Austin tree ordinance: when a 25% trim counts as a removal

Austin’s tree ordinance regulates every tree 19 inches or more in diameter on a home lot, and the city’s code counts excessive pruning as removal. For an Austin tree service, that makes a heavy trim a permit job: the City asks for a Tree Ordinance Review Application before anyone prunes 25% or more of a regulated tree’s canopy. Oaks, pecans and cedar elms of 24 inches or more are heritage trees, with stricter rules.

Reviewed on November 10, 2026: we read the City of Austin’s tree pages, Texas Local Government Code §212.905 and the state’s licensing and pesticide pages, and quote the Land Development Code as a 2026 court filing quotes it. Round Rock, Cedar Park and other nearby cities were not checked.

What the ordinance protects, by the tape

Austin passed one of the first US tree protection ordinances in 1983 and added heritage trees in 2010, the City Arborist Program says. Size decides almost everything, measured as diameter 4.5 feet above the ground (the City’s shortcut: circumference divided by 3.14). For a multi-stem tree, the City takes the largest stem’s diameter and adds half of each other stem’s: a cedar elm with stems of 18 and 16 inches counts as 26 inches, a heritage tree.

The heritage species are Texas ash, bald cypress, American elm, cedar elm, Texas madrone, bigtooth maple, all oaks, pecan, Arizona walnut and eastern black walnut. On commercial and multifamily property, the City’s hazard tree page puts the line at 8 inches.

So the tape comes out at every visit. A written quote that says “live oak, 26 inches, heritage” tells the homeowner which rules apply, and tells you whether the job needs paperwork.

When a trim becomes a removal

The code defines “remove” as “an act that causes or may be reasonably expected to cause a tree to die, including … excessive pruning” (§25-8-602(4), as quoted in the 2026 complaint below). The City’s residential page turns that into a number: a Tree Ordinance Review Application is needed to “prune 25% or more of the canopy” of a regulated tree.

A 2026 case shows where that lands. According to the complaint and CBS Austin, an Austin homeowner’s family hired a tree-trimming company to remove a splitting tree and trim two others, one hanging over the road and one tangled in power lines. The City found the two trimmed trees had lost more than 25% of their crowns, treated them as removed, and issued an after-the-fact permit “for the removal of the 23.5 and 20.5 inch cedar elms.” It required 44 inches of mitigation: plant 44 caliper inches of trees or pay $8,800, at $200 an inch under the Environmental Criteria Manual.

The complaint says both trees are still standing and healthy. The crew’s cuts were the trigger, and the homeowner got the bill.

CBS Austin reported that City standards generally limit pruning to no more than 25% per growing season, so ask what was already cut this season before you quote more. Your trimming page should say three things: you measure regulated trees before quoting, you keep crown removal under 25% on trees of 19 inches or more, counting earlier pruning that season, and when a job needs more, you say so and handle the application.

Who files, and what the City asks for

Applications go through the City’s Austin Build + Connect portal, and “You must be a registered AB+C Portal user” to submit one. If your company handles the paperwork, it needs its own account. A reviewer is assigned, and review “may take up to 10 business days” after the application passes its completeness check.

What the City wants with a dead, diseased or hazard tree application is a good list for your site visit anyway:

1. A photo of the entire tree, root to crown, and a close-up of any defect.
2. A sketch of the proposed work.
3. Species and diameter for each tree.
4. A description of the tree’s condition and the project.

City staff “does not perform site visits or tree assessments outside of the permit review process” and sends homeowners to a private arborist: you. Our post on what a tree service quote form should ask covers the form; in Austin, add “rough trunk size and species, if you know it” to the prompt, because those two answers tell you whether a permit is in play before you drive out.

Dead, diseased or about to fall

Texas law sets a floor. Local Government Code §212.905(h), added by HB 7 in 2017, says a city “may not prohibit the removal of or impose a tree mitigation fee for the removal of a tree that: (1) is diseased or dead; or (2) poses an imminent or immediate threat to persons or property.”

Austin’s route for those trees is the DDI permit (dead, diseased or imminent hazard). The City Arborist Program says these permits are available at no cost. The City’s page still says “An approved permit is required before removing a tree,” and it describes no separate emergency track. If a tree is on a house tonight, ask the City Arborist Program how it treats that case; this post doesn’t settle it.

Ice is when it matters. Between January 30 and February 3, 2023, freezing rain damaged an estimated 10.5 million trees in Austin, 31% of the city’s tree population, by the Texas A&M Forest Service’s count. Live oak, Ashe juniper, cedar elm and hackberry were the main species hit.

Oak work runs on a calendar

Oak wilt is a fungus spread by sap beetles drawn to fresh cuts, and through connected roots. The Texas A&M Forest Service says live oaks spread it about 75 feet a year on average and “account for most spread and tree deaths in Central Texas.” The City says live oak is the tree most often infected in Austin.

The timing rules are guidance, not ordinance. The City presents its dates as best practice:

Homeowners hear it from neighbors too: the Barton Hills Neighborhood Association tells residents “DO NOT PRUNE OAKS during February through June.” After the 2023 ice storm, the Forest Service asked people to put off unnecessary trimming until July, KUT reported, so storm cleanup ran into oak season.

For the website, the calendar is the sales plan: an oak pruning page live and booking from November through January, and a short post each February on what your crews do with oaks until July.

Credentials the City points to

We found no state tree license to put in your footer: the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation lists 41 regulated industries, and tree work isn’t one of them. What Austin homeowners are sent to instead:

• ISA Certified Arborist. The City Arborist page points to ISA’s Find an Arborist tool and the American Society of Consulting Arborists.
• Oak Wilt Qualified. The City’s oak wilt page links a list of Oak Wilt Qualified arborists. The status comes from a two-day course and assessment run by the Texas A&M Forest Service and the Texas Chapter of ISA, open to ISA Certified Arborists.
• A TDA pesticide license, if you treat trees. The Texas Department of Agriculture says anyone applying “any pesticide” to trees for hire must be licensed by TDA, under Ag Pest category 3A or the structural Lawn and Ornamental category. Oak wilt fungicide injections are pesticide work, so check the category with TDA before you advertise them.

Put each one on the page with a number a homeowner can look up.

What Austin types, and what the map shows

Searches from Austin, 12-month averages (LocalBiz analysis of DataForSEO data, November 2026):

Advertisers pay $39.20 a click for “tree removal austin”; a page that ranks for it pays nothing per visit. Across the US, “city of austin arborist” gets 90 searches a month and “certified arborist austin” 210 (same source): people look up the City’s arborist and a certified one by name.

We also pulled the top 20 Google Maps results for “tree service” as seen from Austin, ads left out. Nineteen link a website and one shows no street address. The median review count is 8 for the top three and 30 across all 20. It is one query, from one point, on one day, but on it the top three had fewer reviews than the typical listing. Our read: with 19 of 20 linking a site, having a website doesn’t set you apart here. What’s on it can, and the permit and oak answers are something a map listing has no room for.

What to fix before February

1. Add a line to your trimming page: regulated trees are measured, crown removal stays under 25%, and you say when a permit is needed.
2. Write a permit page: the 19, 24 and 30-inch lines, the heritage species, who files and the 10-business-day review, dated.
3. Rewrite your storm page around the DDI permit: no review fee, photos root to crown, and a question to the City Arborist Program for anything urgent.
4. Publish the oak calendar and book oak pruning through January.
5. List each credential with its number.
6. Add trunk size and species to the prompt on your quote form.

Then count quote requests by page, month by month, through next June. More on the trade is on the tree service industry page, and if you’d rather have those pages built for you, pricing shows what LocalBiz costs.