Outline of the eviction process in Texas

Texas is one of the fastest eviction states in the country, and on January 1, 2026 it got faster. Senate Bill 38 rewrote most of Chapter 24 of the Property Code, and the Supreme Court of Texas replaced Rule 510 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to match. The changes apply to every eviction suit in which the petition is filed on or after that date. If you learned Texas evictions before 2026, or you are reading a guide that still talks about posting a notice on the outside of the door, the procedure you remember has been repealed.

The court case is called a forcible detainer suit. It is filed in a justice of the peace court, the statute contemplates a three-day notice, a trial set 10 to 21 days after filing, and a writ of possession available on the sixth day after judgment. An uncontested case can be finished in about three to four weeks. The speed cuts both ways: the deadlines that bind the landlord are just as short as the ones that bind the tenant, and a defective notice to vacate will usually cost you the suit and send you back to the beginning.

1. Grounds, and what the lease controls

Texas has no statewide just-cause requirement and no statewide rent regulation. A landlord may end a tenancy for nonpayment of rent, for breach of the lease, for holding over after the term ends, or for no stated reason once the tenancy has been properly terminated. What governs most Texas evictions in practice is the lease, because Property Code § 24.005 lets the parties contract for a shorter or longer notice period in a written lease. The widely used Texas Apartment Association lease sets its own notice terms. Read the lease before you count a single day.

Retaliation is the defense most often raised against an otherwise clean Texas case. Under Property Code § 92.331, a landlord may not, within six months after a tenant exercises a protected right such as a good-faith repair request or a complaint to a code authority, retaliate by filing an eviction, except on the grounds listed in § 92.332. Nonpayment of rent is one of those grounds. A holdover or no-cause termination inside that six-month window is where the defense has teeth.

2. The notice to vacate

The notice to vacate is the single most common point of failure. The default under § 24.005 is at least three days’ written notice before the suit is filed, unless a written lease sets a different period.

• First-time nonpayment: pay or vacate is mandatory. Where the tenant’s right of possession is terminated based solely on nonpayment of rent, and the tenant was not late or delinquent before the month in which the notice is given, the notice must be a notice to pay rent or vacate. Before 2026 this was optional. It is now a requirement, and the sworn petition has to state whether the tenant was previously late (Rule 510.6(a)(11)), so the court will check.
• Repeat delinquency. If the tenant has been late before, the notice may be either a notice to pay rent or vacate or a straight notice to vacate.
• Holdover and lease breach. A notice to vacate, three days unless the lease sets a different period. For a holdover, § 24.005(a) also requires that the tenancy itself was properly ended under Property Code § 91.001 first. A month-to-month tenancy ends on the later of the date in the termination notice or one month after the notice is given (one full rent period if rent is paid more often than monthly), unless a lease signed by both parties sets a different period. The three-day notice to vacate comes after that termination, not instead of it.

Delivery changed completely in 2026. S.B. 38 repealed the old delivery subsections, including the procedure for posting the notice on the outside of the main entry door. That method no longer exists. New § 24.005(f-3) permits only:

• mail, including first class, registered or certified mail, or a delivery service;
• delivery inside the premises, in a conspicuous place;
• hand delivery to any tenant of the premises who is 16 or older. The old rule allowed any resident of that age; a teenage child or a guest who is not a tenant no longer counts;
• electronic communication, including email, but only if the parties agreed to it in writing.

Under § 24.005(f-4), a delivery defect does not matter if the tenant actually received the notice, but you do not want to be proving actual receipt at trial. Pick a listed method and keep proof: the notice, the date, and how it was delivered are the first three things the judge will ask about, and Rule 510.6(a)(9) requires the petition to describe when and how notice was given.

Counting days. New § 24.0042 and Rule 510.4 use the same method: exclude the day of the triggering event, count every day including weekends and holidays, and if the last day falls on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday, the period runs to the next day that is not.

Federally backed and subsidized properties. Where federal law requires a longer notice, such as the 30-day notice for CARES Act covered properties, § 24.005(c-1) and (e) now let the state and federal periods run concurrently and let the landlord file once the state notice period is satisfied. The writ of possession cannot be served until the federal period has run. This is a technical area; get advice before relying on it.

Be careful about accepting money after the notice. Nothing in Chapter 24 says so, but Texas courts have long treated acceptance of rent after a notice to vacate as a possible waiver of the notice. Many leases, including the TAA form, contain a non-waiver clause that blunts the argument. Know what your lease says before you take a partial payment, and if you take one, put the terms in writing.

3. Filing in the justice court

The suit must be brought in the justice precinct where the property sits (new § 24.0041), not where the landlord or the management company is. If it is filed anywhere else the judge must dismiss it, and you do not get the filing fee back; service fees are refunded only if the case is dismissed before service is attempted (Rule 510.6(c)).

