Verified against county records · sources last read August 24, 2026 · rules change — confirm with the agent before applying
A septic permit in Comal County costs $310 for a system under 500 gallons per day, and the county requires one regardless of how many acres you own. What makes Comal unusual is not the fee. It is that up to three separate approvals can sit ahead of the septic permit, and the county will withhold your authorization to construct until they clear.
Those gates are the floodplain determination, a TCEQ Edwards Aquifer plan where the site needs one, and, on land around Canyon Lake, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A gate that applies is not optional, and two of the three are not the county’s to grant. Read the aquifer gate before you budget for it: both of the plans behind it carry thresholds, and one owner building one house on one lot can sit outside them entirely.
The Comal County Engineer’s Office, Environmental Health Department, is TCEQ authorized agent number 620049, and its jurisdiction is the entire county except the City of New Braunfels.
| Office | Comal County Engineer’s Office, Environmental Health Department |
| Address | 195 David Jonas Drive, New Braunfels, TX 78132 |
| Phone | 830-608-2090 |
| Fax | 830-608-2078 |
| Hours | 8:00 am to 4:30 pm |
| TCEQ agent number | AR 620049 (status: Current) |
| Area served | Entire county except the City of New Braunfels |
Inside the New Braunfels city limits the permitting authority is the City of New Braunfels, a separate TCEQ authorized agent (AR 620343). Check which side of the city line your property sits on before you apply, because applying to the wrong office costs you the whole review cycle. If you are unsure which office holds the pen anywhere in Texas, our county-by-county permit authority list covers it.
Comal charges by how much wastewater the system handles, not by what kind of system it is, so a conventional and an aerobic permit cost exactly the same.
The Engineer’s Office publishes this schedule:
| Service | Fee |
|---|---|
| Sewerage facility permit, less than 500 gallons per day | $310 (includes the $10 State Research Council Fee) |
| Sewerage facility permit, more than 500 gallons per day | $510 (includes the $10 State Research Council Fee) |
| Renewal within 12 months | $80 |
| Renewal after 12 months | $160 (includes the $10 fee) |
| Remodel permit | $110 (includes the $10 fee) |
| Subdivision review, 5 lots or fewer | $20 per lot |
| Subdivision review, 6 lots or more | $100 plus $5 per lot |
| TCEQ OSSF rules and regulations booklet | $6.50 |
| Re-inspection | $150 (installer of record pays; see below) |
Three things about this table are worth more than the numbers.
Comal prices by flow, not by technology. There is no conventional-versus-aerobic split here. A $310 permit buys the same review whether you are installing a gravity drainfield or an aerobic unit with surface application, which is unusual among Texas counties and means the fee tells you nothing about which system your site will actually support.
The $10 is a state fee, not a county markup. Section 12 of the county’s Order says a $10 fee is collected for each OSSF permit and paid to the credit of the TCEQ Water Resources Management Account, as required by Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 367. The county’s newer fee page folds it into the headline number; its older dated schedule listed it separately. Both add up to the same $310.
The re-inspection fee is $150, and the figure that used to contradict it is gone. Until September 2026 Comal County published two different re-inspection fees on two of its own web surfaces: the Engineer’s Office fee page said $40, while the county’s Steps to Obtain an OSSF Permit page said the installer “is responsible for a $150.00 reinspection fee” and the dated 2019 fee schedule agreed at $150.00. On September 3, 2026 the fee page no longer existed (it redirects to a page that returns 404), leaving the two surviving county sources in agreement at $150. Order section 10.7 lets the County revise the fee “from time to time,” so confirm when you call 830-608-2090. Note also who pays: Order 10.7 assesses it to the installer of record, not the homeowner.
The renewal ($80 within 12 months, $160 after), remodel and subdivision-review lines were first read from the Engineer’s Office fee page, which has since gone offline, but the county’s dated 2019 schedule carries all of them and agrees: “Permit Renewal within 12 months – $80.00”, “Permit Renewal after 12 months – $150.00”, “Remodel Permit – $100.00”, “Subdivision Review (5 lots/tracts or less) – $20.00/lot” and “Subdivision Review (6 lots/tracts or more) – $100.00 plus charge per lot/tract – $5.00”. The $150 and $100 lines reach $160 and $110 once the separately listed $10.00 State Research Council Fee is added, which is the same arithmetic that reconciles the $300 and $500 permits to $310 and $510. Neither county source publishes a transfer fee, a license-to-operate fee or an expedite fee. That is an absence of published information, not confirmation that none exists.
