How to bid landscaping and grounds work in Texas

1. Before you can bid at all

The entry ticket: the registrations buyers check, the licence the law requires for this trade, the certifications that change who can win, and the wage floors that set your labour line.

Registrations

• Form the entity with the Texas Secretary of State (a Certificate of Formation for an LLC is $300) and get a federal EIN; then register with the Comptroller for a sales and use tax permit (free) and the annual franchise tax report, due May 15, which owes nothing under the no-tax-due revenue threshold.Source: www.sos.state.tx.us/corp/forms_option.shtml
• Register on the Comptroller's Centralized Master Bidders List (CMBL), $70 a year. State agencies and most Texas SmartBuy members find and notify vendors from it by class code and highway district, and a CMBL vendor ID is asked for on state solicitations.Source: www.comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/cmbl
• Watch the Electronic State Business Daily (ESBD): state agencies must post there, and around 400 local members (school districts, counties, cities, colleges, authorities) post there too. New postings from it appear here within a day.Source: www.txsmartbuy.gov/esbd
• Keep a W-9, a certificate of insurance and your CMBL vendor ID ready. Local buyers add their own vendor registration on their portal (Bonfire, IonWave, Public Purchase, CivicEngage), and most send bid notices only to registered vendors.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/help/vendor/register.php

The licence the law requires for landscaping and grounds

• Applying pesticides or herbicides for hire, including weed control in turf and beds, needs a Texas Department of Agriculture Commercial Applicator Licence in the Lawn and Ornamental category (3A): the general standards exam plus the category exam, a $200 licence fee, and proof of insurance.Source: texasagriculture.gov/Regulatory-Programs/Pesticides/Agric...
• Selling, designing, installing, maintaining or repairing irrigation systems needs a TCEQ Landscape Irrigator licence, a separate credential from the pesticide licence.Source: www.tceq.texas.gov/licensing/licenses/irrigator
• Texas has no state tree-care licence; some cities (Austin among them) regulate work on protected trees by permit. Check the city's tree ordinance before pricing removals.Source: texasagriculture.gov/Regulatory-Programs/Pesticides/Agric...
• Landscaping and lawn care are taxable services in Texas; government customers are exempt, but the sales tax permit and their exemption certificates are still required.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/94-112.php

Certifications that change who can win

• Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) through the Comptroller: at least 51% owned by Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American or Native American individuals, women, or service-disabled veterans, with a principal place of business in Texas; free, good for up to four years. State agencies and many local buyers carry HUB subcontracting goals and ask for a HUB subcontracting plan on larger contracts.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/hub/
• Texas has no separate state MBE or small-business reserve programme; HUB is the certification buyers ask for. Federal certifications (8(a), WOSB, SDVOSB) matter where a district or city is spending federal money.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/hub/

Wage floors

• Texas has no state living wage for contractors, and the state minimum wage follows the federal $7.25. State law bars cities and counties from setting a higher minimum wage, so on most Texas public contracts the floor is the market rate for the trade, not a statute.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LA/htm/LA.62.htm
• Individual buyers can still write a wage into their own contracts. The City of Austin's Living Wage Program sets $22.05 an hour for the 2026 fiscal year on formally solicited non-construction service contracts performed on city property or vehicles. Read each solicitation for its own clause.Source: www.austintexas.gov/financial-services/living-wage-program
• Prevailing wage under Government Code 2258 applies to public works construction, not to service contracts like cleaning, grounds, pest or guard work; an HVAC replacement job is construction and carries it.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2258.htm

2. How buying works in Texas

• Thresholds by buyer type: cities must competitively bid or propose above $100,000 (raised from $50,000 on September 1, 2025); counties above $50,000; school districts must use one of the statutory methods for purchases of $50,000 or more in a twelve-month period. Below those lines buyers take quotes, and that is where a new firm gets its first work.Source: texas.public.law/statutes/tex._local_gov't_code_section_252.021
• Counties buy under Local Government Code 262 through the county purchasing agent; the $50,000 line and the required notice period are in the statute, and the commissioners court makes the award in open session.Source: texas.public.law/statutes/tex._local_gov't_code_section_262.023
• School districts choose the method that gives 'best value': competitive bidding, competitive sealed proposals, a request for proposals, or a cooperative contract; read which one you are answering, because a proposal is scored on more than price.Source: texas.public.law/statutes/tex._educ._code_section_44.031
• Reciprocity: a Texas buyer may not award to an out-of-state bidder unless it underbids the lowest Texas bidder by the margin that bidder's home state would impose on a Texan. Texas-based firms get that edge automatically.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2252.htm
• Prompt payment: the Texas Prompt Payment Act makes a government payment overdue on the 31st day after the later of delivery, completion or invoice (the 46th day for bodies that meet monthly or less), with interest after that.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2251.htm
• Bid openings are public and the tabulation is a public record; most Texas counties and districts post it as a PDF under the bid, and the state board's detail page names the awardee and the value.Source: www.txsmartbuy.gov/esbd

3. What Texas buyers actually ask for in landscaping and grounds

Counted from the bids we have read in full. Thin where the count is low; it grows as we read more.

4. How to price it

The craft, then the evidence: what this work actually went for at Texas bid openings, and who has been winning.

• Mowing prices from acreage and obstacle density into crew hours, then cycle counts: central Texas turf is cut most of the year, so specifications state 30 or more cuts a season with trimming, edging, litter and bed care as separate line items.
• Irrigation is its own line (inspections, repairs at hourly rates plus parts); right-of-way mowing is priced per mile or per acre.
• No snow line in most of the state; the equivalent seasonal item is storm cleanup at hourly or per-event rates.
• The tabulations below show the per-item lows buyers accepted; the debrief on a lost bid shows the gap.

5. Starting from zero: the first 90 days

For someone who wants to start a landscaping and grounds business and sell only to government. The order matters: the licence and the registrations gate everything else.

1. Weeks 1 to 2: entity, EIN, sales tax permit, general liability with pesticide coverage if you will spray, auto and inland marine for equipment.
2. Weeks 2 to 6: TDA commercial applicator licence (general standards plus Lawn and Ornamental); TCEQ irrigator licence if you will touch irrigation; CMBL registration with grounds, mowing and tree class codes; HUB application if eligible.
3. Weeks 4 to 8: quotes under the threshold: parks for a small city, a fire station, a library branch, a school district's smaller campuses.
4. Weeks 8 to 12: the first formal bid; walk every site at the pre-bid, because Texas mowing bids are won or lost on acreage, obstacles and cycle counts.