What does a metal building cost in San Antonio?

Nobody in this market publishes the answer. No metal building company serving the San Antonio area publishes a price, and the four company sites read on 2026-09-13 all route to a quote request instead of a figure.

That is why this site prints no range. A range copied from a content guide is a number nobody stands behind. Only the contractor who walks the site can price it.

What you can settle today is the paperwork attached to it. Those fees are published by the agencies themselves, and on a small building they are a real share of the budget. The order the project runs in is in building a metal building in San Antonio.

Price pages read, no figure published. Source: Four San Antonio-area metal building company websites, read 2026-09-13.

Because a pre-engineered building is priced to a set of drawings, not a catalog page. The steel is detailed for one span, one eave height, one wind load and one set of openings, and punched and welded for those before it ships. Two buildings with the same floor area can carry different frames.

State law puts part of that in writing. Occupations Code 1001.056 exempts from the engineering chapter, where no representation of offering engineering services to the public is made, a one-story building of not more than 5,000 square feet with no clear span greater than 24 feet on the narrow side, and where such a building has unsupported spans greater than 24 feet, the trusses, beams and other roof supporting members still have to be engineered or pre-engineered. Clear span is what drives the frame, so the line where a building stops being a simple shed is a design line before it is a price line.

Source: Texas Legislature Online, Occupations Code Chapter 1001, engineers and engineering, read 2026-09-13.

Each item changes the price of the same building. Make every line explicit in the written estimate.

• Size, and clear span in particular. A wider column-free bay is a heavier frame, and past a 24-foot clear span the roof supporting members have to be engineered or pre-engineered.

• Eave height, which drives the frame, the panels, the doors and the crane time.

• The design loads the drawings are engineered for, set by the code the local office has adopted.

• Doors and openings, detailed into the steel before it ships, so moving one later changes the frame.

• Insulation and conditioning. A conditioned building is a different specification from open storage, and the state energy code reaches commercial construction.

• The slab and the soil. The foundation is engineered to the building and to what is under it, and the soil report tells the engineer which.

• Site work: clearing, cut and fill, compaction, drainage and the driveway, all separate scopes, and on a raw lot not small.

• Finish-out. A shell is not an office, a restroom or a shop with three-phase power in it.

Source: Texas Legislature Online, Occupations Code Chapter 1001, engineers and engineering, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, State Energy Conservation Office, commercial construction energy code, read 2026-09-13.

Accessibility registration first. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation publishes a project filing fee of $175, a late project filing fee of $300, a special review or inspection fee of $215 per hour with a one hour minimum, and a variance application fee of $175 each, all non-refundable. Two costs are not published as a number: plan review and inspection fees collected by the department are determined by the estimated cost of construction with no dollar tiers published, and the registered accessibility specialist who does the plan review and the inspection sets a separate fee TDLR publishes no amount for. When that registration is triggered is the subject of TDLR registration for projects over $50,000.

The Edwards Aquifer plan is second, and only for a site over a regulated zone. The application fee is set by the acreage of the whole property inside its legal boundaries and by the type of development, with a minimum of $650 and a maximum of $10,000. A non-residential project, which the TCEQ schedule defines to include commercial, industrial, institutional, multi-family and school sites, pays $3,000 under one acre and rises by acreage band to $10,000 at 100 acres or more.

Construction stormwater is third and turns on disturbed acreage. The TCEQ construction general permit sets the Notice of Intent fee at $225 electronic and $325 paper. A site of one to under five acres files no Notice of Intent, so it pays no fee under this permit.

Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Architectural Barriers fee schedule, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Architectural Barriers special project registration application, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Edwards Aquifer application fee form TCEQ-0574, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, general permit TXR150000, fees, read 2026-09-13.

Inside the city limits the permit is priced on valuation. The city fee schedule prices a commercial building permit at a flat $100.00 at $1,000 or less, $100.00 plus $7.28 per $1,000 above $1,000 up to $25,000, $274.87 plus $5.72 per $1,000 above $25,000 up to $75,000, and $560.00 plus $2.00 per $1,000 above $75,000. A separate commercial plan review fee starts at a flat $100.00 at $1,000 or less and tops out at $4,618.40 plus $0.50 per $1,000 above $5,000,000.

The applicant does not set that valuation. Development Services establishes minimum values for commercial construction from International Code Council costs per square foot with an Army Corps of Engineers modifier for San Antonio, fixed when the plans are submitted. The fee comes off a city number, not off your contract price.

Trees are a separate line: $100.00 for a commercial tree plan review, and a commercial tree permit at $175.00 per acre plus a $25.00 per acre canopy enhancement fee. Starting site work without one carries a penalty fee. Which office has your address is worked through in metal building permits in San Antonio and Bexar County.

Source: City of San Antonio Development Services, FY 2026 development fee schedule, read 2026-09-13.

Outside every city limit the answer changes county by county, and three of the seven publish no building permit fee because they publish no building permit. Local Government Code 233.061 lets only some counties adopt a fire code at all: a county over 250,000 in population, or one adjacent to such a county. Section 233.063 caps the fee at the cost of enforcing the subchapter.

