Fort Worth alarm permit and false alarm fees
Fort Worth runs the standard tier boundaries and adds a separate, cheaper count for manually activated alarms. A site with a sticky panic button under a counter is paying into a different column than its burglar alarms.
Checked against the city's published material on 12 September 2026. Ordinances change. Confirm anything you are about to act on with the city.
What it costs
| Annual permit, commercial | $100 |
| Annual permit, residential | $50 |
| Free false alarms per 12 months | 3 |
| 4th and 5th false alarm | $50 |
| 6th and 7th false alarm | $75 |
| 8th and every one after false alarm | $100 |
The part that catches people
Robbery and panic alarms. Two free in any 12 month period, then $60 for each manually activated alarm after that. That is a separate count from the burglar alarm tally.
Why the numbers look familiar
Every city in this comparison lands on the same three figures because Texas caps them. Local Government Code section 214.197 sets the ceiling a large municipality may charge for a false alarm: $50, then $75, then $100 as the count climbs. Cities set their own permit fees and their own tier boundaries underneath that ceiling, which is where they actually differ.
Compare all seven cities side by side.
Source
Fort Worth City Code Chapter 12, Alarm Systems. City page. Fort Worth Alarms Unit, 817-392-1300.
Paying into the top tier is a symptom, not a cost line. A site sitting at $100 an alarm has a call list, a contract or a panel that nobody has looked at in years. We review the paper and tell you which of the three is doing it. We do not install, service or monitor anything.