Texas gives a private owner thirty-five days to pay a contractor, and gives the contractor seven days to pay everyone below him. Then it exempts an entire industry from the whole arrangement. Whether that clock protects you depends on what you were building.
These are the private-work numbers from Property Code chapter 28. Public work runs on a separate statute with different figures, and both are set out below.
Section 28.002(a) makes payment due no later than the thirty-fifth day after the owner receives a written payment request. On a single-family residence the owner may take until the sixty-first day under § 28.006(b) — nearly twice as long, and it catches residential builders out constantly.
Section 28.002(b) requires the contractor to pay each subcontractor no later than the seventh day after receiving the owner's payment. The clock restarts at each tier, so money owed to a second-tier sub is running on its own seven days once the tier above is paid.
Under § 28.004(b), an unpaid amount begins accruing interest at one and one-half percent each month. It is not a penalty a court has to be persuaded to award; it attaches to the overdue balance.
Government Code § 2251.021(a) makes a governmental entity's payment overdue on the thirty-first day. The vendor then has ten days to pay its subcontractors under § 2251.022, and interest under § 2251.025(b) runs at one percent plus the Wall Street Journal prime rate.
Property Code § 53.101(a) has the owner reserve ten percent of the contract price during the work and for thirty days after completion. On a $400,000 contract that is $40,000 you have already earned and cannot touch.
For an original contractor on non-residential work, § 53.052(a)(1) sets the affidavit deadline at the fifteenth day of the fourth month after the month the work was last performed. Pre-lien notice under § 53.056(a-1) is due the fifteenth day of the third month, and a retainage claim under § 53.057(a-1) has its own thirty-day notice.
Thirty-five days for commercial, up to sixty-one for a single-family home. A residential builder carrying trades on a fourteen-day pay cycle is financing two full months of labour before the first cheque is contractually late.
With § 28.010 removing the statute, an oilfield invoice is worth exactly what the master service agreement says and no more. Financing against it is priced accordingly — the factor is underwriting the operator's willingness to pay, not a statutory duty.
Texas lien deadlines land on the fifteenth day of a named month rather than counting days from an event. It is easy to be two weeks early on the paperwork and still a month late on the filing.
Match the instrument to the gap. A thirty-five-day statutory clock and a ninety-day real-world one are different problems.
Advance against a receivable rather than waiting out the thirty-five days — or, on an exempt oilfield job, waiting out whatever the contract allows.
A lump sum for a known, dated gap: mobilising to a pad site, a material order, payroll before a progress draw lands.
A revolving cushion for lumpy cash flow, drawn only when a retainage hold or a slow month actually bites.
A bank reads two years of tax returns. An alternative lender reads the deposits and the receivable. Different question, sometimes a different answer.
None of this is a credit decision. It is what tends to move a file from maybe to yes.
On invoice financing the underwriting is mostly about your customer, not you. A general contractor on a funded commercial project reads very differently from an operator on an exempt oilfield job.
Consistent bank deposits over the last several months carry more weight with an alternative lender than a filed return that describes last year.
Ten percent held across several concurrent jobs is a real balance sheet item. Naming it, with the contracts behind it, is better than leaving a lender to guess.
Direct answers, with the section number so you can check them.
Thirty-five days from the owner's receipt of a written payment request, under Property Code § 28.002(a). On a single-family residence the owner may take until the sixty-first day (§ 28.006(b)). Once you are paid, you have seven days to pay your subcontractors under § 28.002(b). Overdue amounts accrue interest at one and one-half percent per month (§ 28.004(b)).
No. Property Code § 28.010 exempts any agreement to explore, produce, or develop oil, natural gas, or other mineral substances from the whole chapter. There is no statutory payment deadline and no statutory interest on that work — the contract governs entirely. It is the single largest carve-out in the Texas prompt-payment scheme, and it is why oilfield receivables are financed on different terms.
For an original contractor on non-residential work, the lien affidavit is due by the fifteenth day of the fourth month after the month in which you last performed work (§ 53.052(a)(1)). Pre-lien notice is due by the fifteenth day of the third month (§ 53.056(a-1)), and a retainage claim carries a separate thirty-day notice (§ 53.057(a-1)). Residential deadlines are one month shorter. These are calendar dates, not day counts.
Ten percent of the contract price, reserved during the work and for thirty days after the work is completed, under Property Code § 53.101(a). That money is earned but unavailable, which is why contractors carrying several jobs at once often finance against it rather than wait.
No. Crewline is a referral and matching service. Applications are passed to a third-party funding partner who makes the credit decision on their own criteria. You are never charged a fee to apply, nothing here is a commitment to lend, and no approval is guaranteed.
Tell us what you are building, who owes you, and when the money is supposed to land. It takes a few minutes, costs nothing, and does not touch your credit file.
Crewline is a referral and matching service, not a lender. We do not make credit decisions or guarantee approval. Financing is provided by third-party lenders subject to their own terms and criteria.
