Texas enforces the 2015 IECC residential

Record of adoption

In force since

Sep 1, 2016

Legal citation

Tex. Health & Safety Code §388.003(a); State Energy Conservation Office rules, 34 TAC ch. 19

Adopted by

State Energy Conservation Office (Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts), on stringency findings from the Energy Systems Laboratory (Texas A&M)

Second reading

Agreed Oct 18, 2026

Applies

Statewide

Also called

2015 IRC Chapter 11, SECO residential energy code, Health & Safety Code §388.003(a)

The 2015 edition is the IRC energy chapter. The DOE tracker calls it the 2015 IECC with state amendments. The statute also gives an energy rating index compliance path (HB 3215, 2021).

Exceptions

• Covers one- and two-family residences three stories or fewer above grade; other construction follows the commercial energy code.
• Municipalities and counties may adopt local amendments, which may not ‘result in less stringent energy efficiency requirements’ in non-attainment and affected counties (SECO).
• SECO also adopts energy codes for state-funded buildings.

Coming next

• 2024 IECCPartial
  No date yetIn developmentTex. Health & Safety Code §388.003(a); 34 TAC §19.52 (request-for-comment step)

  SECO issued a request for comment on Oct 13, 2025 (Texas Register, Oct 24, 2025). No later SECO notice, proposed rule or adoption was found on SECO’s pages or elsewhere as of Oct 17, 2026. Any adopted edition must take effect at least nine months after adoption.

How Texas adopts the IECC residential

• Agency rule
• The legislature names the edition in statute
• A recent law changed the process

The statute names a 2001 base edition and lets SECO substitute later editions of the IRC energy chapter by rule on or after Sep 1, 2021. SECO publishes a request for comment in the Texas Register, the Energy Systems Laboratory gives written stringency findings, and SECO decides; an adopted edition may take effect no sooner than nine months after adoption, and residential editions may be adopted no more often than once every six years. SB 783 (2025, effective Sep 1, 2025) amended §388.003 to require a housing-attainability and cost-effectiveness analysis before SECO amends or adopts a residential edition.

Cycle. SECO describes a six-year cycle for residential codes (three years for commercial); the residential code has not changed since the 2015 IRC chapter took effect in 2016.

Laws, rulings, and other actions

1. Oct 13, 2025Other action
   SECO request for comment on the 2024 IRC energy chapter and 2024 IECC

   SECO opened the energy-code adoption process for the 2024 editions by Texas Register notice (published Oct 24, 2025); no adoption has been found.

2. May 20, 2025Legislation
   SB 7832025 regular session, 89th Legislature

   Amended Health & Safety Code §388.003 (SECO’s authority to adopt and amend energy-code editions): adopted editions take effect no sooner than nine months after adoption, residential editions need a housing-attainability and cost-effectiveness analysis, and SECO-adopted energy codes are listed among the exemptions in Gov’t Code §3000.002(c).

   Enacted May 20, 2025 (filed without the governor’s signature), effective Sep 1, 2025

   capitol.texas.gov (opens in a new tab)
3. Feb 17, 2023Legislation
   SB 6742023 regular session, 88th Legislature

   Would have moved the municipal IRC and IBC defaults, the county fire code (IFC) floor, the county IRC reference and the state residential energy code reference to May 1, 2023 editions.

   Failed: referred to Senate Business & Commerce Feb 17, 2023, no later action recorded

   capitol.texas.gov (opens in a new tab)
4. Sep 1, 2021Legislation
   HB 32152021 regular session, 87th Legislature

   Revised the residential energy rating index compliance path in Health & Safety Code §388.003 (tied to the January 1, 2021 version of the RESNET/ICC 301 standard, with targets phasing in through 2028 and an expiration extended to Sep 1, 2031).

   Enacted (Acts 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., ch. 487), effective Sep 1, 2021

   capitol.texas.gov (opens in a new tab)

How it was checked

Verified

Two separate readings of the state’s own record agree, and the passage is on file word for word.

Read twice: a second, blind reading of the state’s record agreed with the first on Oct 18, 2026.

The state’s record was last read on Oct 18, 2026, from five source pages.

Evidence 8 sources

Sources for the record itself come first, the state’s own records ahead of others. A label marks a source about something else, such as an exception. A source marked secondary is not the state’s own record.

• “On September 1, 2016, the energy efficiency chapter of the International Residential Code, as it existed on May 1, 2015, is adopted as the energy code in this state”

• “energy efficiency chapter of the International Residential Code, as it existed on May 1, 2001, is adopted”

  “On September 1, 2016, the energy efficiency chapter of the International Residential Code,”

• “On or after September 1, 2021, the State Energy Conservation Office may adopt and substitute for that energy code”

• “Effective Sept. 1, 2016, SECO adopted the Energy Efficiency Chapter 11 of the 2015 International Residential Code (IRC)”

  “one- and two-family residences three stories or fewer above grade”

• About an exception

  “result in less stringent energy efficiency requirements”

• About an exception

  “adopts energy codes for single-family residential, commercial and state-funded buildings.”

• About the note

  “relating to energy efficiency building standards.”

• About another code

  “The State Energy Conservation Office may adopt and substitute for that energy code the latest published edition”

  “based on written findings on the stringency of the edition”

Tracker cross-checks

Code adoption trackers are a cross-check. They are not Texas’s own record.

• DOE’s energycodes.govCross-checkAgrees with the record

  Residential: 2015 IECC with state amendments, effective 09/01/2016, mandatory statewide.

  energycodes.gov (opens in a new tab)Read Oct 17, 2026

Related pages

• See Texas’s IECC residential on the map
• IECC residential adoption in every state
• All six codes in Texas

Other codes in Texas

• NEC2026 NECVerified
• IBC2012 IBCVerified
• IRC2012 IRCVerified
• IFCAnother model codeVerified
• IECC commercial2015 IECCVerified