Four counties publish a Fire Marshal schedule, and all four price a small project as a flat fee with a valuation table above it. Bexar County, dated January 1, 2024, charges $400.00 flat under $6,250.00 of valuation, $100.00 minimum plans review, $200.00 for final inspection and certificate of occupancy, and a 4.5 percent technology surcharge; its fee schedule estimates commercial construction at $200.00 per square foot for valuation while the county Code Enforcement page states a minimum cost of construction of $25.00 per square foot, so confirm which applies with Code Enforcement. Guadalupe County, effective February 1, 2026, charges $200.00 flat plus a technology fee, $100.00 minimum plans review, $125.00 for final inspection, and $500.00 for a site preparation and foundation permit. Wilson County, revised November 30, 2025, charges $200.00 flat and $100.00 minimum plans review, at the Fire Marshal Office on 830-393-8503. Atascosa County, effective May 2023, charges $200.00 flat and $40.00 for plans review. Read at each county Fire Marshal fee schedule, 2026-09-13.

The other three publish other permits instead. Medina County publishes a one-page list of the permits it requires and a building permit is not one of the five items on it; it does publish a floodplain development permit at $45.00 and septic at $200.00 conventional and $400.00 aerobic. Frio County publishes septic at $200.00 residential and $450.00 commercial, and commercial right of way work at $500.00 per line or road crossing. Karnes County publishes no septic, development or driveway fee on any page read, so the permits office is the number to call. Wilson County also posts a newer permit fee list effective May 11, 2026 that does not render as readable text, covering its floodplain, septic and driveway fees, so confirm the current amount with Permitting and Development on 830-393-8357. Read at each county fee page, 2026-09-13.

A county that publishes no building permit fee is not a county with no rules. The floodplain permit, the septic permit, the driveway permit, the accessibility registration at $50,000, the aquifer plan where the zone reaches and the stormwater filing by acreage all still apply, and inside a city, that city applies.

Source: Texas Legislature Online, Local Government Code Chapter 233, county regulation of housing and other structures, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Architectural Barriers frequently asked questions, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Edwards Aquifer Protection Program, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, construction stormwater general permit TXR150000, read 2026-09-13.

The electric charge is a per-project calculation and most of it is not published. CPS Energy calls it the customer construction cost, or contribution in aid of construction: a one-time cost calculated per project from the materials, the labor and the time the work takes, under a line extension policy approved by its board of trustees. No dollar amount, deposit or engineering fee for a new commercial connection appears on any CPS Energy page read. The cooperatives publish their front-end charges: Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative takes a $6,000 engineering deposit before design, and Medina Electric Cooperative a non-refundable $100 engineering fee before the site visit.

Water is the line that can surprise a commercial project inside the San Antonio Water System service area. SAWS charges a one-time impact fee on new development, quoted per equivalent dwelling unit, on a schedule effective July 1, 2024. A one inch meter is rated at two equivalent dwelling units, and the total water impact fee is $10,940.00 in the low elevation zone, $11,408.00 in middle elevation and $11,974.00 in high elevation. Sanitary sewer impact fees run from $1,873.00 to $5,541.00 per unit by area.

Septic is a county fee, priced commercially in most of the footprint. Atascosa County prices a commercial conventional system at $350 and a commercial aerobic system at $600, against $250 and $400 residential. Guadalupe County charges $600 for a commercial or multi-unit system against $400 for a residential conventional one. Read at the Atascosa County septic inspection fee schedule and the Guadalupe County Environmental Health fee schedule, 2026-09-13.

Source: CPS Energy, customer construction cost, contribution in aid of construction, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, developer and builder resources, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Medina Electric Cooperative, start or stop service, read 2026-09-13.

Source: San Antonio Water System, water and sewer impact fees by meter size, July 2024, read 2026-09-13.

Send two things: the county the lot is in, and what the building is for. The county decides which permit offices and fees are in the picture. The use decides whether the accessibility registration, a city plan review or a commercial septic design are in it at all. That is enough for an independent local metal building contractor to call back and set up a site visit.

Then ask for the estimate in writing, broken into scopes: the building package, the slab, the site work and driveway, the utilities and septic, the permits and reviews, and the finish-out. Ask which the contractor carries and which are yours, and who files the accessibility registration at or above $50,000. A price that does not say which scopes it covers cannot be compared to another.

Texas licenses no builder, so price is the wrong place to look for a credential: ask a bidder for the written estimate, a certificate of insurance from the insurer, an engineered foundation plan, and the trade licenses for the electrical and mechanical work.

This page publishes no financing terms and no loan figures, because no primary source for them is recorded here. Most of the work priced this way is a commercial metal building or a metal shop or workshop, and the scope list is the same on both.

Source: Sunset Advisory Commission, Texas Residential Construction Commission; TDLR regulated industries list, read 2026-09-13.

Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Architectural Barriers frequently asked questions, read 2026-09-13.