What does a shop or warehouse need for septic, water and electric in the San Antonio area?
Off a city sewer main, a shop or warehouse needs a county on-site sewage facility permit before the system goes in, a service application to whichever utility serves that address for electric, and either a water connection or a registered well. The septic permit sets the pace.
Read the rest
Every county here runs its own on-site sewage program through a county authorized agent, most want the system designed by a licensed professional, and the office has 30 days to approve or deny once the planning materials are in. Electric is a separate track with its own money up front and its own published waits, and no utility here publishes a start to finish date.
Ready to build? An independent local contractor who works your county prices the building. The estimate costs you nothing, now or later, whatever you decide.
What does a shop or warehouse need for septic, water and electric?
Three approvals the building permit does not cover. A permit and approved planning materials are required to construct, install, alter or repair an on-site sewage facility, and the permitting authority must approve or deny them within 30 days. TCEQ states it is usually not that authority, and that local programs can be more stringent than the state minimums.
Here the local program is always a county office. All seven have their own authorized agent on the TCEQ record, and coverage is not uniform: the Bexar agent covers the county except four incorporated places the TCEQ record names, without saying who permits inside those four, the Guadalupe agent covers the county except Marion, and the Wilson and Karnes agents the unincorporated county only. Acreage is no way out: the 10 acre exemption TCEQ publishes is for a system serving a single family dwelling that is the only dwelling on the tract.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, getting a permit for an on-site sewage facility, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality publication RG-472, on-site sewage facility rules compilation, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, On-Site Activity Reporting System, authorized agent search by county, records read for Bexar, Medina, Wilson, Atascosa, Guadalupe, Karnes and Frio, read 2026-09-13.
Who issues the septic permit in your county?
A named county office in each of the seven. Read at each county site, 2026-09-13:
Bexar County. Every facility must be permitted, in four cases: new, repair, renewal, or a system found without one. Bexar County Environmental Services, 210-335-6700.
Medina County. All systems must be permitted, and designed and installed by licensed individuals. Medina County Environmental Health, 830-741-6195, also the floodplain office.
Wilson County. The county publishes a development permit, a septic permit and a driveway permit for the unincorporated area. Wilson County Permitting and Development, Floresville, 830-393-8357.
Atascosa County. Inspections run Monday, Wednesday and Friday, booked a day ahead. Atascosa County Environmental Health, Jourdanton, 830-769-2748.
Guadalupe County. A permit is required regardless of acreage, and a License to Operate must be held before the facility is built or operated. Guadalupe County Environmental Health, Seguin, 830-303-8858.
Karnes County. The application is a county form adapted from TCEQ form 0235, with a commercial and institutional section separate from single-family residences. Karnes County designated representative, 830-780-3511.
Frio County. Every system needs an engineer or registered sanitarian design plus an engineer flood study, because FEMA maps are not available for the unincorporated county. Frio County designated representative, Pearsall, 830-505-7402.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, On-Site Activity Reporting System, authorized agent search by county, records read for Bexar, Medina, Wilson, Atascosa, Guadalupe, Karnes and Frio, read 2026-09-13.
Who designs a non-residential septic system?
State rule 30 TAC 285.5 decides it, and the word commercial is not the trigger. A professional engineer or professional sanitarian must seal the planning materials for non-standard treatment or disposal, manufactured housing communities, recreational vehicle parks, rented or leased multi-unit residential developments, subdivision and development plans, multiple systems on a large tract, and all new construction in the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone. An owner or installer may prepare them only where none of that applies.
The rules do define a commercial or institutional facility as any building not used as a single-family dwelling or duplex, which puts a shop on the commercial side of a county form. Atascosa, Karnes, Frio and Medina each require a licensed designer by their own rule. Read at each county site, 2026-09-13.
One trigger is absolute: on the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone the planning materials for all new construction must be sealed by an engineer or sanitarian. The building waits on a separate TCEQ approval there too, covered in the Edwards Aquifer plan for Bexar and Medina.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality publication RG-472, on-site sewage facility rules compilation, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Edwards Aquifer Protection Program, read 2026-09-13.
What each county charges for a septic permit
Five of the seven publish a fee, read at each county fee document, 2026-09-13:
Bexar County. The Public Works Permit Verification Guidelines list the cost as contact to verify, with a 30 day review. A renewal is $30.00 every five years.
Medina County. A conventional system at $200.00, an aerobic system at $400.00, a reinspection at $50.00.
Wilson County. $250.00 for a single family residence needing no design and not platted, $350.00 where a design is required or the lot is platted, $400.00 for all others, the commercial line.
Atascosa County. A commercial conventional system at $350 and a commercial aerobic system at $600, against $250 and $400 residential.