Ten acres buys you nothing here. In Comal County the permit requirement attaches to the facility, not to the size of the tract it sits on. Section 10.4 of the county’s adopted Order is one sentence: “A permit shall be required for all On-Site Sewage Facilities within Comal County’s area of jurisdiction regardless of acreage.”
That displaces the statewide ten-acre exemption at 30 TAC §285.3(f)(2), and it is allowed to. What makes it stick is the approval history: Commissioners Court adopted the Order on October 24, 2013, TCEQ’s executive director signed off on November 26, 2013, and TCEQ still serves that same document as the current order for agent 620049. A local order carries force once the executive director has approved it, and this one has been approved and unamended for more than a decade.
If you arrived here from advice about the Texas ten-acre rule, that rule does not run in Comal County.
Two other local rules in the same section change what you can build:
Two of the three approvals that can hold up a Comal septic permit are not the county’s to give, which is why calling the county for a status update often gets you nowhere.
This is the part no competitor publishes in sequence, and it is where Comal permits actually stall.
The county’s Step 6 lists three named grounds for withholding an authorization to construct, verbatim: information missing, omitted or contradictory in the application; “A Flood Plain Development Permit has not been issued”; and “Noncompliance with the Comal County Subdivision Regulations.”
The application signature block puts it on the applicant directly: the owner acknowledges that an authorization to construct “will not be issued until the Floodplain Administrator has performed the reviews required by the Comal County Flood Damage Prevention Order.” Order section 10.5 requires the same determination. Start this early, because it is a different desk.
Comal sits across the Edwards Aquifer, and Subchapter E of the state rules exists for exactly this situation. The detail of what §285.40 demands on the recharge zone, including its lot-size floor and its distances from recharge features, is set out in our statewide rules guide. What matters at the Comal counter is who holds the pen, and whether the pen is needed at all. §285.41 sits in Subchapter E, which is written for the recharge zone, and it is a sequencing rule: where an Edwards Aquifer protection plan is required for the site, a TCEQ regional office must approve it before a permitting authority may issue an authorization to construct. Whether a plan is required of you is settled elsewhere. §213.5(g) sends on-site systems on the recharge zone to §285.40’s siting rules rather than to a Chapter 213 plan, and §213.5(h)(2) exempts an individual land owner who builds their own single-family residence from the protection-plan application altogether, provided impervious cover on the site stays at 20 percent or less. Where a plan does exist for the site — a platted subdivision’s, most obviously — §285.41 bites and the county cannot move first.
Over the contributing zone the instrument is different, and so is the source of the requirement. Order section 10.10 imposes no plan of its own. It requires “A Contributing Zone Plan or modification to a plan as required by TAC §213.21” to “be approved by the appropriate TCEQ regional office before an authorization to construct may be issued by Comal County for an OSSF located over the Contributing Zone.” The words that decide who this catches are as required by TAC §213.21: the county adds the sequencing and inherits the state’s threshold. §213.21(b) applies that subchapter only to activities disturbing at least five acres, or to a smaller lot that is part of a larger common plan of development or sale with the potential to disturb five acres cumulatively — a subdivision, in practice. A single lot below five acres, not part of a larger plan, is not what §213.21 reaches.
The application asks you which zone you are in and whether an approved plan already exists, and states plainly that a permit to construct will not be issued until the plan is approved by the regional office. The practical consequence: where a plan is required, the long pole is a state approval and the county cannot shorten it. It also drags in a professional, because Step 3 requires a PE or RS for “All systems in the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone” without exception.
Order section 10.11 is unambiguous: if any part of the proposed system sits in the USACE flowage easement, the applicant “must receive approval from the USACE prior to applying for an OSSF Permit with Comal County.” Not before construction. Before applying.
The Corps defines the Canyon Lake flowage easement as private land generally below the 948-foot contour, and its published rules for systems there are restrictive: stamped engineered drawings, the 940-foot 50-year floodplain contour shown on the drawing, a minimum 75 feet horizontal between spray zones and that contour, tanks above the 948 line, and, categorically, “NO lateral fields are allowed. Spray Fields only.” The Corps also warns that “processing times may take up to 180 days or longer.” If your lot is lakeside, that six-month figure, not the county’s review, is your schedule.
