Anyone drilling a water well for hire in Texas needs a license from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, must set the well at least 100 feet from a septic drain field and 50 feet from a septic tank, and must send the owner a State of Texas Well Report within 60 days. Pumping is regulated by 98 local groundwater conservation districts, not by a state agency, and a domestic well on more than 10 acres that cannot pump more than 25,000 gallons a day is exempt from a district permit but usually not from registration. Landowners may drill on their own land for their own use without a license, and must plug or cap an abandoned or deteriorated well within 180 days of learning of its condition. Texas water well regulations live in the statute, in TDLR’s rules in 16 TAC Chapter 76, and in each district’s own rules; every rule below is quoted from one of those as read on September 24, 2026.
| Question | Answer | Where it says so |
|---|---|---|
| Who may drill or install a pump for pay | A TDLR-licensed driller (Ch. 1901) or pump installer (Ch. 1902) | Occ. Code §1901.151, §1902.151 |
| Can a landowner do the work | Yes, on their own property for their own use, but the construction standards still apply | Occ. Code §1901.001(15)(A); 16 TAC §76.72(a) |
| Setback from septic | 50 ft from the tank, 100 ft from the drain field, spray or drip area | 16 TAC §76.100(a); 30 TAC §285.91 Table X |
| Well report | Driller delivers it within 60 days to TDLR, the owner and the district | Occ. Code §1901.251; 16 TAC §76.70 |
| Who limits pumping | Groundwater conservation districts, where one exists | Water Code Ch. 36; TCEQ |
| Exempt domestic well | More than 10 acres and no more than 25,000 gallons a day, but still registered | Water Code §36.117 |
| Abandoned or deteriorated well | Landowner plugs or caps it within 180 days | Occ. Code §1901.255(c) |
| When a shared well stops being private | 15 connections or 25 people for 60 days a year | 30 TAC §290.38(73) |
Four bodies share the job, and TCEQ, the one some online guides credit with all of it, has the smallest part. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation licenses drillers and pump installers, sets the construction and plugging standards, and collects the well reports, under Occupations Code Chapters 1901 and 1902 and its rules in 16 TAC Chapter 76. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which runs the septic program, says on its own site that “State law does not provide any state agency with the authority to regulate the use or production of groundwater.” Local groundwater conservation districts under Water Code Chapter 36 handle that job. Where no district exists, the rule of capture applies: water a landowner pumps is the landowner’s, limited only by malice, willful waste, and liability for negligent pumping that makes a neighbor’s land subside. The fourth body is the Edwards Aquifer Authority, a separate regulator for wells that draw from the Edwards Aquifer.
Some online guides credit TCEQ with the license and the well report. Both are TDLR’s. TCEQ’s role for a private well is indirect: its septic rules set the distance a drain field keeps from a well, and its public-water rules decide when a shared well stops being private.
For hire, yes, and “offering” counts. Occupations Code §1901.151 says a person “may not act or offer to act as a driller” without a TDLR license, and §1902.151 says the same for a pump installer. TDLR’s rule defines offering to include “advertising in any form through any medium.” Working without a license is a Class C violation, with a $500 to $3,000 fine for a first offense.
The landowner exemption sits in the definitions. A “water well driller” under §1901.001(15) “does not include a person who … drills, bores, cores, or constructs a water well on the person’s own property for the person’s own use,” and §1902.001(5) carves the same person out of “installer”; TDLR’s rule extends the pump-side exemption to leased or rented property. What the exemption does not remove is the standard: 16 TAC §76.72(a) binds “persons having a well drilled, deepened or altered” to the location, completion, capping and plugging rules exactly as it binds licensees, and TDLR’s abandoned-wells page confirms owners file their own well report under a placeholder “License Number 10000.” Drilling for a neighbor, paid or as a favor, is back inside the license requirement.
The license takes two years of experience under a licensed driller or installer and a PSI exam; a water-well endorsement requires 15 qualifying wells. It runs for two years, costs $430 for a driller or installer and $650 for the combination, and renewal takes eight hours of continuing education, including one on the statutes and rules. A licensed driller may supervise no more than one unlicensed assistant at a time. TDLR’s active-license search is the one check a homeowner should run before a rig arrives.
The driller owes the owner a copy within 60 days, and it is the most useful document a well ever produces. Occupations Code §1901.251 requires every driller who “drills, deepens, or otherwise alters a water well” to keep “a legible and accurate well log” showing the strata penetrated, where water was found, and the depth, size, and character of the casing, and to deliver a copy “not later than the 60th day” after finishing. TDLR’s rule names the recipients as TDLR, through its online Texas Well Report Submission and Retrieval System, the owner, and the groundwater district if there is one; the statute names TDLR, TCEQ, and the owner. Late filing is a Class A violation, and every report now carries the well’s latitude and longitude.
