Texas ended the veteran LLC fee waiver on January 1, 2026

The Texas Veteran Fee Waiver Has Expired

A veteran forming a Texas LLC in 2026 pays the same certificate of formation fee as everyone else. The Secretary of State's fee schedule lists one price for a domestic entity filing on Form 205 with no veteran line, and Form 205 itself still prints that fee on its face. There is no application to submit, no letter to attach, and no discount code. Texas has no general state business licence either, so there is nothing on that side to be waived. The part people miss is that the repeal took more than the filing fee. The same bill repealed the franchise tax provisions that let a qualifying new veteran-owned business skip franchise tax and the Public Information Report for five years, which was worth considerably more than the formation fee to a business that grew. Those obligations now apply to a newly formed veteran-owned LLC on the ordinary schedule. The Comptroller's old veteran-owned-business page no longer resolves to content, which is a fair signal of where the agency stands, and it is also why search results still point at a page that is gone.

The exemption covered businesses formed between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2025. Businesses that qualified inside that window keep the benefit for the rest of its term — but a business formed today cannot start one.

The grandfather rule is the thing worth getting right, because it splits readers into two groups with completely different answers. If your business first qualified as a new veteran-owned business before the cutoff, S.B. 938 § 10 continues the prior law in effect for it. You keep the remainder of the five-year franchise tax and Public Information Report exemption you already earned. Someone who qualified in 2023 still has time left on the clock in 2026. The repeal did not reach back and cancel it, and you do not need to do anything to preserve it beyond what the exemption already required of you. If you are forming now, none of that is available, and the old eligibility rules are only history. Under the repealed provisions the business had to be owned entirely by natural persons — no entity owners — each of whom was an honorably discharged veteran and had to first qualify inside the window. Those tests no longer open any door, so meeting them today changes nothing. One open question if you are in the grandfathered group. The verification letter these filings relied on came from the Texas Veterans Commission, and we could not confirm today whether TVC still issues it now that the underlying statutes are repealed, because the TVC site blocks automated readers entirely. Contact TVC directly before you rely on getting a new letter, particularly if you are responding to a Comptroller notice.

Authority: Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 12.005, added by S.B. 938, 87th Leg., R.S. (2021), repealed effective January 1, 2026 by S.B. 938 § 9: 'Effective January 1, 2026, the following provisions are repealed: (1) Section 12.005, Business Organizations Code; (2) Section 171.0005, Tax Code; (3) Section 171.001(d), Tax Code; and (4) Section 171.204(d), Tax Code.' S.B. 938 § 10 continues the prior law in effect for a business that first qualified as a new veteran-owned business before that date. — capitol.texas.gov

Veteran-Owned Business Certification in Texas

1. 1

   Understand that HUB became VetHUB

   While the fee waiver was ending, Texas rebuilt its historically underutilized business program around service-disabled veterans. Emergency rules took effect December 2, 2025 and permanent rules followed on May 12, 2026 under 34 Tex. Admin. Code ch. 20, subch. D, div. 1. The Comptroller revoked certifications previously granted on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex unless the holder proved ownership and control by a service-disabled veteran, and terminated its agreements with third-party certifiers.

2. 2

   Check whether you actually qualify

   VetHUB requires at least majority ownership, management and day-to-day control by a service-disabled veteran with a service-connected disability rating of 20% or greater. Your principal place of business must be primarily in Texas, and the business must meet SBA size standards under 13 CFR § 121.201, applied through 34 TAC § 20.294. A veteran without a qualifying rating cannot get in, which means there is now no Texas state program of any kind for a non-disabled veteran business owner.

3. 3

   Apply through the Comptroller's Statewide Procurement Division

   The VetHUB program sits with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, not the Secretary of State and not the Texas Veterans Commission. Certification is free. Assemble the ownership and control documentation along with proof of your service-connected rating before you start, since incomplete files are what stretch a review out.

4. 4

   Budget the wait and the term

   Review can take up to 90 days, so this is not something to start the week a bid is due. Certification then runs up to four years. If you held a legacy HUB certification under the old criteria, confirm your current status rather than assuming it carried over, because the revocation sweep was broad.

Program details verified against comptroller.texas.gov.

State Benefits vs Federal Benefits — What Is Actually Different

Most of what gets published as “veteran LLC benefits in Texas” is actually federal, and identical in all 50 states. Three separate things get run together:

Certification is worth doing on its own merits, but it is not a discount on formation. If a page tells you Texasgives veterans a “free LLC” and then links you to a certification portal, it has conflated the first row with the second.

Free Help for Veteran Business Owners in Texas

The Texas Veterans Commission runs a Veterans Entrepreneur Program at tvc.texas.gov, which is the state's own front door for veterans starting businesses. We are treating it as a contact pointer only in 2026: the site sits behind a challenge that blocks outside verification, so we could not confirm what the program currently offers or whether it still issues the veteran verification letter the repealed exemptions depended on. For certification questions, the Comptroller's Statewide Procurement Division is the office that actually decides, and it is the better call of the two if VetHUB is what you are after.

Texas Veterans Commission — Veterans Entrepreneur Program — tvc.texas.gov

Veteran Business Outreach Centers (VBOCs) are funded by the SBA and provide free business planning and formation counselling to veterans, service members and military spouses. Find your VBOC.

Forming the LLC Itself

Nothing about the formation process changes because you are a veteran — the forms, the registered agent requirement and the annual filing are the same. The full walkthrough lives in our Texas formation guide rather than being repeated here.

How to start an LLC in Texas →

Sources