Guadalupe County. $400 residential conventional, $500 residential advanced treatment, $600 for a multi-unit, rental community, condominium or commercial system.
Karnes County. No septic, development or driveway fee appears on any county page read; the only published fees are the subdivision and plat fees in the 2013 regulations.
Frio County. $200.00 residential, $450.00 commercial and $450.00 aerobic, on the Road and Bridge schedule as of August 11, 2026.
Which electric utility serves your lot?
The address decides, and no single utility covers these seven counties. Only one publishes a county list: Karnes Electric Cooperative serves 12 South Texas and Coastal Bend counties between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, including Atascosa, Bexar, Frio, Karnes, Medina and Wilson, and Guadalupe is not on it. The others describe their own processes without publishing a territory.
Source: Karnes Electric Cooperative, apply for service, read 2026-09-13.
How does a new commercial electric service get built?
As a long process with a design phase in the middle. CPS Energy runs new commercial electric and gas service as a 14 step process starting with a commercial building application on its construction and renovation portal. A load under 300 KVA is small commercial, typically overhead transformers; 300 KVA or larger is large commercial, on a pad-mounted transformer. Once it has the documents it assigns a coordinator and starts design, telling the customer to apply for permits then, because permits can have a long lead time.
The waits it publishes are for pieces, not the whole: about 15 business days for underground crews to set and make up the transformer, up to three weeks for easement processing, and 10 business days to install the meter and energize after the city inspection release.
Source: CPS Energy, new commercial construction, read 2026-09-13.
What the cooperatives want up front, and what a connection costs
Money before design, and no published total anywhere. Guadalupe Valley Electric asks three to five weeks from request to connection and charges developers and builders a $6,000 engineering deposit up front, applied toward the final invoice. Medina Electric runs a separate commercial application, names industrial warehouses and office buildings as commercial, takes a non-refundable $100 engineering fee before the site visit, has the member clear 40 feet of right of way, and normally takes four to six weeks once a job goes to construction.
CPS Energy calls its charge the customer construction cost, or contribution in aid of construction: a one-time cost calculated per project from materials, labor and time. No dollar amount, deposit or engineering fee for a new commercial connection appears on any CPS Energy page read, and the line extension policy holding the figures is not published online. On a warehouse or industrial building, settle the easement and the right of way clearing before the pad is shaped.
Source: Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, developer and builder resources, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Medina Electric Cooperative, start or stop service, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Karnes Electric Cooperative, apply for service, read 2026-09-13.
Source: CPS Energy, customer construction cost, contribution in aid of construction, read 2026-09-13.
Do you need a water connection or a well?
Whether a main reaches the lot decides it. San Antonio Water System defines a new service as installing new water or wastewater connections to its mains, including servicing a vacant lot. Connecting a private service lateral outside the city limits and inside the Edwards recharge zone to the city sanitary sewer takes its own permit, pulled by a licensed master plumber with a $40 fee.
The bigger number is the impact fee, charged once on new development in its service area per equivalent dwelling unit, on a schedule effective July 1, 2024. A one inch meter is rated at two units: $10,940.00 low elevation zone, $11,408.00 middle, $11,974.00 high. A two inch meter is rated at 14 units, at $76,580.00, $79,856.00 and $83,818.00. Sewer impact fees go per unit by area, from $1,873.00 in Lower Medina to $5,541.00 in Upper Collection.
Source: San Antonio Water System, developer resources, new service, read 2026-09-13.
Source: San Antonio Water System, water and sewer impact fees by meter size, July 2024, read 2026-09-13.
Do you need a permit to drill a well?
Over the Edwards Aquifer, yes, and from a different agency than the one reviewing the aquifer plan. The Edwards Aquifer Authority covers more than 8,000 square miles across eight counties: all of Uvalde, Medina and Bexar, plus portions of Atascosa, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Comal and Hays. Anyone drilling into or through the aquifer must first file a well construction permit application, at a $25 fee. Capping or plugging an old well takes an Authority permit too, at $125 and $25 per well.
Registration is separate. To be recognized as exempt, and withdraw without a groundwater withdrawal permit, the owner registers the well and shows it cannot produce more than 25,000 gallons a day, is used solely for domestic or livestock use, and does not serve a subdivision requiring platting. A well feeding a business is worth checking against that test. Outside the Authority area a local district holds groundwater: a Medina County property not on public or community water is sent to the Medina County Ground Water Conservation District, 830-741-3162, per the county permit list read 2026-09-13.
Source: Edwards Aquifer Authority, learn about the aquifer, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Edwards Aquifer Authority, well closure procedures and construction, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Edwards Aquifer Authority, well registration and updates, read 2026-09-13.
What does a warehouse with a restroom and a break room actually need?