Reports filed online since February 2001, and all reports since 2003, sit in the Texas Water Development Board’s Submitted Driller’s Report database, searchable by county and use. TCEQ scanned reports mailed in before that into its Water Well Report Viewer. A district may hold a copy. An owner who asks TDLR by certified mail can have the report held confidential.
16 TAC §76.100 is the rule a driller works from, and its distances match TCEQ’s septic table from the other side. A well goes at least 150 feet from a concentrated source of contamination, the rule’s examples being livestock and poultry yards, cemeteries, pesticide mixing areas and privies; at least 100 feet from “an existing or proposed septic system absorption field” or spray area; at least 50 feet from “any water-tight sewage and liquid-waste collection facility,” which is the septic tank; and at least 50 feet from a property line. TCEQ’s Table X, which the septic designer uses, says the same in the other direction: a private well must be 50 feet from the tank and 100 feet from the absorption field, spray area, and drip field; a public well must be 150 feet from those. Our septic setback guide covers the rest of that table.
Cementing buys distance. If the well is pressure-cemented or grouted to 100 feet, the 100-foot septic distance drops to 50 feet under both rule sets (Table X also accepts grouting to the water table where that is shallower than 100 feet). TDLR’s guidance lets the driller come within 5 feet of a property line. The rule withholds that allowance from a well “drilled within the Edwards Aquifer.” Property-line spacing also gives way to a district’s own spacing rules or to deed restrictions.
Casing must be new steel of at least Schedule 10, approved PVC, or NSF-61 fiberglass. The annular space is sealed for the top ten feet with cement, bentonite grout, or a bentonite column under a two-foot cement cap. Where a poorer water zone sits above the producing zone, the annulus is grouted from the top of the producing zone to the surface so the two cannot mix. Plastic-cased wells get a concrete slab four inches thick and two feet wide around the casing, which stands twelve inches above grade, and any well for human consumption is disinfected on completion unless the landowner waives it in writing.
A district permit is what the statute exempts a household well from; registration, spacing, and the well report are what it does not. TWDB counts 98 groundwater conservation districts covering all or part of 173 of Texas’s 254 counties and nearly 70 percent of the state’s area. Water Code §36.117(b)(1) requires every district to exempt from its permit a well “used solely for domestic use or for providing water for livestock or poultry” on “a tract of land larger than 10 acres” that is “incapable of producing more than 25,000 gallons of groundwater a day,” and (c) forbids the district from restricting that well’s production. The same section says the district “shall require the owner of a water well to … register the well,” lets it apply spacing rules, requires the driller to file the well log with it, and takes the exemption away from a well that supplies a platted subdivision. Twenty-five thousand gallons a day is 17.36 gallons a minute, which is why districts write the rule in pump capacity.
Districts differ enough that the only reliable answer is the district’s own rule. The North Texas Groundwater Conservation District, covering Collin, Cooke and Denton Counties, exempts new wells under 17.36 gallons a minute with no minimum tract size, but requires that “All new wells must be approved and registered before construction begins,” spaces small wells 50 feet from a property line and 100 feet from an existing well in the same aquifer, and gives anyone who has bought a property with a well since April 2011 ninety days to register it. The Blanco-Pedernales district in Blanco County exempts the same well from its operating permit “but may be subject to other rules of the District,” spaces new wells 50 feet from property lines and septic tanks and 100 feet from disposal fields and existing wells, and charges $1,000 for a non-exempt permit. The Bandera County River Authority and Groundwater District ties the exemption to plat date and lot size instead, ten acres for tracts platted on or after September 1, 2022. Registration fees vary by district: Prairielands charges $500 per new well and Hays Trinity $1,000 for a new exempt well.
Where no district exists, TCEQ can designate a Priority Groundwater Management Area, a region it expects to face critical groundwater problems within 50 years, and give residents two years to form a district before TCEQ creates one; the Hill Country and the North-Central Texas Trinity and Woodbine areas are two of the eight. TCEQ’s district page carries the current map and contact list; check it before drilling, because the district’s rule is what the driller is held to.
Over the Edwards Aquifer, every well is registered, exempt or not. The Authority was created by Senate Bill 1477 in 1993 and, after litigation, became fully operational on June 28, 1996. Its registration page states that “State law requires all wells that withdraw water from the Edwards Aquifer to be registered with the EAA.” An exempt well must be registered, incapable of producing more than 25,000 gallons a day, used solely for domestic or livestock purposes, and must not serve a subdivision requiring platting, which the EAA defines as more than three homes. The aquifer runs through parts of Kinney, Uvalde, Zavala, Medina, Frio, Atascosa, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe and Hays Counties; the Authority’s own zone map, not that list, is the place to confirm whether a tract falls inside its jurisdiction.
