Open rolling Blackland Prairie cropland grading into a post oak belt of the Eastern Cross Timbers, with a pecan-lined creek.
Williamson County 2021 IRC as adopted here

Barndominium Builders in Georgetown, TX

Georgetown went from 68,725 people in 2020 to 106,907 in 2025, and the fair question is whether a boom like that has already eaten the acreage. It has not, but the ground is moving. The city's Agriculture district takes two acres today and five from 1 November 2026, when the first full rewrite of the development code since 2003 takes effect. What shapes a barndominium here is not lot size, though. It is two rules. A detached accessory building is held to about a quarter of the house, so workshop space at working scale has to be attached, under one roof, which is the barndominium form to begin with. And Georgetown added a section to the 2021 IRC requiring every residential foundation to be engineered and then certified by that engineer after the pour, with no opinions and no disclaimers in the certificate.

Georgetown at a glance

County
Williamson County
Population
106,907
Where we build
Georgetown, Round Rock, Williamson County, Burnet County, Austin

ZIPs 78626, 78628, 78633

Site visits
Site visits scheduled across Georgetown and the rest of Williamson County
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Building conditions in Georgetown

What actually changes from one Texas jurisdiction to the next: who issues the permit, whether the residential code is enforced there at all, what the structure has to be engineered to, and what the ground is like. These are the numbers your drawings have to satisfy.

Build conditions for Georgetown , Williamson County, Texas . BUILD CONDITIONS GEORGETOWN, TXWilliamson County2021 IRCADOPTED RESIDENTIAL CODE2021 IRCThis jurisdiction publishes no design wind speed. It is settled in writing with the authority overyour parcel before the frame is ordered.ZONING · AG AND RE2 acres (AG, rising to 5 acres on 1…The two Georgetown districts at acreage scale. The UnifiedDevelopment Code adopted 11 August 2026 and effective 1 November…PERMIT REVIEW CLOCK20 business daysPublished review target of the issuing authorityIMPACT AND PERMIT FEESWater and wastewater impact fees, pl…Georgetown publishes a phased schedule rather than a single figure.Under Code of Ordinances § 13.32.061 the fee is set by the…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITCity of Georgetown Inspection Servic…300-1 Industrial Avenue, Georgetown, TX 78626. Phone 512-930-2550,permits@georgetowntexas.gov. Permits are submitted through the My…
Build conditions for Georgetown, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
An engineer on every foundation, twice
Georgetown added a section to the 2021 IRC that its published code does not get from the model code. All residential foundations must be designed and constructed in accordance with engineering practices, and once the concrete is placed an engineer's certification is required for inspection. The certification, in the ordinance's words, shall contain no opinions or disclaimers, and must state that the foundation was inspected and meets the engineered design, the live and dead loading and the soil condition. The only escape is an accessory structure under 200 square feet that is not for habitation.

Georgetown Code of Ordinances § 15.03.120, adding IRC Section R401.1.2 (Ord. No. 2023-43)

The detached shop cap
A detached accessory building in Georgetown is held to twenty-five percent of the square footage of the principal structure, with a further allowance for a detached two-car garage of up to 600 square feet, and an attached garage does not count toward the principal structure in that sum. From 1 November 2026 the wording becomes the greater of twenty-five percent or 600 square feet. Either way, a separate metal shop at working scale does not clear it. Workshop space has to be part of the main building rather than beside it, which is the barndominium form to begin with.

Georgetown Unified Development Code § 6.05.010.C, and § 7.04.010.C of the code effective 1 November 2026

Five acres flips the aquifer test
Over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone the state's guidance and the city's rule exempt opposite halves of the market. TCEQ's guidance page for private residences says an individual protection plan may not be required where a single residence sits on a lot of more than five acres. Georgetown's own exemption from its geologic assessment runs the other way and requires the lot to be less than five acres. Buy ten acres over the recharge zone and the state's guidance route opens as the city requirement switches on. Read the state side carefully, though, because that five acres is guidance rather than rule: the recharge-zone exemption in the regulation, 30 TAC 213.5(h)(2), turns on holding impervious cover to twenty percent and contains no acreage limb at all, and the five acres in the rules belongs to 30 TAC 213.21(b), a contributing-zone threshold for activities disturbing at least five acres. Twenty percent happens to be exactly the city's cap in the Agriculture district.

