New Alcohol Laws in Texas: To-Go, ID Scans, and Hotel Bars

The new alcohol laws in Texas, layered on since 2021, changed how you can buy a drink to go, when you can pick up beer or wine on a Sunday, whether a hotel bar can serve you at 2 a.m., and what happens at the register when you buy alcohol to take home. The biggest recent addition, effective September 1, 2025, is a requirement that clerks electronically scan your ID for any off-premises sale.

Alcohol To-Go From Restaurants

House Bill 1024, passed in the 87th legislative session, made Texas one of the first states to permanently allow restaurants to sell beer, wine, and mixed drinks for pickup or delivery. The restaurant must hold a mixed beverage permit along with a food and beverage certificate, and every to-go alcohol order must include food prepared on the premises. There is no required ratio of food to alcohol.¹

Packaging depends on what you order. Beer and wine can leave in the manufacturer’s sealed bottle or can, or in a tamper-proof container sealed by the restaurant and labeled with the business name and the words “alcoholic beverage.” Distilled spirits carry an extra restriction: a manufacturer-sealed bottle sent from a restaurant cannot be larger than 375 milliliters, roughly a half-bottle. Cocktails mixed in-house go into the same kind of labeled, tamper-proof container as beer and wine.²

A tamper-proof container is one that clearly shows whether it has been opened. Think a sealed bag with a zip tie or staple, shrink wrap, or another method approved by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. A cup with a lid and a straw hole doesn’t qualify, because there’s no way to tell if someone drank from it.

The packaging rule matters once you get in your car. Any container sealed by the restaurant rather than the manufacturer cannot ride in the passenger area. It has to go in the trunk, behind the last upright row of seats, or inside a locked glove compartment.¹ A capped beer bottle in its factory seal can stay up front because it satisfies open container law on its own. A restaurant-sealed margarita cannot. A driver stopped with a restaurant-sealed drink in the front seat can be cited for an open container violation under Texas Penal Code Section 49.031, a Class C misdemeanor.³

Sunday Beer and Wine Now Start at 10 A.M.

House Bill 1518 pulled Sunday morning sales of beer and wine two hours earlier at most retail locations. Before the change, off-premises Sunday sales of malt beverages could not begin until noon. Now, holders of a retail dealer’s off-premise license, which covers most grocery stores and convenience stores, can sell starting at 10 a.m. Restaurants can also serve malt beverages beginning at 10 a.m. on Sundays, provided the drinks come with food.⁴

Wine at retail follows the same adjusted schedule. HB 1518 amended Section 24.07 of the Alcoholic Beverage Code so wine-only package store permits operate on the same hours as malt beverages, with one carve-out: wine or vinous liquor above 17 percent alcohol by volume cannot be sold on Sundays at all, or after 10 p.m. on other days.⁵

None of this changed the rules for liquor stores. Package stores that sell distilled spirits remain closed on Sundays, along with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. The earlier 10 a.m. window applies only to beer and wine at grocery stores, convenience stores, and similar retail outlets.

Hotel Bars Can Serve Registered Guests Around the Clock

Also inside HB 1518, and easy to miss: Section 105.091 of the Alcoholic Beverage Code now allows hotel bars to sell alcoholic beverages to registered guests at any time, day or night. A hotel bar is any establishment inside a hotel that holds a permit or license for on-premises consumption.⁵

The 24-hour window is only for people actually checked in. If a hotel bar also serves walk-in customers off the street, those patrons still follow standard hours. In practice, a guest can order a drink through room service or at a guest-only lounge at 3 a.m. without the hotel running afoul of curfew rules.

Every Off-Premises Sale Now Requires an ID Scan

The 89th Texas Legislature added a change that affects nearly every alcohol purchase you make to take home. Senate Bill 650 requires anyone selling alcohol for off-premises consumption to both visually inspect and electronically scan the buyer’s identification, or manually enter the ID information into an electronic reader. A visual check of a driver’s license is no longer enough on its own.⁶

The law took effect September 1, 2025. TABC enforcement against license and permit holders does not begin until September 1, 2027, giving businesses time to install or upgrade scanning equipment. That grace period covers administrative action only. A person who conducts a sale in violation of the scanning requirement commits a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000.⁶ Expect to have your ID scanned or entered every time you buy beer, wine, or liquor to go, regardless of how old you look.

Home Delivery of Alcohol

Texas created a Consumer Delivery Permit in 2019 that allows third-party delivery services to bring alcohol from licensed retailers to your home. The permit covers deliveries on behalf of package stores, wine retailers, beer retailers, and mixed beverage permit holders with a food and beverage certificate. Once the order leaves the store, the delivery company is responsible for the product.⁷

The person receiving the delivery has to be present and has to show valid proof of identity and age. A driver cannot leave the order on a porch, cannot hand it to anyone who can’t prove they are 21, and cannot complete a delivery to someone who appears intoxicated.⁷ With SB 650 now in effect, delivery drivers handling off-premises sales are on the hook for the same electronic ID verification as store clerks.

Furnishing alcohol to a minor is a Class A misdemeanor under Texas law, carrying up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000. If the minor causes serious bodily injury or death to someone else because of the alcohol, the charge escalates to a state jail felony.⁸

Smaller 2025 Changes Worth Knowing

Alongside the ID scanning requirement, the 89th Legislature passed several narrower updates that also took effect September 1, 2025:

Restaurants can now buy wine from private collectors under SB 1184, as long as the wine was manufactured at least 10 years before the sale, remains in its original manufacturer-sealed container, and the restaurant keeps the purchase records for at least two years.
Out-of-state breweries can hold a single license covering all their facilities outside Texas under HB 4463, rather than a separate license per location. They must be the primary American source of supply for any brand they import into the state.
Mixed beverage permit holders at qualifying racing facilities can sell at an unlimited number of events per year and at as many concession stands as they want under SB 1577, replacing the earlier caps of four events per year and 50 percent of open stands.
Permitted airlines can store alcoholic beverages at any airport they regularly serve or at a location within five miles of the airport under HB 4285, provided the storage site is in the same county.

All of these provisions appear in TABC’s summary of the 89th Legislature.⁶

1
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Industry Notice: House Bill 1024 Pickup and Delivery of Alcoholic Beverages for Off-Premises Consumption
2
Texas Legislature Online. Texas House Bill 1024 – Pickup and Delivery of Alcoholic Beverages
3
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code 49.031 – Possession of Alcoholic Beverage in Motor Vehicle
4
State of Texas. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code 105.05 – Hours of Sale: Malt Beverages
5
Texas Legislature Online. Texas House Bill 1518
6
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. New Laws from the 89th Texas Legislature
7
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Marketing Practices Advisory – MPA061 Delivery to Consumers
8
State of Texas. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code 106.06 – Purchase of Alcohol for a Minor; Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor