What permits do you need to open a restaurant in El Paso?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 16 records listed for a restaurant in El Paso, TX, 8 apply to every business of this type and 8 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 8 that always apply, 3 carry a flat fee, coming to $235.00. That is a floor, not a total. 9 of the 16 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 0 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Temporary Food Establishment Permit: $79–$265 temporary, seasonal or recurrent

Food Handler Certification: $10–$32 per person, internet or in person

Food Service Establishment Permit: $174–$685 per year, by floor area

Food Establishment Plan Review: $105–$263 per review, by floor area

Fire Operational Permit: $125–$205 per licence, by hazard

Commercial Building Permit: $160.49 up to $15,000 valuation; $161.12 plus $8.48 per $1,000 to $100,000; $837.40 plus $6.36 per $1,000 to $500,000; $3,112.72 plus $3.28 per $1,000 to $1m; $4,758.34 plus $2.12 per $1,000 above $1m — plus plan review and technology fee

Commercial Plan Review: 30% of the building permit fee, plus applicable technology fee

Rezoning Application: $765–$1,530 per application, by type

Mixed Beverage Permit (MB): $2,650–$5,300 per two-year period; $5,300 original, $2,650 renewal

Permits for a restaurant in El Paso, TX come from 6 separate offices: El Paso Fire Department, Fire Marshal's Office, City of El Paso Environmental Services Code Enforcement, City of El Paso Planning and Inspections Department, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, Texas Secretary of State, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

$125 from the Fire Marshal's Office under International Fire Code section 105.5.32. This is a fire safety licence for the vehicle — cooking appliances, fuel, suppression — and is separate from the food permit. That distinction matters more than usual just now: HB 2844 moved annual mobile food vendor health permitting to Texas DSHS from 1 July 2026, so the health side of a food truck is now a state matter while this fire licence remains the city's.

Three tiers, all covering exposed or unexposed food: a temporary establishment is $79, a seasonal establishment $158 and a recurrent establishment $265. El Paso is one of the few cities covered here to price "recurrent" separately from "seasonal", which matters if you trade the same pitch repeatedly through the year rather than in one block. A kiosk service permit is $105 for new permits, and an outdoor market for produce sales is $163. Most lines add an unquantified "applicable tech fee"; the schedule never states what it is, so confirm it before budgeting to the dollar.

$105 for a change of business name, a change in equipment, a significant change in menu, or any other deviation from the original application where ownership does not change. The menu clause is the one operators miss: reworking a menu significantly is a notifiable change in El Paso, not a private commercial decision, and doing it without telling Code Enforcement puts you outside the terms of the permit you hold.

$10 for the internet course with badge and certificate, $32 for the in-person certificate course. A three-fold difference for the same certification, so unless you specifically want the classroom session, the online route is the obvious one. Budget per member of staff.

Four bands on floor area: $174 under 3,000 square feet, $344 from 3,001 to 6,000, $515 from 6,001 to 9,000 and $685 at 9,001 or more. Floor-area banding is unusual — most Texas cities price on turnover, employee count or risk — and it makes El Paso cheap for a small high-turnover operation and dear for a large low-margin one. The $174 entry is the second lowest of any large Texas city covered here, behind Lubbock's $100. Renew more than thirty days after expiry and a late fee of twenty per cent of the renewal is added, which on the top band is $137. Registered charitable and non-profit organisations are exempt from permit and licence fees entirely. Most lines add an unquantified "applicable tech fee"; the schedule never states what it is, so confirm it before budgeting to the dollar.

Banded on the same floor areas as the permit: $105 under 3,000 square feet, $158 from 3,001 to 6,000, $210 from 6,001 to 9,000 and $263 above 9,000. A facility remodel is $105 whatever the size. Expedited review, turned round in three to seven business days, is the applicable plan review fee plus $158 — proportionally a much bigger premium than Williamson County's $118 on an $882 base, but on a far smaller starting figure. A site assessment is charged separately: $105 under 3,000 square feet, or $47 for premises under 200 square feet, mobile operations, outdoor markets, home day care and adult foster or personal care. Most lines add an unquantified "applicable tech fee"; the schedule never states what it is, so confirm it before budgeting to the dollar.

