Do I have to accept Section 8 vouchers on my rental in Texas?
By Andrew ChavisUpdated September 23, 20267 min readNot by state law, and not by city ordinance. Since September 1, 2015 a Texas municipality or county may not adopt or enforce an ordinance that prohibits an owner, manager, or other person with the right to lease a housing accommodation from refusing to rent because the applicant's lawful source of income includes a federal housing assistance program (Tex. Loc. Gov't Code Sec. 250.007(a)). The statute leaves two things standing: an ordinance protecting a military veteran's lawful source of income (Sec. 250.007(b)), and voluntary local incentive programs that encourage voucher acceptance (Sec. 250.007(c)). The Texas Fair Housing Act lists race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, and disability as the classes a landlord may not refuse or discriminate on (Tex. Prop. Code Secs. 301.021, 301.025); source of income is not on the list. Two carve-outs sit outside state law entirely: a property financed with federal low-income housing tax credits is bound by a recorded agreement that prohibits refusing to lease to a voucher holder because of that status (26 U.S.C. Sec. 42(h)(6)(B)(iv)), and a property built or rehabilitated with federal HOME funds may not exclude an applicant because the applicant holds a voucher (24 CFR Sec. 92.253(d)(4)), so the answer on this page is for conventional private rentals financed without those federal programs. What no statute removes is the duty to apply the same written selection criteria to every applicant, and the exposure that comes when a facially neutral policy falls harder on a protected class. This page describes the law as written. It is not a recommendation about whether to participate, and it is not legal advice.
What the Texas Preemption Statute Actually Says
In 2015 the Legislature added Sec. 250.007 to the Local Government Code. A municipality or county may not adopt or enforce an ordinance or regulation that prohibits an owner, lessee, sublessee, assignee, managing agent, or other person with the right to lease a housing accommodation from refusing to lease or rent to a person because the person's lawful source of income to pay rent includes funding from a federal housing assistance program (Sec. 250.007(a)). The statute is about what local governments can require, not about what a landlord should do. A Fort Worth or Tarrant County source-of-income ordinance covering vouchers cannot be enforced against a private landlord in Texas. That is the whole reach of the section, and it reaches only local ordinances: a rental financed with federal low-income housing tax credits is separately bound, by the recorded agreement the credit requires, not to refuse a voucher holder because of that status (26 U.S.C. Sec. 42(h)(6)(B)(iv)), and a rental built or rehabilitated with federal HOME funds carries the same prohibition (24 CFR Sec. 92.253(d)(4)). Conventional single-family rentals financed without those federal programs are not bound by either, and this page is written for them.
The Two Carve-Outs
The section does not affect an ordinance that prohibits refusing to rent to a military veteran because of the veteran's lawful source of income (Sec. 250.007(b)). Where a city has such an ordinance, it stands. And the section does not affect a city's or county's authority to create incentives, contract commitments, density bonuses, or other voluntary programs designed to encourage acceptance of a federally funded housing voucher, including a Housing Choice Voucher (Sec. 250.007(c)). The voluntary-program language is the part that shows up in practice: a local housing authority can offer signing incentives, damage funds, or expedited inspections to landlords who participate, and nothing in the statute stops that.
What the Fair Housing Act Still Covers
A person may not refuse to rent, refuse to negotiate, or otherwise make a dwelling unavailable because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin, and may not discriminate in the terms, conditions, privileges, services, or facilities of a rental on those grounds (Prop. Code Sec. 301.021(a), (b)). Disability has its own substantive section, covering the renter, anyone who will live in the dwelling, and anyone associated with the renter (Sec. 301.025(a), (b)). Source of income does not appear anywhere in the chapter. The statute carries one explicit exception: it does not prohibit discrimination against a person convicted under federal or state law of the illegal manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance (Sec. 301.021(c)). Everything else in a screening decision has to be defensible as a business standard applied to everyone.
Where Source of Income Meets Disparate Impact
The federal Fair Housing Act reaches policies that are neutral on their face but fall disproportionately on a protected class without a legitimate justification, and voucher holders as a group are not evenly distributed across race, disability, and familial status. That is why the answer to this page's question is a description of the law, not a policy recommendation. A landlord who declines vouchers as a category is inside Sec. 250.007 as far as Texas is concerned and is relying on the absence of a federal or state source-of-income protection; a landlord whose criteria treat voucher income the same as any other verified income and apply one published standard consistently, subject to any exception the law requires, is relying on consistency rather than a categorical exclusion. This is exactly the kind of policy an attorney should read before it is written down, and it should be written down.
