How long does an ETJ release take in Texas?

The statutory clock is 45 days: once a valid SB 2038 petition is filed, the city must release the land within 45 days, and if it fails to act, release occurs by operation of law. Before filing, plan on roughly two to four weeks of preparation — the eligibility and exclusion review, the boundary description and map exhibit, and signature coordination. A realistic all-in timeline from engagement to released is about 60 to 90 days for a straightforward single-owner tract; bundled petitions with multiple owners take longer on the coordination front end.

How much does it cost to get land out of a city's ETJ?

There is no purchase price and no city 'permission fee' to negotiate — the statute gives the city no discretion to refuse a valid petition. The real costs are professional services: the eligibility review against current law (including the HB 2512 exclusions), preparation of the boundary description and map exhibit (a surveyor may be needed if no adequate legal description exists), petition drafting and filing, and legal counsel where the situation calls for it. For most tracts this puts total cost in the low thousands of dollars, driven mainly by whether new survey work is required — modest against what release can mean for a development site's value.

Does leaving the ETJ change my property taxes?

No. The ETJ never levied city property tax — ETJ land is taxed by the county, school district, and any special districts, and that doesn't change when you leave. What changes is regulatory: the city loses its subdivision/platting authority and any ETJ ordinance reach over the tract, and platting shifts to the county. Utilities also don't change automatically — your CCN provider, well, or septic arrangement is the same the day after release as the day before.

Process · August 26, 2026 · Steven Owen

ETJ release in Texas: cost, timeline, and what happens after

Once a valid SB 2038 petition is filed, the city has 45 days — and no discretion. It must release the land, or release happens by operation of law. Add the front-end work (eligibility review, boundary description, map, signatures) and a straightforward single-owner release runs roughly 60–90 days from engagement. There’s no purchase price and no city permission fee to negotiate; the costs are professional-services costs — typically low thousands of dollars, driven mostly by whether survey work is needed. And release changes less than many owners expect: city land-use control ends and platting shifts to the county, but your taxes and utilities don’t change at all.

The timeline: a 45-day clock, plus the prep in front of it

The Texas Local Government Code Chapter 42, Subchapter D petition (the SB 2038 path) is one of the few processes in Texas land use with a hard statutory clock and a mandatory outcome. Here’s how the calendar actually runs:

Typical single-owner ETJ release timeline (12+ acre tract)
Phase	Typical duration	What happens
Eligibility & exclusion review	~1 week	Tract checked against current law: acreage, plat status, subdivision lot counts, military buffer, development agreements. The step that catches problems before money is spent.
Petition package	1–3 weeks	Boundary description and map exhibit prepared (longer if new survey work is required), petition drafted, owner signatures collected and notarized.
Filing → release	≤45 days (statutory)	Petition filed with the city. The city must release within 45 days; if it doesn’t act, release occurs by operation of law.
All-in	~60–90 days	Engagement to released, for a clean single-owner tract.

Bundled petitions — the path that keeps sub-12-acre lots eligible after HB 2512 — follow the same statutory clock but add coordination time up front: multiple owners, one release area, and a required majority in value all signing one petition. Plan the front end in months, not weeks, and start with the neighbors, not the paperwork.

What it costs — and what it doesn’t

Owners sometimes assume they’ll be negotiating a payment to the city. They won’t — the statute leaves the city nothing to sell. A valid petition compels release. The real cost lines are:

Eligibility review. Records-level checks (plat status, lot counts, development agreements, buffers) that aren’t visible on a map. Cheap insurance against filing an invalid petition.
Boundary description and map exhibit. If your deed carries a workable legal description, this is drafting work. If not, a surveyor’s metes-and-bounds description is the largest single cost in most releases.
Petition preparation and filing. Drafting, signature and notary coordination, filing with the city secretary, and follow-through on the 45-day clock.
Legal counsel, where warranted. Contested situations, development-agreement questions, or title complications belong with a licensed attorney — we coordinate rather than improvise.

For most tracts the total lands in the low thousands of dollars, with survey work the swing factor — modest against what county-only jurisdiction can mean for a development site’s value, and against the cost of waiting out another legislative session that could tighten eligibility again.

What actually changes after release

After an ETJ release: what changes and what doesn’t
Item	After release
City subdivision/platting authority	Ends. Platting shifts to the county.
City ETJ ordinances & annexation exposure	End for the released tract; it is no longer in the city’s ETJ.
Property taxes	Unchanged. The ETJ never levied city tax; county, school, and special-district taxes continue as before.
Utilities (CCN provider, well, septic)	Unchanged. Release doesn’t alter service arrangements or CCN boundaries.
Deed restrictions & development agreements	Survive. Private restrictions and recorded agreements are unaffected by release.
County regulations	Still apply — county platting, floodplain, and on-site sewage rules govern.

That last table is also the honest-broker check: if your development plan depends on city utilities, or your constraint was never city regulation in the first place, release may not move your project at all. Whether it helps is a separate analysis from whether you qualify — we cover both in the full ETJ release guide.

What can slow it down

The 45-day clock is firm, but the front end has failure modes: an exclusion that only shows up in the records (a lot inside a 25+ lot plat, a development-agreement encumbrance), an inadequate legal description that forces survey work, signature gaps on multi-owner filings, and — less often since Elliott v. City of College Station — a city that slow-walks a valid petition. The first three are preventable with a proper review before filing. The last one is why the by-operation-of-law provision matters: the clock runs regardless.

How SCORE runs it

SCORE Property Group handles ETJ release as a done-for-you process — eligibility and exclusion review against current law, the petition package with boundary description and map, bundled-petition coordination for smaller tracts, and the straight answer on whether release actually serves your plan. We’re a commercial real estate and land specialist, not a law firm, and we bring in licensed counsel where a matter calls for it.

Want the clock started on your tract?

Send us the property. We’ll confirm eligibility under today’s rules, scope the actual cost for your specific tract, and give you a realistic calendar — before you spend anything.

See the ETJ release service Check my property

Current as of August 2026. SB 2038 (effective 9/1/2023) and HB 2512 (effective 9/1/2025) amend Texas Local Government Code Chapter 42; timelines cited are statutory, cost figures are directional and vary by tract. This is general information, not legal advice; SCORE Property Group is not a law firm, and SCORE Property Group, Compass, and Steven Owen make no representations or warranties — confirm eligibility, costs, and effects with qualified counsel before filing. Related: ETJ Release service · Who still qualifies in 2026 · Is my property in Austin’s ETJ?