Travis County, TX Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

Texas counties, including Travis County, were never granted the general zoning authority that Local Government Code Chapter 211 gives cities, so the county's Unified Development Code contains no cannabis-specific use classification, district table or conditional-use permit for a dispensing organization. Site suitability instead lives inside the state's Compassionate-Use Act licensing test. Sec. 102 makes an applicant eligible for a dispensing-organization license only if the Texas Department of Public Safety (the 'department') determines the applicant possesses the technical and technological ability to cultivate and produce low-THC cannabis; the ability to secure the resources and personnel to operate and premises reasonably located to let patients on the compassionate-use registry reach the facility through existing infrastructure; the ability to account for raw materials, product and by-products so none is diverted; and the financial ability to run the operation for at least two years from the date of application.

Every director, manager and employee of the applicant must also be registered under Subchapter D, and the applicant must satisfy any further criteria the department's director sets to safely administer the chapter. Because these are licensing criteria and not a zoning map, an unincorporated-area landowner cannot get county approval, a variance or a conditional-use permit for a dispensary: the only path is a state license. The eligibility test took effect June 1, 2015, under Senate Bill 339 of the 84th Legislature, and it still controls where a licensed organization's premises can be, since 'reasonably located' for patient access is judged by the department, not by a county zoning board.