Texas vehicle inspection
No safety inspection since January 1, 2025
Requirement Selected counties only Checked November 2026
What you actually have to do
Texas dropped the annual safety inspection for non-commercial vehicles at the start of 2025. What survived is emissions testing, and only in the larger metro counties — Brazoria, Collin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Ellis, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Johnson, Kaufman, Montgomery, Parker, Rockwall, Tarrant, Travis and Williamson.
Emissions
Required before registration in those 17 counties only. Everywhere else, nothing — a fact a lot of out-of-state guides still get wrong.
What it costs
The OBD test is capped at $18.50, plus a $2.50 state administration fee collected at registration.
Source
Related
The two other things a state checks: Texas window tint limits and Texas EV registration surcharge.
Checked November 2026.