About the data
DrinkLaws exists because the alcohol-hours answers online are mostly wrong, mostly uncited, and mostly stale. Here is exactly where ours come from.
The method
Every factual claim on this site traces to a statute section or a published government dataset, and every page carries the date we last checked it. Where a rule is genuinely uncertain or varies below the level we can resolve, we say so on the page rather than guessing.
Rules are stored as structured data, not prose. The hours tables you see are rendered from the same rule set — so a correction lands everywhere at once, and two pages cannot quietly disagree.
Sources
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code, Chapter 105
What it covers: Every sale-hours window, holiday closure, and consumption cutoff on this site.
How we use it: Extracted section by section and reproduced as structured rules rather than paraphrase. Text current as of 2026-01-01.
statutes.capitol.texas.govTABC wet/dry designations
What it covers: County, city, and justice-precinct status for all 254 Texas counties.
How we use it: Pulled directly from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission's published feature service and classified programmatically — the counts on this site are computed from that pull, not copied from secondary sources.
tabc.texas.govTABC License Information dataset
What it covers: Per-premises permit types, including Late Hours and Food and Beverage certificates.
How we use it: Published daily on the Texas Open Data Portal. Used to determine which specific venues hold extended-hours authority rather than inferring it from city size.
data.texas.govWhat we do not know yet
Stating the gaps is part of being trustworthy about the parts we do know.
- We publish statewide rules and county-level status. Justice-precinct boundaries are not yet loaded, so in a partially wet county we tell you the status varies rather than pinpointing your precinct.
- We do not yet check whether the specific bar you are in holds a Late Hours certificate. We state the rule and the fact that it is per-premises.
- Local option elections happen year-round. Our designation data is only as current as the date stamped on each page.
- Texas only. Other states are not covered and are not implied by anything here.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to fix it — and we would rather hear it from you than leave it up. Corrections that cite a statute section or a TABC record are fastest to act on.
Primary statutory sources
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 105.01 — Hours of sale: liquor
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 105.03 — Hours of sale: mixed beverages
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 105.04 — Hours of sale: wine and malt beverage retailers
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 105.05 — Hours of sale: malt beverages
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 105.06 — Consumption in licensed premises and public places
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 251.71 — Local option elections: status of areas
- Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 251.72 — Local option elections: issues to be voted on
Last verified . Statutory text current as of January 1, 2026. How we check this.