The petition must be sworn, and Rule 510.6(a) lists thirteen required items, including a description of the premises, the facts and grounds for eviction, when and how the pre-suit notice was given and which kind it was, the total rent due at filing, and, in a nonpayment case, whether the tenant was previously late. If the eviction is based on a written residential lease, name every tenant on the lease who lives there. No judgment or writ can issue against a tenant who was not named and served (Rule 510.6(d)).

Two landlord-friendly changes: a court may no longer dismiss a suit because of a petition defect that can be cured by amendment (Rule 510.6(g)), and local courts may not add their own petition requirements or require mediation or a pretrial conference before trial (§ 24.00506; Rule 510.24(b)).

Filing and service costs vary by county. Travis County Precinct 4, as an example, charges $144 for filing and service on one defendant and $90 for each additional defendant, and asks for a copy of the lease, a copy of the notice to vacate, and every work and home address and phone number you have for the tenants.

You may join a claim for unpaid rent, but only up to the justice court’s limit of $20,000, a figure that includes attorney fees and excludes interest and court costs. Nothing else rides along: counterclaims and third-party claims are now barred outright in an eviction suit (§ 24.004; Rule 510.6(f)), which means property damage has to be pursued separately, and it also means the tenant cannot bolt a counterclaim onto your case.

A landlord does not have to appear through a lawyer. An individual may appear personally or through an authorized agent, and an entity may appear through an employee, owner, officer, partner or property manager, none of whom needs to be an attorney (§ 24.011; Rule 510.3). That is a convenience, not a recommendation. A contested case with a retaliation or habitability theme is a different animal from an uncontested nonpayment.

4. Service and the trial date

When the petition is filed the court must immediately issue a citation, and the citation sets the trial date: not less than 10 days and not more than 21 days after the petition is filed (§ 24.0051; Rule 510.8(b)(10)). There is no separate appearance day.

Only a sheriff or constable may serve the citation. The officer must make a diligent effort to serve it within five business days after filing, and the case may not be tried until four days have passed after service (Rules 510.8(d)(4), 510.15(b)). Citation cannot be served on a Sunday.

New in 2026: if the constable has not served within five business days, the landlord may ask the court for an alias citation and have it served by any other trained law enforcement officer, including an off-duty officer, (Rule 510.8(d)(2)). You pay that officer’s fee, and the constable’s service fee is not refunded. In counties where the constable’s office is backed up, this is the most useful practical change in the bill.

If personal service fails, the judge may authorize delivery to the premises, but only after the officer swears to at least two diligent attempts and the petition lists every home and work address you know for the tenant. The officer then puts the citation through a mail chute or under the front door, affixing it to the door only if neither is possible, and also mails a copy, all at least four days before trial (Rule 510.8(e)). A trial may be postponed for good cause by no more than seven days unless both sides agree in writing (Rule 510.13(b)).

5. The hearing and the judgment

The trial is before the justice of the peace. Either party may demand a jury by filing a written demand at least three days before trial, or three days after service, whichever is later, and paying the jury fee or filing a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs (Rule 510.15(c)).

The tenant does not have to file an answer. Rule 510.11 makes a written answer optional. If the tenant neither answers nor appears at trial and proof of service is on file, the allegations of the petition are taken as admitted and the court renders a default judgment. A landlord asking for a default must give the clerk the tenant’s last known email and mailing address and serve the judgment (Rule 510.16(b)). Parties may appear by video only if both sides agree (Rule 510.17).

Summary disposition is narrower than the headlines suggested. S.B. 38 created a fast-track judgment without trial in new § 24.005106, with a four-day response deadline. It applies to forcible entry and detainer suits, which in practice means squatters and others who entered without a right to be there. An ordinary landlord-tenant case is a forcible detainer, and for those Rule 510.10(b) points to the general justice court summary disposition procedure in Rule 503.2 rather than the fast track. Do not plan an ordinary nonpayment case around it.

Bring the lease, the ledger, the notice with proof of delivery, and any correspondence. If you win, the judgment awards possession, costs, delinquent rent as of the judgment date, and attorney fees where recoverable. In a residential case the court must also set, in the judgment itself, the rent the tenant has to pay during any appeal (Rule 510.18(f)). No motion for new trial is allowed.

6. Appeal, where Texas evictions actually slow down

A party has five days after the judgment is signed to appeal, by filing a bond, making a cash deposit, or filing a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs. The appeal sends the case to the county court for a trial de novo: a complete retrial, not a review. This is the step that turns a three-week eviction into a much longer one, and it is the main reason a Texas landlord hires counsel.

S.B. 38 tightened it in the landlord’s favor in four ways:

• Rent into the registry now applies to every residential appeal. Before 2026 this protection was tied to nonpayment cases. Now any tenant who appeals a residential eviction must pay one rental period’s rent into the justice court registry within five days of filing the appeal, and then pay rent on or before the start of each rental period while the appeal is pending (§ 24.0053; Rule 510.19(d)). If the tenant misses a payment, the court issues a writ of possession on the landlord’s request, without a hearing (§ 24.0054(a); Rule 510.19(d)(2)(D)).
• You can draw the money down. The court must disburse registry rent to the landlord on request at any time during or after the appeal (Rule 510.19(d)(2)(E)).
• The tenant must swear to a defense. An appealing tenant has to affirm under penalty of perjury a good-faith belief in a meritorious defense and that the appeal is not for delay (§ 24.005107; Rule 510.19(a)).
• The county court is on a clock. The justice court sends the file up between the sixth and tenth day after the appeal is filed, and the county court must hold the new trial within 21 days after it receives the file (Rule 510.20).