Georgetown UDC § 11.07.050.F, and TCEQ, Edwards Aquifer: Private Residences; 30 TAC 213.5(h)(2); 30 TAC 213.21(b)

In the ETJ, your utility decides
Georgetown applies no zoning outside the city limits and only its subdivision and sign rules in the extraterritorial jurisdiction. But its permit office states that where the project address is in the ETJ or county and the City of Georgetown is the water, wastewater and/or electric provider, building permits apply. Because the city owns its electric utility and its water utility reaches ZIP codes well beyond the limits, land that would otherwise answer only to the county can land under full municipal plan review.

City of Georgetown Residential Permits page, and Unified Development Code § 1.05.020

The Agriculture district is about to double
AG takes a two-acre minimum lot and a 35-foot height limit today. Under the development code adopted on 11 August 2026 and effective 1 November 2026, the AG minimum lot becomes five acres and the height limit 45 feet, ten feet above every other residential district. RE Residential Estate stays at one acre and 35 feet. Impervious cover is capped at twenty percent in AG and forty percent in RE, which is the tightest residential limit in the city sitting on the district a workshop build wants.

Georgetown UDC §§ 6.02.020, 6.02.030 and Table 11.02.010.B, and §§ 7.02.020 and 7.02.030 of the code effective 1 November 2026

The plat date sets the impact fee
Water and wastewater impact fees are assessed on the day the preliminary plat application is ruled administratively complete, or where no plat is required on the day the utility connect application is submitted, and once assessed the rate per service unit cannot be raised. So an older platted lot carries an older rate. On the schedule running to 30 August 2027 a three-quarter-inch meter is $12,000 for water and $10,250 for wastewater, and the city still publishes its schedules going back past 2003 because lots assessed then still pay those figures.

Georgetown Code of Ordinances §§ 13.32.061, 13.32.070 (Ord. No. 2025-40, adopted 12 August 2025)

Also worth knowing before you build in Georgetown

The permit fee counts the shop
A new single-family building permit in Georgetown is a $125 application fee, a permit fee of $125 plus $0.50 per square foot, and a $25 technology fee. The city's own footnote reads that square feet includes garages, porches and patios, so the shop bay and the covered porches sit inside the fee base rather than outside it. Residential plan review itself is free for buildings up to two storeys and four living units.

City of Georgetown Construction Fee Schedule, revised 12 June 2026, per Resolution RES 092722-D

Getting power to the tract
Georgetown owns its electric utility, and on a rural connection the customer funds the line extension. The city releases a Letter of Serviceability once half the invoice is paid, gives 90 days before the estimate is revised, and states that it collects 100 percent of the invoiced project cost before acquiring materials. Some materials carry lead times of six months or more. A recorded easement for the primary route, and the trenching, conduit and transformer pads, are on the customer before the utility schedules construction.

City of Georgetown Electric Line Extension page; policy approved 28 October 2025, effective 1 July 2026

The geologic assessment
For a regulated activity over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, Georgetown requires a geologic assessment containing everything 30 TAC 213.5 requires, plus identification of every spring and stream on the property. On a tract platted before 9 December 2014 or exempt from platting it goes in with the building permit, and no application may be approved until the Development Engineer accepts it. A notarised acknowledgement form goes in alongside, and the application is incomplete without one. The rules apply in the city and the extraterritorial jurisdiction alike.

Georgetown UDC §§ 11.07.010, 11.07.050 and 11.07.060, deriving from Ordinance 2015-14 of 24 February 2015

Impervious cover in the ETJ
Out in the extraterritorial jurisdiction the cap turns on wastewater rather than on zoning, because there is no zoning. A single-family build without public wastewater service is held to forty percent impervious cover, and forty-five percent with it, whether or not the tract sits over the Edwards Aquifer. House, shop apron, drive and any barn all count toward it, which on a small tract on septic is the number to check before anything else.

Georgetown Unified Development Code § 11.02.010.C

Do your own trade work
Georgetown added a homestead exemption permit to the 2021 IRC. An unlicensed person may do plumbing, electrical or mechanical work in a dwelling they own if they file an affidavit with the Building Official that it is their homestead, intend to occupy it, and can show proof from the Williamson County appraisal district. One such permit per person per twelve months, at one location, and nobody else may work under it.

