Texas New Business Leads: New LLCs, Corporations and Sales Tax Permits

Get a fresh list of businesses that just started operating in Texas, straight from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts open data: new sales tax permits (a business opening a location that sells taxable goods or services) and new franchise taxpayers (newly formed or newly registered LLCs, corporations and partnerships).

Each record comes in one clean format: business name, entity type, NAICS industry code, location address, county, start date, Secretary of State file number and status. Filter by county, city, ZIP, industry, entity type or name keywords.

Use cases

• B2B service providers (bookkeeping, payroll, insurance, merchant services, banking, POS, marketing, web design): reach businesses in their first weeks, when they choose vendors.
• Commercial suppliers and distributors: find new restaurants (NAICS 722), salons (8121), contractors (23) or retailers (44/45) in your territory.
• Commercial real estate, signage and equipment leasing: see which new locations are opening and where.
• Economic developers, journalists and analysts: count new business formation by county or industry.

Sources

Key	Dataset	What a record means	Date used
salesTax	Active Sales Tax Permit Holders	A business location ("outlet") that received a Texas sales tax permit. Has the location address, mailing address and NAICS code.	Permit issue date
franchise	Active Franchise Taxpayers	An entity that became responsible for Texas franchise tax, usually a new LLC or corporation. Has the SOS file number, charter date and status.	Responsibility beginning date

Both datasets are published by the Texas Comptroller on the official Texas Open Data Portal (data.texas.gov, Socrata SODA API). No login, no browser, no proxies.

Sole proprietors and other individual-owner permit types are always excluded, so the output lists business entities only.

How to use

1. Choose Sources: salesTax, franchise or both. With both, results are split fairly between them.
2. Set Days back (default 7) or an exact Date from / Date to.
3. Narrow it down (all optional): Counties (Travis, Harris, or 3-digit Comptroller codes such as 227), Cities, ZIP prefixes (787), NAICS prefixes (722), Entity categories (llc, corporation, partnership, professional, nonprofit, trust, government, financial, other), Name keywords.
4. Set Max results and run. Export to CSV/Excel/JSON or connect via API, Zapier or Make. Schedule it weekly for a steady lead feed.

Input

Field	Type	Description
sources	array	salesTax, franchise. Default ["salesTax"].
daysBack	integer	Look back N days (default 7). Ignored when dateFrom is set.
dateFrom / dateTo	string	Exact window, YYYY-MM-DD.
counties	array	County names or Comptroller codes 001-254. Unknown names fail the run with a clear message.
cities	array	Exact city names, case-insensitive.
zipPrefixes	array	e.g. 78701 or 787.
naicsPrefixes	array	NAICS code prefixes (sales tax records only have NAICS).
entityCategories	array	See list above. Empty = all business entities.
keywords	array	Keep businesses whose name contains any of these words.
texasAddressOnly	boolean	Drop out-of-state companies from the franchise source.
maxResults	integer	Total cap, newest first (default 100).
socrataAppToken	string	Optional free data.texas.gov app token, only for very large pulls.

Example: new restaurants in Houston's county this month.

{
  "sources": ["salesTax"],
  "dateFrom": "2026-10-01",
  "counties": ["Harris"],
  "naicsPrefixes": ["722"],
  "entityCategories": ["llc", "corporation"],
  "maxResults": 200
}

Output

Real records from a test run on 2026-10-28:

{
  "source": "salesTax",
  "businessName": "EXAMPLE CRAWFISH LLC",
  "taxpayerNumber": "32000000000",
  "entityType": "Texas limited liability company",
  "entityCategory": "llc",
  "naicsCode": "722330",
  "naicsSector": "Accommodation and Food Services",
  "address": "100 EXAMPLE ST",
  "city": "HOUSTON",
  "state": "TX",
  "zip": "77002",
  "county": "Harris",
  "date": "2026-10-24",
  "permitIssueDate": "2026-10-24",
  "firstSalesDate": "2027-01-15",
  "insideCityLimits": true,
  "sourceUrl": "https://data.texas.gov/d/jrea-zgmq"
}

{
  "source": "franchise",
  "businessName": "EXAMPLE ROOFING LLC",
  "entityType": "Texas limited liability company",
  "address": "200 EXAMPLE AVE",
  "city": "DALLAS",
  "zip": "75201",
  "county": "Dallas",
  "date": "2026-10-06",
  "sosFileNumber": "6000000000",
  "sosCharterDate": "2026-10-06",
  "sosStatus": "Active",
  "rightToTransactBusiness": "Active",
  "sourceUrl": "https://data.texas.gov/d/9cir-efmm"
}

All 31 fields are always present (null when the source does not have them). A RUN_SUMMARY record in the key-value store shows how many rows were read, filtered and saved per source.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.003 per business saved ($3 per 1,000). No start fee. Records removed by your filters are free. Set a maximum spend per run in the Apify console and the Actor stops cleanly at that limit.

Limits and tips

• The Comptroller refreshes these datasets about weekly, so the newest sales tax permits are usually a few days old. Use 7 days or more.
• franchise records have no NAICS code, so a NAICS filter removes all of them. Use name keywords instead.
• A franchise "responsibility date" can be in the future for newly registered entities; the Actor only returns dates up to dateTo (today by default).
• Businesses that only owe franchise tax (no taxable sales) never appear in salesTax, and many small sellers never appear in franchise. Run both for the widest coverage.
• Coverage: records whose taxpayer address is in a small number of non-US locations are skipped (never charged), and a cities value naming one is rejected with a clear message.

FAQ

What is the difference between the two sources? salesTax lists new Texas sales-tax permits (shops, restaurants and service businesses opening an outlet). franchise lists new franchise-tax accounts (newly registered LLCs and corporations).

How fresh is the data? The Texas Comptroller updates both datasets on data.texas.gov about once a week, so set daysBack to 7 or more.

Can I filter by area or industry? Yes: by county, city, ZIP prefix, NAICS prefix (sales tax), entity category and keywords.

Will I pay for duplicates? No. Each taxpayer and outlet is saved once per run, and records removed by your filters are free.

Privacy and legal

The data are public records published by the Texas Comptroller for reuse on data.texas.gov (the sales tax dataset is marked Public Domain; the franchise dataset carries no license restriction and is published as public information). Sole proprietors are excluded, so records describe business entities, not private individuals. Some small entities list a home address as their business address; treat it as a business contact. Follow anti-spam and telemarketing laws (CAN-SPAM, TCPA, Texas Business & Commerce Code ch. 304) when contacting businesses.

Not affiliated with the Texas Comptroller, the State of Texas or Tyler Technologies.