Do you need a permit to remove a tree in Fort Worth?

Ask the city before anyone cuts. Its Urban Forestry page says: "If you have dying or hazardous trees to remove or if you have one (but no more than one) healthy tree to remove, you need a tree removal permit." Blog posts disagree. One says a permit is not required for a single dead, dying or hazardous tree on a home lot under an acre. Another says homeowners typically need one. Both predate the 2025 changes below. The office to ask is Urban Forestry Management: 817-392-2222 or UrbanForestry@fortworthtexas.gov. Email gets you the answer in writing.

We read these documents on 2026-11-05. None of this is legal advice, and we are not the city. It is here to help you ask the right question, and it says nothing about any company.

How current the city's page is

The page shows no last-updated date. Files it links are labelled "2025 update" for the ordinance and "2026" for the application and fee sheet. One line on it still says the ordinance "has not been updated since 2009". The ordinance PDF it links says otherwise: its history ends with Ordinance 27615-04-2025, passed April 22, 2025, effective May 9, 2025. So anything written before May 2025 cannot reflect the current version.

What the ordinance and form say

• The rules cover "Removal of any trees of six inches or greater in diameter" (Section 6.302(d)(1)). The city's page measures that "at 4.5 ft. above the ground".
• A tree removal permit is required "Prior to the removal of a single tree", and is not issued if the canopy left would fall under the 25 percent minimum (Section 6.302(j)(1)).
• More than one tree needs an Urban Forestry Permit instead, unless an exemption applies, as the application notes at the top.
• The application offers two reasons. Reason A is one tree, keeping at least 25 percent of the canopy. Reason B is a tree that is "Hazardous to people or structures, dead, or dying", "Infested with insects or disease and threatens health of other trees", or in a utility easement or right-of-way.

Two lines that make this hard

The ordinance's list of exemptions includes "Any tree that is deemed to be in unsafe condition", and several other cases, "as determined by the urban forestry administrator" (Section 6.302(e)(8)). The word that matters is "determined". A tree being dead in your opinion is not the same as the administrator having decided, and the application's Reason B cites that same exemption. It looks to us as if the form is how a dead tree gets that decision. That is our reading, not the city's.

The same list also exempts "Any single residential lot with a one- or two-family dwelling that is one acre or less in size" (Section 6.302(e)(2)). The city's permit line does not mention that. Yet another part of the ordinance, Section 6.302(b)(4), says the owner of a single lot in a one- or two-family district who removes trees "without first obtaining the required permit may be issued an after-the-fact permit". Those lines may be why the blogs disagree. We could not work out how the office applies them together, so we will not guess. Tell the office your lot size and what the tree is, and ask.

Sizes and species

The 18 and 24 inch figures come from the ordinance, Section 6.302(j)(5), which says significant trees "can only be removed by permit". The application says they need an Urban Forestry Permit. A cloth tape gets you the around-the-trunk number in a minute. Older material may say 27 inches, or limit the post oak mark to east of I-35. The city's slides list those as the rules before the 2025 change.

The ordinance's Table B lists protected species, and we count 47, matching the figure in a city presentation that proposed going up from 26. It takes in pecan, live oak, cedar elm, American elm, bur oak, post oak, Shumard and Texas red oak, and also some you might not expect, like crape myrtle, yaupon holly and Eastern redcedar.

Its Table A lists unprotected species, among them ash, hackberry, mesquite, Bradford pear, cottonwood, silver maple, mulberry and willow. Unprotected does not settle it. That city presentation marked the six-inch line "Protected Species Only", but the ordinance text we read says "any trees". If yours is a hackberry, ask.

What the application asks for

For a dead or hazardous tree, the form asks for as much documentation as possible: the tree marked with its name, photos showing its condition and location, a map or aerial photo if the photos do not place it, and "A signed letter or other documentation (i.e. ISA Tree Risk Assessment)" from "a certified arborist or other accredited professional". For one healthy tree it asks for species, diameter, canopy area in square feet and enough to show the 25 percent test is met. It goes to urbanforestry@fortworthtexas.gov. There is a line for the owner's name when it differs from the applicant, so ask whether a company can file it for you.

If it is already cut

The ordinance allows citations and civil penalties, and each tree counts as a separate offense. Code compliance officers and the urban forestry administrator both enforce it. For the owner of a single home lot, an after-the-fact permit costs double the fee for an urban forestry permit. It is issued only if the removal would have met the rules, and there is a limit on repeats. We leave the amounts off this site on purpose: the city can tell you the fee and any penalty. A refused permit can be appealed to the urban design commission within ten days, and a civil penalty to the city council.

Why the city cares

The city puts its canopy at about 19 percent and wants 30 percent by 2050, in an Urban Forest Master Plan adopted June 25, 2024. The Fort Worth Report described the April 2025 vote as mainly tightening rules for developers clearing land, and did not describe specific changes for homeowners. We could not open the master plan PDF, which is very large, so we have not read it.

What this page does not cover

• Parkway, median and alley trees. Those go to Forestry, as the who to call page explains.
• Design districts. Section 6.302(e)(4) treats design overlay districts and form-based codes separately, and the city's slides name Near Southside, Camp Bowie and Berry/University among them. Ask if you live there.
• Owners' associations. The Texas State Law Library says they may have rules of their own, and that cities may too.
• A tree that has to come down fast after a storm. We found nothing on it in these documents, so call the office and keep your photos.