Georgetown Code of Ordinances § 15.03.060, adding IRC Section R105.1.2 (Ord. No. 2023-43)

The insulation escape hatch
Georgetown runs the 2021 IECC, and amended it with a line that matters for a metal roof over an open ceiling: where the R-49 requirement cannot be met, the total UA alternative must be used instead, calculated in the ResCheck form the city requires at permit submission. Williamson County sits in climate zone 2A on both the older and the current maps, so the insulation answer here does not move with the code edition the way it does in Dallas or Fort Worth.

Georgetown Code of Ordinances § 15.14.040 (Ord. No. 2023-43), and the city's residential submittal requirements

Guest quarters and second dwellings
An accessory dwelling unit is limited to fifty percent of the primary dwelling and no more than 1,000 square feet, needs three on-site parking spaces, and must stay on the same electric and water meters as the main house. In the Agriculture district there is a separate allowance: one additional primary dwelling for every 30 acres, restricted to an agricultural employee, caretaker, family or guests of the owner.

Georgetown Unified Development Code § 6.02.010.B, sections 4 and 5 of the code effective 1 November 2026

Growth, and where it went
Georgetown grew from 68,725 people in 2020 to 106,907 in 2025, a 55.6 percent rise across 58.9 square miles of land. That works out at roughly 1,814 people per square mile, a suburban figure, and most of the growth arrived as platted subdivisions. The acreage that is left sits in the AG and RE districts and in the extraterritorial jurisdiction rather than inside the new neighbourhoods.

U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 sub-county population estimates and 2025 place gazetteer

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Below the slab

The expensive surprises are in the ground, not the building

What moves a Texas budget is usually below grade, and it is soil rather than rock: shrink-swell clay. The Blackland Prairie and the Gulf Coast clays move enough between a wet season and a dry one to drive the foundation design across the state's largest markets, which is why several DFW cities require an engineer's seal on the foundation of every new house. Those are the same conditions that decide whether a septic field passes its soil and site evaluation, so the grading plan, the foundation and the drainfield get resolved together rather than one at a time. We price the dirt before we price the building.

What we build in Georgetown

All nine of our services — kits, custom plans, post-frame and steel construction, site preparation, permitting and engineering, through to turnkey builds — are available across Williamson County. What a project costs depends far more on the parcel than on square footage, so we work from your land rather than from a rate card.

See what we build

What a build looks like

Three stages every Georgetown project passes through, from a raw parcel to a finished home. Site work first, because that is where the budget is decided.

Aerial view of an undeveloped rural lot with cleared grass, a live oak and cedar elm treeline, and a pale gravel access track.
Stage one

The parcel

Zoning, setbacks, flood zone and utility access get checked before anything is drawn.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Stage two

Pad and permit

Clearing, grading and a compacted pad, while the submittal works through Williamson County.

A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Stage three

Frame to finish

Shell erected and dried in, then systems, insulation and interior finish through to CO.

Those are the rules for Williamson County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Georgetown

Williamson County and the rural land around it. The buildable acreage for a project this size usually sits outside the city limits, which is frequently what changes who issues your permit.

Our Georgetown service area, covering Williamson County and the surrounding rural acreage. This map marks the territory we serve, not a branch location.

Keep reading

The questions that usually come next once you know what Georgetown allows.

Barndominium Cost Guide

Sourced per-square-foot ranges by tier and by size, with a calculator built on the same figures.

Read it

Is It Legal in Texas?

Classification, zoning, the HOA gate, and why "nonresidential farm building" does not cover a home.

Read it

How Long Does It Take?

Census build-duration data, and what actually sets the permit clock where you are building.

Read it

Nearby areas we build in

Others we cover in this part of Texas. The permitting authority, the adopted design criteria and the zoning can all differ from one to the next.