How a Voucher Actually Works With a Lease
A Housing Choice Voucher is a federal program administered by a local public housing authority. The tenant applies and screens under the landlord's published criteria, with one arithmetic point that matters: an income-to-rent ratio applied to the full contract rent instead of the tenant's share of it can reject voucher holders who would otherwise qualify and reads as a pretext, so a consistent standard applies the ratio to the portion the tenant actually pays. The housing authority inspects the unit and reviews the rent for reasonableness against its payment standard, but the payment standard is not a hard ceiling: initial gross rent can exceed it as long as the family share (what the family pays toward rent plus utilities after the housing assistance payment) does not exceed 40 percent of the family's adjusted monthly income at initial occupancy (24 CFR Secs. 982.4, 982.508). The authority then pays its share directly to the landlord under a housing assistance payments contract, with the tenant paying the balance. The lease is still the landlord's lease with the tenant, with a required tenancy addendum from the authority. The practical differences landlords notice are the inspection before move-in, the rent-reasonableness review, and the direct-deposit share; the screening, the deposit, the move-in report, and the maintenance duties are the same house and the same law. Payment standards and inspection rules are the housing authority's and change; we do not publish them here.
Where We Stand
Our practice: we hand every applicant our written tenant selection criteria with the application and get a signed acknowledgment, which is what Prop. Code Sec. 92.3515 requires. Publishing the criteria further, collecting that signature before any fee is taken, and applying the criteria consistently, subject to any exception the law requires, are our own policy choices, not statutory requirements, and consistency is what we would tell any owner to write into their own criteria. The classes in Sec. 301.021 are never a factor in a decision we make, and neither is anything that stands in for them.
Common Questions
- Is it legal to refuse Section 8 in Texas?
- No Texas statute requires a private landlord to accept a Housing Choice Voucher, and Loc. Gov't Code Sec. 250.007 bars cities and counties from adopting ordinances that would, except to protect military veterans. Source of income is not a protected class under Prop. Code Sec. 301.021. A categorical policy can still face a federal disparate-impact claim; have an attorney read it.
- Can Fort Worth or Tarrant County require landlords to take vouchers?
- Not for the general population. Since September 1, 2015 a municipality or county may not adopt or enforce such an ordinance (Loc. Gov't Code Sec. 250.007(a)). An ordinance protecting a military veteran's source of income is not affected (Sec. 250.007(b)).
- Is source of income a protected class in Texas?
- Not under the Texas Fair Housing Act, which lists race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin (Prop. Code Sec. 301.021), and disability (Sec. 301.025). Veterans' source of income can be protected by local ordinance under Loc. Gov't Code Sec. 250.007(b), and a property financed with federal low-income housing tax credits (26 U.S.C. Sec. 42(h)(6)(B)(iv)) or federal HOME funds (24 CFR Sec. 92.253(d)(4)) is bound not to refuse voucher holders.
- Can a city offer incentives to landlords who accept vouchers in Texas?
- Yes. Sec. 250.007(c) preserves a city's or county's authority to create incentives, contract commitments, density bonuses, or other voluntary programs to encourage voucher acceptance.
- Can I apply different screening criteria to voucher applicants?
- Written tenant selection criteria must be made available to every applicant at application (Prop. Code Sec. 92.3515), and a screening standard that treats similar applicants differently is the fact pattern that produces Fair Housing complaints. Apply one published standard consistently, subject to any exception the law requires.
- Does the Texas Fair Housing Act allow any criminal-history exclusion?
- The Act states it does not prohibit discrimination against a person convicted of the illegal manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance (Sec. 301.021(c)). Broader criminal-history policies are judged under the same consistency and disparate-impact standards as any other criterion; write them narrowly and apply them evenly.
Sources
- Texas Local Government Code Sec. 250.007 (regulation of rental of housing accommodations; source-of-income preemption; official statute, pulled 2026-09-06)
- Texas Property Code Ch. 301 (Texas Fair Housing Act), Secs. 301.021, 301.025 (official statute, pulled 2026-09-06)
- Texas Property Code Sec. 92.3515 (notice of eligibility requirements; official statute, pulled 2026-09-06)
- 26 U.S.C. Sec. 42(h)(6)(B)(iv), low-income housing credit extended-use agreement: prohibition on refusing to lease to a voucher holder (Cornell LII, read 2026-09-06)
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