Where a housing agency pays part of the rent, the tenant pays only the tenant’s portion into the registry, and either side can contest that figure within five days of the judgment.

7. The writ of possession

No writ of possession may issue before the sixth day after the judgment for possession, or the day after the appeal deadline, whichever is later (§ 24.0061(b); Rule 510.18(g)(1)). The exception is a landlord who filed a possession bond under Rule 510.9 and served notice of it at least seven days earlier. Issuing the writ is now expressly a ministerial act not subject to review or delay (§ 24.0061(b-1)).

Watch the back end of the calendar too. A writ may not issue more than 60 days after the judgment is signed, extendable to 90 for good cause, and may not be executed after the 90th day. If the constable has not served the writ within five business days, the landlord can again request a replacement writ for another trained officer.

Once the writ issues, the officer posts a written warning on the premises and must wait at least 24 hours before executing it (§ 24.0061(d)(1)). On execution the officer orders the occupants out, removes anyone who refuses, and oversees removal of personal property to a place outside the unit that does not block a public sidewalk or street, and not while it is raining, sleeting or snowing. So a wet morning means rescheduling.

The landlord bears the cost of issuing and executing the writ (Rule 510.18(g)); Travis County, for example, charges $205. In practice the officer supervises and does not supply labor, so most landlords bring their own crew, although the statute itself does not say who must. It does say the officer may engage a bonded warehouseman to store the property at no cost to the landlord, and may not require the landlord to store it (§ 24.0061(e), (f)).

Rekey the unit the moment possession transfers.

8. What actually goes wrong

• Posting the notice on the door. It was a lawful method until the end of 2025. It is not one now. Use mail, inside-the-premises delivery, hand delivery to a tenant, or agreed email.
• A straight notice to vacate for a first-time late payer. If the case is solely nonpayment and the tenant has never been late before, the notice has to offer the chance to pay.
• A notice that does not match the lease. The statute gives three days; the lease may give more or less. A notice that is short by a day is fatal.
• Leaving a leaseholder off the petition. A tenant on the lease who lives there and was not named and served cannot be removed under your judgment.
• Filing in the wrong precinct. Mandatory dismissal, and the filing fee is gone.
• Asking the justice court for more than it can give. Rent up to $20,000 can be joined; property damage cannot.
• Letting the writ go stale. It must issue within 60 days of the judgment (90 with good cause) and be executed by day 90.
• Treating the appeal as unlikely. It is still cheap for the tenant. What changed is that every appealing residential tenant now has to pay rent into the registry to stay, so watch the payment dates and ask for the writ the day one is missed.

When to bring in an attorney

Many Texas landlords and property managers handle an uncontested justice court nonpayment case themselves, and the rules are built to allow it. It is worth hiring counsel when the tenant has a lawyer, when the tenant raises retaliation or repair issues, when the tenancy is subsidized or the property is federally backed and the notice periods overlap, when the termination falls within six months of a tenant complaint, or once the tenant appeals to county court, where the whole case is tried again from the beginning. The attorneys listed for Texas below represent landlords and can usually quote a flat fee for an uncontested case.

Sources

• Texas Senate Bill 38, 89th Legislature, Regular Session (2025), enrolled version, signed June 20, 2025, effective January 1, 2026, amending or adding Property Code §§ 24.004, 24.0041, 24.0042, 24.0043, 24.005, 24.00505, 24.00506, 24.0051, 24.005105, 24.005106, 24.005107, 24.00511, 24.00512, 24.0052, 24.0053, 24.0054, 24.0061 and 24.011, and repealing § 24.005(f) through (i). Bill history and text, Texas Legislature Online.
• Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, consolidated edition published by the Supreme Court of Texas, Rule 510 (Eviction Cases), Rules 510.1 through 510.24, as adopted for cases filed on or after January 1, 2026.
• Texas Property Code § 24.0061(d) through (f) (writ execution and removal of property), § 91.001 (ending a periodic tenancy), and §§ 92.331 and 92.332 (retaliation and nonretaliation).
• Travis County Justice of the Peace, Precinct 4, eviction filing requirements and fee schedule (example figures only).

A caution about sources: at the time of writing, the Texas Legislature’s online statute pages for Chapter 24 had not been updated to show the S.B. 38 amendments. If the version you are reading still describes posting a notice on the outside of the door, it is the pre-2026 text.

This guide is general information about Texas procedure and is not legal advice. Eviction practice varies between counties and between precincts within a county. Confirm the current text before relying on any deadline here.