Round Rock

Williamson County
Williamson County

Williamson County
Burnet County

Burnet County
Austin

Travis County

Building in Georgetown: common questions

7 questions we get asked most often about building in Georgetown. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Can I put a barndominium on a lot inside Georgetown city limits?
Yes, and the constraint is not the one people expect. Georgetown holds a detached accessory building to about a quarter of the house, with a further allowance for a detached two-car garage of up to 600 square feet, and a detached accessory structure cannot be taller than the house. So the shop does not go up as a separate building. It goes up as part of the principal structure, attached and under one roof. The Agriculture district also allows 45 feet of height from 1 November 2026 where the rest of the residential districts stop at 35, and in AG an accessory structure serving an agricultural use may exceed the height of the house.
My land is outside the city limits. Do I still need a Georgetown building permit?
It depends on who supplies your utilities, which is not the answer most people expect. Georgetown applies no zoning outside its limits and only its subdivision and sign rules in the extraterritorial jurisdiction. But the city's permit office states that where the address is in the ETJ or county and the City of Georgetown is the water, wastewater and/or electric provider, building permits apply. Georgetown owns its electric utility and its water utility reaches beyond the city, so a tract that looks like ordinary unincorporated county land can still sit under full municipal plan review. Its impervious cover limits and its Edwards Aquifer rules reach the ETJ regardless. Check the city's electric and water service boundary maps before assuming either way, and call Inspection Services on 512-930-2550.
What does the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone mean for building here?
Georgetown has its own water-quality section covering property over the recharge zone, and it applies inside the city and in the ETJ alike. The main item is a geologic assessment: it must contain everything 30 TAC 213.5 requires and identify every spring and stream on the property, a notarised acknowledgement form goes in alongside it, and no application is approved until the Development Engineer accepts it. The exemption is narrow and it is the opposite shape from the state's. The city exempts single-family lots under five acres; TCEQ's guidance page for private residences points single residences on lots of more than five acres, or builds that hold impervious cover to twenty percent, away from an individual plan. In the regulation itself the recharge-zone exemption, 30 TAC 213.5(h)(2), is the twenty percent impervious cover door alone and carries no acreage limb, and the five-acre figure belongs to 30 TAC 213.21(b), a contributing-zone disturbance threshold. Large acreage over the recharge zone tends to clear the state test and fail the city one. TCEQ's Austin regional office takes the boundary question on 512-339-2929.
Does Georgetown require an engineer for the foundation?
Yes, and it goes further than most. The city added a section to the 2021 IRC requiring all foundations to be designed and constructed in accordance with engineering practices, and then requiring an engineer's certification once the concrete is placed, for inspection purposes. The ordinance says that certification shall contain no opinions or disclaimers and must confirm the foundation was inspected and meets the engineered design, the live and dead loading and the soil condition. Accessory structures under 200 square feet and not for habitation are the only exception. Budget for the engineer twice: once at design, once after the pour.
How long does Georgetown take to review a house plan, and what will the city charge?
The city publishes fifteen to twenty business days for residential plan review from the point the application is accepted, and residential plan review carries no fee for buildings up to two storeys and four living units. The building permit is a $125 application fee, a permit fee of $125 plus $0.50 per square foot, and a $25 technology fee, and the city's footnote says square feet includes garages, porches and patios, so the shop bay counts. On top come water and wastewater impact fees, $12,000 and $10,250 at a standard three-quarter-inch meter on the schedule running to 30 August 2027, and inside the city a transportation impact fee that varies by fee region. Nothing in that list is our charge; it is what the city publishes.
Why does it matter when my lot was platted?
Because in a city growing this fast, the plat date is what fixes several of the rules to a moment in time. The water and wastewater impact fee is assessed when the preliminary plat application is ruled complete, and once assessed the rate cannot be raised, so an older lot carries an older and usually much lower figure. The Edwards Aquifer geologic assessment attaches differently to tracts platted before 9 December 2014. Projects with a complete permit application accepted before 1 November 2023 could finish under the previous code edition. And the Agriculture district minimum lot goes from two acres to five on 1 November 2026. Before you buy, ask when the lot was platted and what its plat says, because a plat that carries its own development standards governs over the general code.
How do I get electricity to a rural tract in Georgetown's service area?
Through a line extension application to the city's own electric utility, and it is worth budgeting for early. The customer funds the extension: the Letter of Serviceability is released once half the invoice is paid, the estimate is revised if the balance is not paid within 90 days, and the city collects 100 percent of the invoiced project cost before it orders materials. Some materials run six months or more of lead time. You also dedicate a recorded easement for the primary route and do the trenching, conduit and pads yourself, which the city inspects before the utility schedules its crews. On a rural build the power schedule, not the plan review, is often the long pole.

Building in Georgetown?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Williamson County will actually let you put on the parcel and what wind load it has to meet. That conversation costs nothing.

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