An unused or failing well is the landowner’s problem, on a 180-day clock. Occupations Code §1901.255 defines an “abandoned well” as “a well that is not in use,” counting a capped well in good condition as in use, and a “deteriorated well” as one that “because of its condition, will cause or is likely to cause pollution of any water in this state, including groundwater.” Subsection (c) requires the landowner or possessor, “not later than the 180th day after” learning of the condition, to have the well plugged or capped to TDLR’s standards. TDLR’s rule draws the line: “A deteriorated well must be plugged. An abandoned well must be either capped or plugged.” A driller who finds such a well must tell the owner, and if the deadline passes, TDLR notifies the district and may open a contested case.
The plugging standard in 16 TAC §76.104 is the same whether “a licensee or well owner” does the work: pull all removable casing, remove the surface completion, and pressure-fill the bore from the bottom up with cement, or bentonite grout under two feet of cement, through a tremie pipe. Large hand-dug wells may be backfilled with compacted clay or caliche after any standing water is chlorinated; a dry hole may be filled with its own cuttings. A cap on a well being kept must hold 400 pounds and must not be removable by hand. A plugging report is due within 30 days to TDLR and the district; the online form needs the well’s GPS coordinates. Anyone who owns land with a well the previous owner stopped using is already inside this section.
Fifteen connections, or 25 people for 60 days a year, and the well answers to TCEQ’s drinking-water rules. TCEQ defines a public water system as one that “serves at least 15 service connections or serves at least 25 individuals for at least 60 days out of the year,” under 30 TAC §290.38(73), and two systems under one owner on adjacent land are counted together. Below that line, the state does not regulate the quality of private well water; the Texas Groundwater Protection Committee’s 2024 buyer’s guide says so and puts testing on the owner. Our well water testing guide covers what to test and how often, and the well water hub collects the rest.
Texas asks the seller two questions about the well, and lenders usually ask more. The seller’s disclosure notice under Property Code §5.008 has the seller mark the water supply as “City,” “Well,” “MUD” or “Co-op” and say whether any part of the property lies in a groundwater conservation district or a subsidence district. From July 1, 2026, the Texas Real Estate Commission’s Form 61-0, the Seller’s Disclosure about Groundwater and Surface Water Rights, adds a separate notice on the water rights that go with the land. The Groundwater Protection Committee tells buyers to get the well report, any testing and maintenance records, and an inspection by a licensed driller or pump installer, and notes that most lenders now require that inspection. In a district, check the transfer rule; North Texas gives a new owner 90 days to register. What a new well costs is covered in our well drilling cost guide.
Yes, on your own property for your own use; Occupations Code §1901.001(15)(A) and §1902.001(5)(A) exclude that person from the definitions of driller and installer. The construction standards, the well report, any district registration, and the plugging rules still apply. Drilling for anyone else, paid or not, requires the license.
There is no state permit. Inside a groundwater conservation district, a domestic or livestock well on more than 10 acres that cannot pump more than 25,000 gallons a day is exempt from the district’s permit under Water Code §36.117. However, the district will still require registration, often before drilling starts, and may apply its own spacing or tract-size rules. Outside any district, no district permit or registration is required, and the rule of capture applies. Cities may add ordinances.
A well must be 50 feet from the septic tank and 100 feet from the drain field, spray area, or drip field, under both 16 TAC §76.100 and TCEQ’s Table X. A well pressure-cemented or grouted to 100 feet may sit 50 feet from the field, except inside the Edwards Aquifer. A public water well must be 150 feet from the field.
Search the Texas Water Development Board’s Submitted Driller’s Report database for reports filed online since 2001, or TCEQ’s Water Well Report Viewer for reports mailed in before 2003. The groundwater district, if one exists, may have a copy. If none has it, the report may have been made confidential at the original owner’s request, or it may never have been filed, which is the Class A violation described above.
The landowner, or whoever possesses the well, must plug or cap it within 180 days of learning it is abandoned or deteriorated, under Occupations Code §1901.255(c). A deteriorated well must be plugged; an abandoned well in sound condition may be capped. The owner may do the work to TDLR’s §76.104 standard or hire a licensed driller or installer, and must submit a plugging report within 30 days.
Every rule on this page was read on September 24, 2026 from the statute, the TDLR rule, or the agency or district page named in the sources. Section numbers are the current ones, confirmed against the Texas Secretary of State’s listing of 16 TAC Chapter 76; the three- and four-digit numbers still printed on some TDLR pages predate the chapter’s renumbering in March 2013. TCEQ’s Table X was read from a county-posted reproduction and cross-checked against the well-side rule in §76.100, which states the same distances. District rules are quoted from the districts’ own pages as examples, not a survey; the 98-district count is TWDB’s, from an undated page read the same day. The Edwards Aquifer Authority’s jurisdiction boundary was not read and is referred to the Authority. Nothing here is legal advice; a district’s rule or a city ordinance controls over any general statement on this page.
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