The Texas Business Court was created by H.B. 19, 88th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2023)i, signed June 9, 2023, effective September 1, 2023, and operational for cases filed on or after September 1, 2024. The Court is composed of eleven geographic divisions corresponding to the Administrative Judicial Regions. Five divisions — Dallas (First), Austin (Third), San Antonio (Fourth), Fort Worth (Eighth), and Houston (Eleventh) — were funded and operational at launch on September 1, 2024. The remaining six divisions were initially conditioned on legislative appropriations and scheduled to be abolished September 1, 2026 absent reauthorization; H.B. 40 (2025) eliminated that sunset provision and provided appointment authority for judges to the six remaining divisions (and additional judges for the First and Eleventh), contingent on legislative appropriations; the bill removed the structural threat to those divisions but did not itself open them or appoint sitting judges.23 The companion S.B. 1045, 88th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2023)i created the Fifteenth Court of Appeals, based in Austin, as a dedicated appellate venue for Business Court appeals.24
Figure 5 · Business Court divisions
Sources. Tex. Gov't Code Ann. ch. 25A (West 2025); H.B. 19 and S.B. 1045, 88th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2023); H.B. 40, 89th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2025); Fifteenth Court of Appeals (txcourts.gov); Administrative Judicial Regions (txcourts.gov).