Texas Electrical Code PrepWhat changed in the 2026 edition

Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

Texas adopts the 2026 code on September 1, and it did not adopt all of it

The vote was 28 July and the rule is 16 TAC 73.100. The part almost nobody has written up is subsection (b), which keeps a ground-fault exception alive in Texas on the same day the national code retires it.

On this page
  1. What happens on September 1, 2026?
  2. Did Texas adopt the 2026 NEC unchanged?
  3. Is the national expiration date going to move?
  4. Which edition governs a permit pulled before September 1?
  5. What is a delayed effective date?
  6. What happens to work already in progress?
  7. Where do I read the rule itself?
  8. What this page cites

What happens on September 1, 2026?

At the start of 1 September 2026 the edition of the National Electrical Code adopted in Texas becomes the 2026 edition, under 16 TAC 73.100. The 2023 edition governs through 31 August, and the rule sets out no phase-in and no window where either edition will do.

The Commission of Licensing and Regulation voted unanimously on 28 July 2026. Josh Hall, TDLR State Deputy Chief Electrical Inspector, announced the vote in The Texas Circuit, the department newsletter.

The state examinations change edition on the same date, which is worth noting only because the two dates are set by different bodies and in other states they come apart by a year or more.

Did Texas adopt the 2026 NEC unchanged?

No. 16 TAC 73.100(b) carries one Texas amendment: the state adopts NEC 210.8(F) Exception No. 2 without the expiration date printed in the national text.

That exception excuses listed heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment from ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection at outdoor dwelling unit outlets. The national edition ends it with a single sentence.

This exception shall expire September 1, 2026.

NEC 210.8(F) Exception No. 2, 2026 edition

Texas left that sentence out. So the day the 2026 edition takes effect here is also the day the national sunset does not.

Put the two side by side and the result is unusual. Texas moves onto the newer edition and at the same moment keeps an exemption the newer edition was written to end.

Is the national expiration date going to move?

Undecided. Tentative Interim Amendment 1924 is pending at NFPA and would replace the expiration sentence in 210.8(F) Exception No. 2 so that it reads September 1, 2028 instead of September 1, 2026. It is written against the 2020, 2023 and 2026 editions at once, and its comment period closes September 9, 2026.

Pending is doing the work in that sentence. Nothing about the amendment has been settled, and a proposed amendment and an issued one look identical in a headline.

Texas does not depend on the outcome in either direction. The state rule struck the date rather than extending it. If the amendment fails, Texas stays where it is. If it succeeds, the rest of the country simply catches up for two years and then parts company again.

Before relying on any statement about the national date, this page included, read the NFPA document information page for NFPA 70. It is free, it is dated, and it distinguishes issued amendments from pending ones in a way secondary coverage rarely does.

Which edition governs a permit pulled before September 1?

The authority having jurisdiction decides, and 16 TAC 73.100 does not answer it. The rule fixes an adoption date and is silent about work already permitted.

The usual practice in Texas is that a job is judged by the edition in force when its permit was issued, which is why two houses on the same street can be held to different books. Usual practice is not rule text, though, and we are not going to dress it up as if it were.

So this one is a phone call, and the answer can differ by city.

What to ask, and get in writing

Ask by email rather than over the counter, and keep the reply with the job file. The cost of not having it is an argument in November with nobody able to say who told you what in August.

As jurisdictions publish answers we will add them here with the date and the office that gave them. Until then this section says we do not know, because that is the state of it.

What is a delayed effective date?

A requirement that is printed in the 2026 book, adopted along with it on 1 September 2026, and still does not apply until a stated later date. The clause carrying that date sits at the end of the requirement, which is exactly why it gets read past.

At least five of them sit in the 2026 edition. At least, because the wording varies and a clause phrased differently would not surface in a search for the usual form. Our list is not certified exhaustive and we would rather say so than imply a completeness nobody has verified.

The repetition is not a typo. The over-1000-volt material carries the same two dates twice, for two different subjects. 245.2 is about the overcurrent protective device and 495.2 is about the equipment, and each pair splits at 15,000 volts with the higher tier getting the extra three years. Both subsections of 245.2 carry an exception as well: overcurrent protection integral to a listed assembly does not have to be listed on its own.

Most write-ups of the 2026 edition give only the 495.2 pair, which is half of it. Article 245 arrived in the 2023 edition and section 245.2 is a 2026 arrival, so a source that dates the article correctly can still miss the section entirely.

A delayed date does not suspend the section around it. The rest of the requirement applies from adoption. Only the clause carrying the date waits.

And a delayed national date says nothing about a local one. A jurisdiction is free to want the listed product sooner.

What happens to work already in progress?

Nothing in 16 TAC 73.100 reaches backwards into an installation that is finished and signed off. The pressure point is the job open on 31 August and inspected in October, and that lands straight back on the jurisdiction question above.

Two things do not move with the edition at all. Material already bought keeps its listing and its labeling, because product listing runs on its own standards and its own clock. And a set of drawings stamped to the 2023 edition is still the set you built from, whatever an inspector later decides to hold it to.

The work worth doing this week is clerical. For every open job, write down the permit issue date and the jurisdiction. Those two facts decide the argument later, and they are far easier to record now than to reconstruct from memory.

For anything not yet permitted that will not be inspected until well after the date, design it to the 2026 edition. There is no advantage in working to an edition that will be a day old by the time the permit is issued.

Where do I read the rule itself?

16 TAC 73.100 is short, and subsection (b) is the whole of what Texas changed. Reading it takes less time than reading anyone summarizing it, this page included.

The proposal text ran in the Texas Register in March 2026 and the Secretary of State keeps the archive. A proposal is context rather than authority, since the adopted version is what took effect, but the two read side by side show what the department was aiming at.

Then open NEC 210.8(F) in your own copy. One sentence is missing from the Texas version, and it takes about a minute to see which one.

What this page cites

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Every rule here is cited to the section it comes from, and corrections are logged in public with the date. This is study material rather than electrical advice, and it does not replace your own code book or your inspector.