College Station Foundation Repair Permits by Year, 2012-2026

Fifteen years of the city's own permit records, with drought and rain alongside, and a how-to for checking any College Station address.

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College Station issued between 11 and 43 foundation repair permits in each full year from 2013 to 2025, and 32 so far in 2026, according to the city's open permit data. Counts jumped in 2024 and have stayed high since.

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College Station requires a building permit for foundation repairs, and it publishes every permit it issues. That makes it one of the few places in Texas where you can see how often foundation work is actually permitted, year by year.

The numbers

Year	Foundation repair permits	Single-family (where labeled)	Average share of Brazos County in drought (D1 or worse)	Weeks with half the county in severe drought (D2 or worse)	Rain, College Station area (in.)
2012 (from April)	22	n/a	54%	12	41.2
2013	19	n/a	73%	20	39.3
2014	31	n/a	24%	1	39.6
2015	43	19	20%	8	58.3
2016	32	23	0%	0	46.8
2017	21	20	1%	0	52.2
2018	14	7	14%	0	50.0
2019	17	10	23%	2	36.3
2020	11	6	43%	11	30.7
2021	16	12	17%	0	38.4
2022	12	11	40%	10	35.1
2023	15	10	40%	16	29.0
2024	38	28	30%	7	46.1
2025	31	28	34%	1	31.7
2026 (to date)	32	24	62%	19	27.9

Permits: City of College Station open data, issued dates through October 14, 2026. Drought: U.S. Drought Monitor, weekly maps through October 20, 2026. Rain: NOAA's ACIS record for the College Station Area station, January through September for 2026. Single-family labels start in 2015, and some 2015 permits still carry an older catch-all label.

What the data shows, and what it doesn't

A step up since 2024. After seven years (2017 to 2023) with 11 to 21 permits a year, about 15 on average, the count jumped to 38 in 2024 and stayed at 31 in 2025. Through October 14, 2026, there were 32. Comparing the same stretch of each year, January 1 to October 14, 2026's 32 is the most since 2015 (38) and well above 2023's 10.

Dry years before the jump. 2023 had the least rain in the table, 29.0 inches, and 2022 and 2023 each spent 10 or more weeks with half the county in severe drought. Permits rose the following year. Clay soils shrink as they dry, so a lag like that is plausible, but this data can't show cause.

Drought doesn't explain every year. 2012 and 2013 were heavy drought years with ordinary permit counts. 2015, one of the wettest years in the table at 58.3 inches, had the most permits of all, and 2016 had 32 with no drought at all. Wet years can move clay too, as soil that dried out swells back, and many other things affect the count: how many homes exist, how busy companies are, and whether a job gets permitted.

2026 so far. On average, 62 percent of Brazos County has been in drought each week this year, the highest share since 2013, and the October 20 map had severe drought over 63 percent of the county and extreme drought over 6 percent.

Where: the permits split almost evenly between College Station's two ZIP codes, 187 in 77840 and 166 in 77845.

Job size, as declared. Each permit lists a valuation the applicant enters. Yearly medians ran from about $6,600 to $9,650 in 2012 to 2017, and from about $12,400 to $23,650 in 2020 to 2026. That's what applicants wrote down, not a price guide; see our foundation repair cost guide for published cost ranges.

How we counted

Permits: we downloaded every record in the City of College Station's "Permits - Master Dataset" with the permit type "Foundation Repair": 354 records, the first issued April 2, 2012. We counted them by the year in the issued_year field, across all subtypes (single-family, duplex, multi-family, commercial and the older unlabeled ones). Single-family counts use the permit_subtype field. Only one other record since 2012, a 2015 commercial new-construction permit, mentions foundation repair in its description; we left it out.
Drought: we averaged the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor share of Brazos County (FIPS 48041) in category D1 or worse, and counted the weeks when D2 or worse covered at least 50 percent of the county.
Rain: monthly totals for NOAA's College Station Area threaded station record, summed by year. Trace amounts count as zero.
What this isn't: it counts permitted jobs only. Repairs done without a permit, and anything in Bryan or unincorporated Brazos County, aren't included. A permit count isn't a count of damaged homes, and side-by-side numbers show correlation, not cause.

Updated October 24, 2026. We'll refresh the table when the city's data updates.

How to look up permits on a College Station house

If you're buying, selling or just curious about a house's history:

Search the open data. Open the city's Permits - Master Dataset (linked below), choose to view the data, and filter permit_type to "Foundation Repair" or search the street address. Each record lists the permit number, issue date, status, address, subdivision and declared valuation.
Use eTRAKiT. The city's eTRAKiT portal has public permit and parcel searches on its home page. Search by address to see permits, including plumbing permits, which the city requires for repairing a plumbing system.
Read the seller's disclosure. The Texas Real Estate Commission's Seller's Disclosure Notice asks about defects in the foundation or slab, previous structural repairs, and room additions, structural changes or repairs made without necessary permits. Compare the answers with what the permit search shows.
Ask for the paperwork behind the permit. College Station's permit needs a dimensioned plan showing where piers or piles go, and an inspection before concrete is poured. Ask the seller for that plan, the contract and any transferable warranty terms.
Repair but no permit? Ask why. College Station requires a building permit and a city-registered contractor for foundation repairs. A homeowner may pull a permit for work on their own homestead, so a permit may be in the owner's name rather than a company's.
Get an independent opinion when it matters. If the record and the house don't match, or the inspector flags movement, an independent Texas-licensed professional engineer (P.E.) can evaluate the foundation during your option period. Our foundation inspection page explains the options.

Bryan houses aren't in this data. Ask the seller, or contact Bryan Development Services at 979-209-5010 or [email protected].

Foundation repair in College Station: the city's permit and contractor rules, and rental-property tips
Brazos Valley clay soils and your foundation: why dry and wet spells move a slab
Slab foundation repair and the foundation repair FAQ

Common questions

How many foundation repair permits does College Station issue a year?

Between 11 and 43 in each full year from 2013 through 2025, according to the city's open permit data. The low was 11 in 2020 and the high was 43 in 2015. Through October 14, 2026, the city had issued 32.

Are foundation repairs going up in College Station?

Permitted repairs jumped from 15 in 2023 to 38 in 2024 and have stayed higher since: 31 in 2025 and 32 in 2026 through mid-October. That's the highest January-to-mid-October count since 2015. These are permits only, and the data can't say why the count rose.

Does drought cause the permit spikes?

Not in any simple way. Some dry stretches line up with more permits, such as 2024 after the dry 2022 and 2023, and 2026, which has been the most drought-covered year since 2013. But 2012 and 2013 were heavy drought years without a spike, and 2016, with no drought at all, had 32 permits.

Does the data include Bryan?

No. It's the City of College Station's permit data, so it covers addresses inside College Station only. Bryan permits are handled separately; contact Bryan Development Services at 979-209-5010.

How do I check whether a College Station house had foundation work?

Search the city's open Permits - Master Dataset for the address, or use the permit and parcel searches in the city's eTRAKiT portal. Also read the seller's disclosure, which asks about previous structural repairs and repairs made without necessary permits.

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Last updated 2026-10-24