Short answer: yes — but the requirement doesn’t come from Dallas.
It comes from the State of Texas, and it applies in every city in the state. Dallas enforces it the same way every other Texas municipality does, through its adopted plumbing code and the permit and inspection process.
There’s a catch that matters enormously for commercial property, and it’s the part most building owners never hear: several of the strictest limits don’t apply to commercial fixtures at all. The flushometer toilets in your office restrooms are held to a looser standard than the toilet in your house.
Here’s the whole picture — what the limits actually are, which commercial fixtures are exempt, when the rules get triggered, and what it means if you own or manage a building in Dallas.
The rules are Texas rules, not Dallas rules
Since 1991, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has been authorised to enforce plumbing fixture standards under Chapter 372 of the Texas Health and Safety Code.
The mechanism is worth understanding, because it’s not what most people assume. Chapter 372 doesn’t primarily regulate what you install. It regulates what can be sold, offered for sale, distributed, or imported into Texas.
A person may not sell, offer for sale, distribute, or import a plumbing fixture for use in Texas unless it meets the water-saving performance standards and appears on the list TCEQ maintains. Manufacturers have to certify each product to TCEQ, supplying performance specifications and certified test results from an ANSI-accredited laboratory.
The practical effect is that compliance is largely automatic. If you buy a toilet from a supplier in Texas, it already meets the standard. The failure modes are narrower: fixtures brought in from out of state, old stock sitting in a maintenance closet, or a contractor sourcing from somewhere they shouldn’t.
Chapter 372 was substantially tightened by House Bill 2667 in 2009, which took effect on 1 January 2014 and set the standards most commercial buildings work under today.
The actual flow limits
These are the numbers, straight from the statute.
Toilets
Sold before 1 January 2014: maximum average of 1.6 gallons per flush.
Sold on or after 1 January 2014: the toilet must be a dual flush water closet, and the average flush volume of two reduced flushes and one full flush may not exceed 1.28 gallons.
That dual-flush mandate is unusual — Texas went further than most states here. But read the next section before you assume it applies to your building.
Urinals
Sold before 1 January 2014: maximum average of 1.0 gallon per flush.
Sold on or after 1 January 2014: maximum average of 0.5 gallons per flush.
Non-water urinals are permitted and have their own standard under the statute.
Faucets
Sink and lavatory faucets, and faucet aerators: maximum 2.2 gallons per minute at 60 psi.
Note that the plumbing code applies tighter limits to public lavatory faucets in commercial restrooms than the state statute does to faucets generally. This is one to confirm against the code edition Dallas currently has adopted, because it’s the number that catches out tenant build-outs.
Showerheads
Maximum 2.5 gallons per minute at a constant pressure over 80 psi. Relevant to hotels, gyms, and multi-family common facilities.
Drinking fountains
Must be self-closing.
Commercial pre-rinse spray valves
Chapter 372 sets separate standards for these — the handheld sprayers used with commercial dishwashing and warewashing equipment. If you run a commercial kitchen anywhere in Dallas, Plano, or Frisco, this is a fixture your staff use hundreds of times a day and nobody ever thinks about.
The commercial exemption most people don’t know about
This is the part worth the read.
Texas requires post-2014 toilets to be dual flush at 1.28 gallons. But the statute carves out toilets with a design not typically found in a residential application, or designed for a specialized application. Those revert to the older 1.6 gallon standard.
The exempted categories include:
- A water closet mounted on the wall that discharges through the floor
- A water closet in a correctional facility
- A non-tank type commercial bowl connected to the plumbing system through a pressurized flushing device
That last one is the big one. A non-tank commercial bowl with a pressurized flushing device is a flushometer toilet — the type in essentially every commercial restroom in Dallas. No tank, a chrome valve on the wall, the handle you push.
So the dual-flush 1.28 gallon requirement does not apply to standard commercial flushometer toilets. Those are held to 1.6 gallons per flush.
