Texas HVAC · Deal sourcing
Every month Shunpo reads the Texas licensing register and flags the HVAC shops that matter to a buyer: owner-operators licensed for 30+ years, licenses left to lapse, and licenses that quietly moved to another company. One region per buyer.
Company and holder hidden on this page. In your list, each row links to its live record at tdlr.texas.gov.
Counts from the TDLR air conditioning contractor file, 28 Oct 2026. Exit rate: Sep 2024 to Oct 2026, 9.9% vs 3.8%.
What you get each month
A spreadsheet per region, rebuilt from the latest register and checked record by record. New entries are marked, so you see what changed since last month.
01 · Owner-operators
Texas requires a full-time licensed contractor at every A/C company office. A shop on a single license held since before 1996 is usually run by the person who holds it, and is closer to the end of their career than the start.
02 · Lapsed, not renewed
Shops whose only contractor license expired in the last six months and is still unrenewed on the live record. Texas allows late renewal, so this is a reason to call, not proof the business closed.
03 · License moves
A contractor license that left one company for another, where the first company holds none afterwards. Some of these are acquisitions that were never announced. Some are a licensee changing jobs. Each one is flagged for you to confirm.
04 · Second generation
Companies with an older and a younger licensed generation of the same family, at least ten years apart. 115 across Texas today. A family that already has a successor is a different conversation from a founder who has none.
Plus · Reachability
Website, phone and the owner's name when they are public, with notes on shops that look closed or are not really residential HVAC (commercial refrigeration, security firms). Known platform-owned brands, schools and property managers are removed.
Regions
The monthly feed for a region goes to one buyer only. Shops below hold a single A/C contractor license first issued before 1996, current on 28 Oct 2026.
| Region | Shops | Before 1991 |
|---|---|---|
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 450 | 245 |
| Greater Houston | 419 | 245 |
| Greater Austin | 136 | 71 |
| San Antonio & Hill Country | 136 | 67 |
| East Texas | 89 | 43 |
| Brazos Valley | 85 | 42 |
| West Texas | 61 | 35 |
| Waco & Central TX | 44 | 27 |
| Southeast Texas | 35 | 17 |
| All of Texas* | 1,762 | 956 |
* All of Texas includes counties outside the named regions, so it is more than the sum of the rows. Lapsed: only license expired between May and October 2026, still unrenewed on 28 Oct, with no similar company name still licensed in the same county.
How it's built
The register is public. The work is in joining it across years, checking every record against the live state site, and throwing out what does not belong.
01
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation contractor file, plus archived copies of the same file back to March 2022, so a license can be followed from one company to the next.
02
The first-issued date, status and current company of every shop on the list are read from its live record on tdlr.texas.gov, not estimated.
03
School districts, property managers, restaurants, out-of-state firms and brands already owned by known platforms come out. Rows that need a second look are marked as such.
What this is not. It is not a prediction that any shop will sell, and nobody on the list has told us they want to. It is the shortlist a buyer would build if they had time to read the register every month, with the evidence attached.
Who it's for
Platforms
A steady pipeline of owner-operators in the regions you are building in, before a banker brings them to market.
Independents
The established shops near you whose owners have been licensed the longest, and the ones that just stopped renewing.
Advisors
Founders who may soon need help with a sale, region by region, with new names each month.
Terms
FAQ
Yes. The Texas licensing register is public. What you pay for is the history across snapshots, the live check of every record, the cleaning, and a new list every month without anyone on your team doing it.
Texas requires each A/C company office to have a full-time licensed contractor. When a company holds a single license and it was first issued before 1996, the holder is usually the owner and has been in the trade for 30 years or more. In a sample we checked by hand, the public owner matched the license holder in 9 of the 12 shops where an owner was named.
Not always. Texas allows late renewal, and some owners let a license run out when they retire, sell or bring in someone else. We re-check each lapse on the live record and flag cases where a similar company name is still licensed nearby.
No. We do not represent buyers or sellers, introduce parties for a fee, or take any share of a transaction. You get data and, if you want it, outreach done in your name. The fee is flat.
Yes. Ask for your region and we will send the current list so you can judge it before you decide anything.
Texas first, because its register is public, detailed and archived. Other states with similar contractor registers can follow.
Next step
Reply to our email or write to nadir@shunpo.co. We'll send the current list for your region and walk you through it in 20 minutes if useful.