Waco, TX Business Licensing & Operations: Towing Companies (2026)

Article III of Chapter 13 (Secs. 13-126 through 13-134) governs the wrecker business in Waco, defined as towing or removing disabled or wrecked vehicles from public streets. Section 13-131 is the operative non-consent rule: once a wrecker has answered a call to, or is attending, an accident or collision scene, the operator may not remove or attempt to remove a vehicle, or change its position, except under the authority and in the presence of a Waco police officer, unless the move is to free a trapped person.

Separately, the section makes it unlawful to remove any vehicle from an accident scene without the owner's consent unless a police officer directs the removal as a public-safety measure or to protect private property. Operators also have affirmative duties at the scene: Section 13-129 requires the wrecker operator to clean up and remove debris from the collision, and Section 13-130 requires every wrecker responding to an accident to carry brooms and other cleanup tools. Section 13-133 requires that any yard or storage area holding vehicles towed in by wrecker companies be fenced in accordance with Section 16-47, the city's junkyard and salvage-yard fencing standard, to protect vehicles in custody.

Section 13-134 requires each wrecker to have the operator's name and address painted on both sides in letters at least two inches high, in sharp color contrast, legible from 50 feet; a wrecker already complying with the state identification requirement of Vernon's Ann. Civ. art. 6687-9b is exempt from the city sign rule.