on a public road or highway, in its right-of-way, or in a parking lot. Covered activities are selling food or merchandise, including live animals; erecting, maintaining or placing vendors’ structures; and soliciting money. The statute itself does not automatically prohibit these activities or adopt a particular county rule. Transportation Code 285.001(a).

The existing chapter allows permits, reasonable permit fees and removal of structures violating adopted regulations. State statutes and agency rules prevail over conflicting county regulations. Knowingly violating a regulation, or knowingly obstructing or threatening to obstruct removal of a violating structure, is a Class C misdemeanor, with each continuing day a separate offense. HB2012 extends the population coverage of this framework rather than rewriting these enforcement provisions. Transportation Code 285.002–285.004.

The law took effect September 1, 2025. Its change is to subsection (a); it leaves the separate authority and limitations for certain border counties in subsections (b)–(c) unchanged. Whether a specific county has adopted an order requires checking that county’s current rules. Final law, Sections 1–2.