Off a sewer main, a permitted on-site sewage facility on the commercial side of the county form. The rules define a commercial or institutional facility as any building not used as a single-family dwelling or duplex, so a warehouse with plumbing is not a house with a bigger tank. Guadalupe, Atascosa and Frio each price a commercial system separately.
What the system is sized to is not on any page read for this site. No document read here sets a fixture count, a gallons per day figure or a tank size, so none appears on this site. Those come out of the planning materials the designer prepares. A building with no plumbing fixtures has no facility to permit, which is why an open equipment shed and a finished-out shop are different projects on paper.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality publication RG-472, on-site sewage facility rules compilation, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, getting a permit for an on-site sewage facility, read 2026-09-13.
Sequence: what waits on what
The applications go in first, because they run on clocks nobody on the job can shorten: 30 days for the county to decide the septic permit, weeks of transformer work and easement processing on top. Run them beside the design of the building, not after it. A septic field, a water line and an electric trench all want ground the pad and the driveway also want, and moving a trench after the concrete is down is the expensive version of the same job. The whole order of work is in building a metal building in San Antonio.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, getting a permit for an on-site sewage facility, read 2026-09-13.
Source: CPS Energy, new commercial construction, read 2026-09-13.
Who does this work
Several licensed trades and one unlicensed one. The septic system is designed by a professional engineer, a professional sanitarian or, where no state trigger applies and the county allows it, the owner or installer. A licensed master plumber pulls the San Antonio Water System lateral permit on the recharge zone, and an electrician does the install the utility inspects before energizing the meter.
The building is the part Texas does not license, so every credential on this page belongs to somebody else: the engineer or sanitarian who seals the septic design, the master plumber on the recharge-zone lateral permit, the electrician the utility inspects. An independent local metal building contractor serving the San Antonio area coordinates those trades and prices the work.
Ask anyone bidding a metal shop or workshop which items sit inside the contract and which stay with you: the septic permit and its design, the utility applications and deposits, the easements, the trenching. Get the split in the written estimate. What Bexar County, TX and the six around it want on top is a separate stack.
Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality publication RG-472, on-site sewage facility rules compilation, read 2026-09-13.
Source: Sunset Advisory Commission, Texas Residential Construction Commission; TDLR regulated industries list, read 2026-09-13.
Questions people ask
What does a shop or warehouse need for septic, water and electric in the San Antonio area?
Off a city sewer main it needs a county on-site sewage facility permit, an electric service application to whichever utility serves the address, and either a water connection or a registered well. A permit and approved planning materials are required before that facility is built, and the permitting authority must approve or deny them within 30 days of receipt. All seven counties here have their own authorized agent on the TCEQ record, so a county office permits the septic system rather than TCEQ. No utility read here publishes a start to finish duration for a new commercial connection. Read at the TCEQ, county and utility sites, 2026-09-13.
Who issues a commercial septic permit in Bexar County, TX?
Bexar County Environmental Services, under Public Works, at 210-335-6700. Every on-site sewage facility in the county must be permitted, in four cases the county names: new, repair, renewal, and an existing system found without one. A standard system is renewed every five years with a pump receipt and a $30.00 fee. The county Public Works Permit Verification Guidelines list the septic permit cost as contact to verify, with a 30 day review, and four incorporated places sit outside the county agent area on the TCEQ record, so confirm which agent covers the address. Read at the Bexar County On-Site Sewage Facilities page and the Public Works Permits Verification Guidelines, 2026-09-13.
Does a commercial septic system have to be designed by an engineer in Texas?
Not by one statewide rule, but usually by the time the county has its say. State rule 30 TAC 285.5 requires a professional engineer or a professional sanitarian to seal the planning materials for non-standard treatment or disposal, manufactured housing communities, recreational vehicle parks, rented or leased multi-unit residential developments, subdivision and development plans, multiple systems on a large tract, and all new construction in the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, and an engineer where secondary treatment is required. The rule does not name a commercial building as a trigger on its own, but Atascosa, Karnes, Frio and Medina counties each require a licensed designer by their own rule. Read at TCEQ publication RG-472 and the four county sites, 2026-09-13.
How long does it take to get electric service to a new commercial building?
No utility in this footprint publishes a start to finish duration, only waits for pieces of the job. CPS Energy publishes about 15 business days for underground crews to set and make up the transformer, up to three weeks for easement processing, and 10 business days to install the meter and energize after the city inspection release. Guadalupe Valley Electric asks three to five weeks from request to connection, plus seven to 10 business days for a permanent meter. Medina Electric normally takes four to six weeks once a job goes to construction, and Karnes Electric energizes the meter up to three business days after a passed inspection. Read at the CPS Energy, GVEC, Medina Electric and Karnes Electric service pages, 2026-09-13.