Comal publishes a nine-step process, and steps 1 through 3 decide almost everything: the site evaluation dictates the system, and the system dictates whether you need a professional designer.
In practice it runs like this:
How long does it take? Comal County publishes no review turnaround, and this page is not going to invent one. The only clock that applies is the state’s: 30 TAC §285.3(c) requires a permitting authority to approve or deny an application within 30 days of receiving it. That is a state deadline the county inherits, not a Comal service commitment, and it does nothing about the aquifer and Corps approvals sitting ahead of it.
Comal runs applications through an online portal and publishes a public permit-record search, which is the fastest way to check what was permitted on a property before you buy it.
Comal publishes no site-evaluation form, no maintenance-contract template and no affidavit form of its own, though the checklist requires all three documents. Copies circulating under a Comal County name on vendor sites are not county-issued.
Comal County lets a homeowner maintain their own aerobic system without filing anything with the county, which is lighter than several neighboring counties.
If you own an aerobic unit and maintain it yourself, Comal County’s FAQ is explicit that it wants nothing from you: homeowners “are not required to submit any maintenance reports to Comal County if they choose to maintain their own system,” and need not notify the county of the choice. That is a lighter touch than several neighboring counties.
It is not unconditional, and two separate limits apply. The county’s own condition is that two violations within three years force a maintenance contract within 10 days of notification. The state’s is broader: under 30 TAC §285.7(d)(4)(B) an owner may not self-maintain a system serving commercial, speculative residential or multifamily property at all, whatever the county says. Licensed maintenance providers upload contracts and reports through the county’s separate files portals.
For what the system itself costs before any of this, see aerobic septic system costs in Texas and new septic system costs. For what the ground in Comal County will actually support, see our Comal County page.
$310 for a system under 500 gallons per day, and $510 for one over. Both figures include the $10 State Research Council Fee that Order section 12 requires the county to collect for TCEQ. Comal prices by flow rather than by system type, so a conventional and an aerobic system cost the same to permit.
Yes. Section 10.4 of the county’s adopted Order requires a permit for all on-site sewage facilities “regardless of acreage,” which displaces the statewide ten-acre exemption. The Order was approved by TCEQ’s executive director in November 2013 and remains the county’s current order.
The county publishes no turnaround time. The state rule at 30 TAC §285.3(c) gives a permitting authority 30 days to approve or deny an application from the date it is received. Where the site needs a TCEQ aquifer plan, that approval must come first, and near Canyon Lake the Corps of Engineers warns its own review “may take up to 180 days or longer.”
The City of New Braunfels does, as a separate TCEQ authorized agent (AR 620343). Comal County’s jurisdiction is the entire county except the city limits.
One acre with a public water supply, or 5.01 acres without one, for lots in subdivisions created after January 1, 1988, under Order sections 10.2 and 10.3. Plats approved by Commissioners Court before the Order was adopted are exempt from that requirement. On the Edwards recharge zone the state adds its own one-acre-per-dwelling minimum.
Not inside the Corps flowage easement. USACE rules for that land state “NO lateral fields are allowed. Spray Fields only,” keep tanks above the 948-foot contour, and require at least 75 feet between spray zones and the 940-foot contour. Corps approval must be in hand before you apply to the county.
Fees come from the Comal County Engineer’s Office fee page, fetched August 24, 2026, and cross-read against the county’s dated 2019 fee schedule. Those two sources disagreed on one line, the re-inspection fee, until the fee page went offline in September 2026; the page now prints the $150 the surviving sources agree on and says why. Every other line reconciled from the start.
Process, professional-design triggers and the inspection rule come from the county’s own Steps to Obtain an OSSF Permit page, fetched the same day and quoted verbatim. Local rules come from the Order Adopting Rules of Comal County, Texas for On-Site Sewage Facilities, adopted October 24, 2013, read from the county’s scanned copy and cross-verified against TCEQ’s independent copy in OARS.
State rules are quoted from current Texas Administrative Code text. No county review turnaround is stated anywhere on this page, because Comal County publishes none; the 30-day figure is the state’s and is labeled as the state’s every time it appears. See Texas septic regulations for the statewide picture this county order sits on top of.
Comal County Engineer’s Office, Environmental Health: 830-608-2090, 195 David Jonas Drive, New Braunfels, TX 78132, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. Confirm current fees when you call.
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