As of Wednesday, the majority of Texas drivers are no longer required to have their vehicle pass an annual safety exam after state lawmakers removed the rule from the Texas code.
Despite this change in law, Texas drivers will still have to pay the annual $7.50 fee to the state during vehicle registration, with the funds being allocated to the Texas Mobility Fund, General Revenue Fund and the Clean Air Account. Commercial vehicles will still be required to pass an annual vehicle safety inspection and pay the safety inspection fee.
With a major source of their revenue now slashed, San Antonio business owners are grappling with the fallout of this change.
Charissa Barnes, president and owner of the Official Inspection Station in Bexar County, is among those affected.
After 40 years of providing safety inspections in the city, Barnes said she has already been forced to close five of her seven locations — laying off a dozen employees in the process.
“We’re a safety company first,” Barnes said. “Our job has always been to make sure cars are safe on the road. The ending of safety inspections is going to hurt — not just our business, but public safety, too.”
Barnes said she plans to keep two of her locations open. The business will now offer safety inspections for customers who still want the service, despite it no longer being required by state law. Barnes will charge $30 for the optional inspections.
The shift places the responsibility for maintaining vehicle safety squarely on car owners, Barnes noted — however, she warns that motorists could still face fines if they are caught driving unsafe vehicles, even without mandatory inspections.
“Getting an inspection is still a lot less expensive than a $200 ticket for being pulled over for an unsafe vehicle and way less expensive than a car wreck,” Barnes told the San Antonio Report.
Additionally, starting in November 2026, Bexar County will implement a new emissions test requirement. As a result of the Environmental Protection Agency downgrading the San Antonio region’s air quality status in 2022, Bexar County must implement a mandatory vehicle emissions testing and maintenance program. That program will require San Antonio area drivers to comply with a federally mandated annual vehicle emissions inspection.
Since the filing of House Bill 3297 in 2023, Barnes has been sounding the alarm that the state’s shift away from safety inspections will make it extremely difficult for Bexar County drivers to find an inspections garage to perform their emissions testing once the program goes into effect.
It would be near impossible, Barnes has said, for inspections garages to survive the 22 months between when safety inspections end and the county’s mandatory vehicle emissions inspections are set to begin.
In late 2023, the TCEQ approved the fee for Bexar County residents at $18.50 for their emissions inspection.
“If we don’t have enough inspection stations that choose to do emissions testing, the ones that choose to [participate] are going to have extremely long lines,” Barnes said. “We don’t know how this rollout is going to go. We have no idea what number of auto businesses will raise their hands and we have no idea how long it’s going to take to rebuild the industry.”
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