El Paso prices International Fire Code operational permits individually, so what you pay depends on how many of them your operation triggers rather than on one annual certificate. The standard rate is $125 — covering places of assembly, hot work operations, open flames and candles, LP gas, refrigeration equipment, dry cleaning, spraying or dipping, repair garages and motor fuel-dispensing facilities, industrial ovens, lumber yards, and exhibits and trade shows among others. Higher-hazard licences are $150: explosives, pyrotechnic special effects material, private fire hydrants, and fire hydrants and valves. Hazardous materials and HPM facilities are $205. High piled storage is banded by area. Most lines add an unquantified "applicable tech fee"; the schedule never states what it is, so confirm it before budgeting to the dollar.

Five valuation tiers, each a base plus a marginal rate, so the effective rate falls as the project grows: structural repair over $500 and work valued under $15,000 requiring plans is $160.49; from $15,000 to $100,000 it is $161.12 for the first $15,000 plus $8.48 for each further $1,000; from $100,000 to $500,000, $837.40 plus $6.36 per $1,000; from $500,000 to $1m, $3,112.72 plus $3.28 per $1,000; and above $1m, $4,758.34 plus $2.12 per $1,000. A $2m fit-out therefore costs about $6,878 in permit fee — close to Amarillo's $7,600 on the same valuation, reached by a very different route. Plan review is charged on top at 30 per cent of the permit fee, as is the technology fee, and a $400 commercial submittal deposit is payable up front and credited against the permit. Three variants are priced as fractions of the full fee and are worth knowing: a shell permit is 80 per cent, a tenant improvement permit 20 per cent, and a foundation-only permit 10 per cent. Starting work without a permit triples the fee for a contractor.

Thirty per cent of the building permit fee. Because it is a percentage rather than a flat charge or a separate valuation formula, plan review scales with the job in lockstep — on a $2m fit-out it is roughly $2,060 on top of the permit. Expedited review of a project valued under $300,000 is $256 plus $94 for each hour or part hour of review time, which is one of the few open-ended lines on the schedule. An appeal to the Zoning Board of Adjustment or the Construction Board of Appeals is $555.

$110 for a certificate of occupancy on an existing building, plus the technology fee — the usual case for a tenant taking on premises with no construction work. The same $110 covers a pre-inspection and any permit requiring only one inspection; a permit requiring two inspections is $160. Cheap by comparison with Amarillo's $151, and it is the single most commonly missed step when a business changes hands.

$115 plus technology fee. The same $115 covers moving a building and retaining walls; fences, siding, windows, weatherization, placement and right-of-way permits are $110 each, and an electrical fence is $152. El Paso prices these as a long list of flat permits rather than by valuation, so a small job here is predictable in a way the commercial tiers are not.

Rezoning is $1,430 and a special permit $1,530 — the two largest routine planning fees here, and both are payable whether or not the application succeeds. A comprehensive plan amendment is $1,015, amending or releasing a special contract or zoning condition $1,430, and asking the City Plan Commission to reconsider a case $765. Unusually, the technology fee is stated to be included in these amounts rather than added, which makes the zoning schedule easier to budget than Schedule C. Check the change-of-use position before signing a lease: at these prices, discovering afterwards that your use is not permitted is an expensive way to find out.

Read directly from the TABC two-year licensing fee schedule: Mixed Beverage Permit (MB) $5,300 original, $2,650 renewal, charged on a two-year cycle. A Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's Permit (BG) is $1,900 if you do not need spirits. Note a widely-cited competitor lists $6,006 for this permit, which does not appear in the TABC schedule.

Required to form an LLC or corporation, not to trade as a sole proprietor. Texas has no statewide general business licence, so for many businesses this filing plus a sales and use tax permit is the entire state-level obligation.

Only needed if you trade under a name different from the one on your formation filing. The certificate is effective for a term not exceeding ten years from the date of filing and does not roll over by itself — it must be actively renewed, and a new certificate can be filed within six months of the original expiring. The $25 is the Secretary of State fee; sole proprietors and general partnerships file with the county clerk instead, at county rates.

There is no fee for this permit — the Comptroller says so directly, which is worth stating because a blank fee reads as though nobody knows. It does not expire on a date, but it is not permanent either: it is valid only while you are actively engaged in business as a seller, and the Comptroller's office may cancel it on finding that you are not. Filing obligations keep it alive, so a return must be filed for every period even when there were no taxable sales or purchases to report. Apply through Comptroller eSystems and allow two to three weeks.