Building permits, zoning and septic rules in Moore County, Texas

Unincorporated Moore County does not require a building permit to put up a home, barn, or shed¹. Texas gives counties no general power to require building permits outside city limits, and Moore County lists no building department or code-enforcement office on its official site, which is consistent with that state limit^1,7. That changes if you build inside Dumas, Sunray, Cactus, or Fritch, or in one of their extraterritorial jurisdictions, where the city's own codes and any city permit requirements apply instead. This guide covers unincorporated county land, not land inside a city.

Moore County lists no building department, code-enforcement office or planning office on its official site¹. We could not confirm who handles floodplain matters for the county, so ask the County Judge's office. For a septic (OSSF) permit, the authority is not the county at all: contact the TCEQ Region 1 office in Amarillo, which TCEQ's own county lookup lists as Moore County's authorized OSSF permitting agent³. For anything involving a county road, including a new driveway cut onto one, the Moore County Road & Bridge Department is the office to call⁸. For a general question that doesn't fit either of those, or to ask who handles floodplain or subdivision matters, start with the Moore County Judge's office, which sits over the Commissioners Court⁹.

No: Moore County has no zoning ordinance, and its official site lists no planning or zoning department¹. Texas law gives counties zoning power only in a handful of narrow, named situations, such as parts of Padre Island in Cameron and Willacy Counties, and Moore County does not fall under any of them, so the county has no general zoning authority to exercise even if it wanted to⁴. In practice this means no countywide minimum home size, no minimum lot size, no setbacks, no lot-coverage limit, and no building-height limit apply to unincorporated Moore County land⁴. It also means the county does not restrict accessory dwellings, RVs, tiny homes, or manufactured homes on a parcel by zoning, because there is no zoning to do the restricting⁴. None of this applies inside Dumas, Sunray, Cactus, or Fritch: a city's own ordinances govern land inside its limits and, in many Texas cities, inside its extraterritorial jurisdiction too. The City of Cactus, for example, divides its land into zoning districts with their own use, area and setback rules, so check the Cactus zoning map before buying there¹⁰. We could not confirm the zoning status of Dumas, Sunray or Fritch; ask each city.

Texas requires a permit and an approved plan before you construct, alter, extend, or repair a septic system (an OSSF), and that rule applies in Moore County the same as anywhere else in the state⁵. Because Moore County has no local health department or OSSF program, the TCEQ regional office in Amarillo is the permitting authority, reviewing plans, issuing the permit, and inspecting the installation^2,3,11. Only 32.7% of Moore County's soils are rated free of severe limitations for a conventional septic drain field, so plan on a site evaluation early and budget for an engineered or alternative system if your site is among the majority with limiting soils¹². A narrow exemption exists for a single-family home on a tract of 10 acres or more: it applies only if a TCEQ-licensed site evaluator or engineer signs off, every part of the system stays at least 100 feet from the property line, effluent stays on your property, the system causes no nuisance or groundwater pollution, and the home is the only dwelling on the tract⁵. Texas also bars use of a septic system until TCEQ or its authorized agent inspects and approves it, and the 10-acre exemption does not waive that inspection¹³. An owner may install a system for the owner's own single-family home only if the permitting authority allows owner installation, so ask the Amarillo office before you plan to do the work yourself⁵. Skip a required permit and you risk a system that a lender or future buyer can't verify, on top of any state enforcement.

Moore County's lack of zoning means the county does not restrict RV or tiny-home occupancy on unincorporated land by ordinance⁴. That is a real answer, not a gap: it follows from Texas law limiting county zoning power and from Moore County never having adopted a zoning ordinance⁴. It is not the same as a guarantee that nothing else applies. Any RV, tiny home, or manufactured home still needs a compliant septic system before wastewater can legally be disposed of, which means the TCEQ permit above applies to a permanent house and to a trailer parked long-term alike². If your land sits inside or near Dumas, Sunray, Cactus, or Fritch, confirm you are outside city limits and any extraterritorial jurisdiction before assuming county-only rules apply, since a city's own RV and occupancy rules would take over there.

1. Confirm your parcel is in unincorporated Moore County land¹, not inside Dumas, Sunray, Cactus, or Fritch, since city rules would replace these county rules.
2. Get a site evaluation for septic before you commit to a house site: contact the TCEQ Region 1 office in Amarillo, the OSSF permitting authority for Moore County, and apply for your septic permit before construction starts^3,5.
3. If you will cut a new driveway onto a county road, check with the Moore County Road & Bridge Department first⁸; if your access is instead onto a state highway, you need a TxDOT permit and advance notice before construction⁶.
4. Build to whatever standard you choose beyond septic: no county building permit or inspection applies in unincorporated Moore County¹.
5. For an ag exemption question, a subdivision plat, or a question about who currently handles floodplain matters, call the Moore County Judge's office to be pointed to the right authority⁹. Land outside city limits that is divided mainly for farm, ranch, wildlife-management or timber use can be exempt from county plat requirements, but that exemption does not remove septic, floodplain or access rules¹⁴.

Water and soils come first: 97.3% of Moore County land sits at 15% slope or less, which is easy to build on, but only 32.7% of soils are rated free of severe limits for a conventional septic drain field, so get a site evaluation before you assume a standard system will work¹². The county is dry and drought-prone: average annual precipitation is 18.2 inches, and the area has spent 38.1% of recent years in severe drought, which matters for both a private well and for landscaping or livestock plans¹². Ask specifically which groundwater conservation district, if any, covers your parcel before drilling a well; Texas gives no state agency direct authority over groundwater production, and Moore County's own site does not identify a district for a given tract, so this needs a direct call rather than an assumption. Moore County is rural and sparsely populated, at 23.6 people per square mile, and sits about 45 miles from the nearest metro area, so factor in drive time for supplies, services, and emergency response¹². Farmland in the county has recently been valued around $1,836 an acre, and the typical home value is about $192,223, useful benchmarks when you're pricing a parcel¹². Property taxes run an effective rate near 1.5%, with a median bill around $2,066 a year, and a typical home insurance premium runs about $2,148 a year in the area¹².