Jerrod KingeryStarting in the new year, most Texas drivers will no longer need to have a safety inspection done on their vehicles.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, the safety inspection program for non-commercial vehicles is being eliminated.
This change comes after a law was passed during Texas’ most recent legislative session. The new law still maintains the $7.50 safety inspection fee, which will now be collected when drivers renew their vehicle’s registration. The fee will be labeled as the inspection program replacement fee on their registration renewal notice.
Owners registering a new vehicle will pay an inspection program replacement fee of $16.75, which covers the first two years of registration.
However, drivers in the state’s 17 most populous counties will still need to obtain a passing vehicle emissions inspection prior to registration.
Those counties include:
- Brazoria
- Collin
- Dallas
- Denton
- El Paso
- Ellis
- Fort Bend
- Galveston
- Harris
- Johnson
- Kaufman
- Montgomery
- Parker
- Rockwall
- Tarrant
- Travis
- Williamson
All commercial vehicles in all counties will still be required to obtain a passing vehicle safety inspection. Since they will be required to pay for that safety inspection, commercial vehicles are exempt from the inspection program replacement fee.
For more information on these changes, click here.
Photo courtesy LoneStarMike, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