The same pattern applies to urinals. The 0.5 gpf limit has an exception: urinals designed for heavy-duty commercial applications stay at the 1.0 gallon standard.
Why this matters practically:
You may be over-specifying. If someone has quoted your office retrofit on the basis that everything must be 1.28 gpf dual flush, that’s not what the statute requires for flushometer fixtures.
You may be chasing a compliance problem that doesn’t exist. Existing 1.6 gpf commercial toilets in a Dallas building are not out of compliance.
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go lower. Plenty of good reasons to install more efficient fixtures — this is about what’s required versus what’s advisable, and those are different questions.
What about the fixtures already in your building?
Chapter 372 does not require you to rip out working fixtures.
The statute governs sale and distribution. It doesn’t impose a retrofit obligation on existing buildings, and there’s no Dallas ordinance requiring you to replace compliant-when-installed fixtures.
The statute even addresses this directly. Among the exemptions is a fixture originally installed before 1 January 1992 that is removed and reinstalled in the same building on or after that date. If you pull a pre-1992 fixture off the wall during a renovation and put the same one back, that’s contemplated by the law.
Where the requirements bite is at replacement and new installation. Replace a toilet, and the new one has to meet the standard applicable to its type. Do a tenant build-out, and everything going in is new. That’s the trigger — not the age of the building.
How Dallas actually enforces it
Three layers, and they operate differently.
At the point of sale. TCEQ maintains the certified fixture list and manufacturers must certify to it. Most compliance happens here, invisibly, before you ever see the product.
Through the adopted plumbing code. Dallas adopts a plumbing code with local amendments, and that code carries fixture flow requirements — including the tighter public lavatory limits mentioned above. Confirm the current adopted edition with Dallas Development Services before a project, because editions change and amendments are local.
At inspection. This is where it becomes your problem. New installations and replacements are permitted work, and the inspector checks what was installed. A non-compliant fixture means a failed inspection, and on a tenant build-out a failed inspection can hold up a certificate of occupancy — which turns a plumbing detail into a rent-commencement problem.
That sequence is the reason to get fixture specification right at the design stage rather than discovering it at final inspection.
Going below the minimum: WaterSense
Chapter 372 explicitly exempts fixtures certified by the EPA under the WaterSense Program from the standard requirements. A WaterSense-labelled fixture is compliant by definition.
WaterSense products are certified to be meaningfully more efficient than the baseline without sacrificing performance — which is the thing building owners worry about, and reasonably so. Early low-flow fixtures in the 1990s earned a bad reputation because they didn’t clear the bowl, and people remember double-flushing defeating the entire purpose. Modern fixtures don’t have that problem.
For a high-traffic commercial restroom, the maths is straightforward. A fixture used several hundred times a day, where each flush saves a fraction of a gallon, adds up faster than most owners expect — and in a metro where water rates have been climbing, the payback period is shorter than it used to be.
Worth noting alongside the water saving: less water through the system means less flow scouring your drain lines. In older buildings with cast iron waste lines that have scaled up internally, aggressive low-flow retrofits occasionally surface drainage problems that were being masked by higher volumes. Not a reason to avoid them — a reason to have someone look at your drain lines as part of the project rather than after.
Do the suburbs have different rules?
No. Chapter 372 is a state statute and applies identically across Texas.
What varies city to city is the local administration — which code edition has been adopted, what local amendments apply, whether contractors must register with the city before pulling a permit, and how inspections are requested.
Those differences are real and they matter if you own property in more than one city. Some cities require contractor registration before a permit can even be submitted. Some have moved entirely to online inspection requests with same-day cutoffs. A commercial plumbing company working a multi-city portfolio has to track all of it.
We handle commercial and residential work across the metro, including Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Carrollton, Lewisville, and Denton — and the permitting process is genuinely different in several of them.
What this means if you own or manage a Dallas building
If your building is existing and unchanged: you have no retrofit obligation. Working fixtures that were compliant when installed remain compliant.
If you’re replacing fixtures: the new ones must meet the standard for their type. For commercial flushometer toilets that’s 1.6 gpf, not 1.28.
