Dallas alarm permit and false alarm fees
Dallas is the outlier in the metroplex. Its $50 band runs to the sixth false alarm rather than the fifth, so a Dallas site reaches the $100 tier one alarm later than a site in Plano or Arlington.
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 to 6th false alarm | $50 |
| 7th and 8th false alarm | $75 |
| 9th and every one after false alarm | $100 |
The part that catches people
No permit, no response. The Chief of Police shall refuse police response to an alarm notification from a site without a valid permit, unless the call is a duress, hold-up or panic alarm, or somebody other than the alarm company reported it to 9-1-1.
Operating without a permit. Not less than $200 and not more than $500 on a first conviction, and $250 on each conviction after that.
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
Dallas City Code Chapter 15C, Emergency Reporting Equipment and Procedures. City page. Dallas Police Alarm Unit, 214-671-4120.
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.