Market update · September 15, 2026 · Steven Owen

Texas data center moratoriums by county & city: the 2026 tracker

Central Texas

North Texas

West, Southeast and South Texas

The state overlay: Abbott’s audit is the only rule that touches everyone

On August 3, 2026, Gov. Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT to run a “comprehensive verification and audit” of every data center advancing through the ERCOT interconnection queue — tax incentives received, power use and generation plans, water use and cooling, community-impact mitigation, and ownership — and to deny grid connection to any project that fails. ERCOT paused its Batch Zero large-load study the same day and has said it intends to finish auditing roughly 250–300 projects by December 10, 2026. The queue itself stood at more than 1,800 projects and over 474 GW, about 90% of it data centers. The June 10 directive that preceded it requires data centers to fully fund the transmission built to serve them.

Two carve-outs matter for landowners. Projects building on-site generation that do not need an ERCOT interconnection are not directly paused — which is exactly why behind-the-meter gas deals like Taylor’s Project Mustang keep moving. And El Paso sits outside the ERCOT footprint entirely. Everything else waits on the audit, then on the Legislature, which convenes in January 2027 with data center rules already on the agenda.

Why county moratoriums keep collapsing

Texas is a Dillon’s Rule state. Home-rule cities over 5,000 population can zone; counties generally cannot, and their power over unincorporated land runs mostly through subdivision platting, floodplain and on-site sewage rules. The 2023 preemption law, HB 2127, further limits local rules that go beyond state law. That is the legal ground Hill County stood on when it passed the state’s first county moratorium in May — and the ground that gave way when a developer sued for more than $100 million. The county rescinded within about six weeks and replaced the ban with a disclosure checklist. Tom Green County dropped its plan the same month, Hood County had already been warned off by a state senator, and Hays County tabled its own moratorium twice before landing on a review period that defers the approvals the county actually controls: abatements, development agreements and variances.

Cities are a different story. San Marcos’s zoning ban is the one to watch: it is the first outright municipal prohibition, it passed 4–3, and it has not been tested in court. The more common city approach — El Paso, Lewisville, Forney, Kerrville, Mesquite, Princeton, North Richland Hills, Missouri City — is a special-use permit with buffers, noise limits and water disclosure. Those regimes slow projects and add conditions; they do not stop them.

What it means if you own land

Read the table by what a buyer can actually get approved, not by headline. A non-binding county resolution (Somervell, Caldwell, Milam, Brazoria) changes nothing about entitlement; it signals that an abatement will be hard to win. A city SUP regime (El Paso, Lewisville, Forney) adds months and conditions but keeps the site viable. A zoning ban (San Marcos, Athens) or a Hays-style deferral of discretionary approvals removes the buyer from the market for the duration — and a data center developer who cannot get a development agreement or abatement will simply underwrite the next county over.

Unincorporated, non-ETJ land in an open county is worth more in this environment, not less. Every jurisdiction that closes pushes demand toward the ones that don’t. In Central Texas that means eastern Williamson County, Bastrop County, and county land outside city ETJs along the transmission corridors — the same geography where powered land already commands a premium. If your tract sits in a city’s ETJ, an ETJ release under SB 2038 can move it from a city’s permit regime to the county’s, which is one of the few levers a landowner controls.

The audit is a timing problem, not a demand problem. Developers are still buying land through the pause; they are underwriting a later interconnection date or an on-site generation plan. What has changed is that buyers now pay for certainty: a site with a gas transmission line, a clear water source and a jurisdiction that has said yes clears the audit faster and prices accordingly. We cover the buyer’s checklist in data center site selection criteria and the sale process in how to sell land to a data center developer.

How SCORE helps

We track this jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction because it is the first screen we run on any tract a data center developer might want: which court or council has to say yes, what they have said so far, and whether the site’s power, gas and water position clears the state audit. If you own land in the corridor, we will tell you where it lands on the map above and which buyer types are still active there.

Current as of September 15, 2026. This tracker is compiled from public reporting and is offered as a current indicator, not a definitive legal record; ordinances, resolutions and court actions change weekly, and several items above are in process rather than adopted. Confirm status with the jurisdiction before relying on it. Sources: The Real Deal (Sept. 8, 2026 — statewide roundup of local actions); MultiState (Aug. 19, 2026 — Austin County moratorium, El Paso, Forney, Lewisville, Mesquite, Milam County, Hill County lawsuit); Texas Tribune (Aug. 3, 2026 — Abbott audit directive; June 5, 2026 — Hill County rescission; June 2, 2026 — Hood County); Community Impact (June 23, 2026 — Hays County resolution; June 17, 2026 — San Marcos ban); Spectrum News (May 19, 2026 — Hill and Somervell counties); Utility Dive and KERA (Aug. 21, 2026 — ERCOT Dec. 10 target). This is general information, not legal, engineering or investment advice; SCORE Property Group is not a law firm. Related: Austin-area data center tracker · powered land & ERCOT · water, cooling & permitting · selling land to a data center developer · Development Land.