If you’re doing a tenant build-out: everything new, everything inspected. Specify at design stage.
If you run a commercial kitchen: don’t overlook pre-rinse spray valves. They have their own standard and they’re among the highest-volume water users in the building.
If you’re buying a building: fixture compliance isn’t usually the issue. The drain lines behind them are. In older Dallas commercial stock, cast iron waste lines and galvanized supply are the expensive surprises, and neither shows up in a fixture audit.
If someone’s told you that you must retrofit to 1.28 gpf dual flush: ask which provision they’re relying on. For flushometer fixtures, the statute says otherwise.
Frequently asked questions
Does Dallas have its own low-flow fixture ordinance? Not a separate one setting different flow rates. Dallas enforces the state standard in Chapter 372 through its adopted plumbing code and the permit and inspection process. The numbers are Texas numbers, and they’re the same in Fort Worth, Plano, or Amarillo.
Do I have to replace existing fixtures in my commercial building? No. Chapter 372 governs the sale and distribution of fixtures, not the retention of ones already installed. There’s no general retrofit mandate. The requirements apply when you replace a fixture or install a new one.
What’s the flow limit for a commercial toilet in Dallas? For a standard commercial flushometer toilet — a non-tank bowl on a pressurized flushing device — the limit is 1.6 gallons per flush. The 1.28 gallon dual-flush requirement that applies to post-2014 residential-type toilets specifically exempts this design.
What about urinals? Urinals sold on or after 1 January 2014 are limited to an average of 0.5 gallons per flush, with an exception preserving the 1.0 gallon standard for urinals designed for heavy-duty commercial applications. Non-water urinals are permitted under a separate standard.
Are waterless urinals allowed in Dallas? Yes. Chapter 372 includes performance standards for non-water-supplied urinals. They have real maintenance implications in high-traffic commercial restrooms, so they’re worth a conversation before specifying them across a building.
Who enforces these standards? TCEQ is authorised to enforce Chapter 372 and maintains the certified fixture list. At the building level, enforcement is practical rather than regulatory — it happens through your city’s permit and inspection process.
Does a WaterSense fixture automatically comply? Yes. The statute exempts EPA WaterSense-certified fixtures from the standard requirements. If it carries the label, it complies.
Could low-flow fixtures cause drainage problems in my older building? Occasionally, and it’s worth planning for rather than being surprised by. Less water moving through a waste line means less scouring. In older buildings where cast iron has scaled up internally, a significant reduction in volume can expose a drainage problem that higher flow was masking. The fix isn’t to avoid efficient fixtures — it’s to have the lines scoped before a large retrofit.
Do the same rules apply in Plano, Frisco, and the other suburbs? The flow standards, yes — state law is uniform. What differs is local administration: adopted code edition, local amendments, contractor registration requirements, and how inspections are requested. If you hold property across several cities, that variation is the part worth tracking.
Getting it right the first time
Fixture compliance is one of those areas where the rules are more nuanced than the summary, and the cost of getting it wrong lands at the worst moment — at final inspection, with a tenant waiting.
The specific thing worth checking before any commercial project: whether the fixtures being specified are held to the standard someone thinks they are. We see commercial retrofits quoted to a residential standard that doesn’t apply, and we see out-of-state product show up that was never certified for sale in Texas.
Wise Choice Plumbing & Rooter is a master plumber owned commercial plumbing company working across Dallas and the surrounding metro. We pull the permits, schedule the inspections, and handle the differences between cities on multi-property portfolios.
If you’re planning a build-out, a restroom retrofit, or you just want to know whether what you have is compliant, our commercial plumbers in Dallas will tell you straight.
Call (945) 291-8008 or get in touch.
Wise Choice Plumbing & Rooter — Master Plumber M-46550
This article explains general requirements and is not legal advice. Code editions and local amendments change. Confirm current requirements with the City of Dallas or the relevant municipality before specifying fixtures for a project.