Do you need a permit?
No permit required for most private trees
Laredo does not require a permit to remove a tree on your own private property. The city's tree rules define a "protected tree" by where it stands, not by who owns it: only trees on public land are protected, and only at eight inches caliper or more. Trees on private land are reached by the code in one situation only, when a tree becomes a nuisance. The city's other tree rules are planting requirements that attach to new subdivisions, building permits and parking lots, not to removals.
Size threshold
Eight inches caliper, but the threshold only matters on public land. Laredo Land Development Code Section 24-83.5(1): "All trees on public land within the city limits of Laredo with a caliper of eight (8) inches shall be considered protected trees." The code says caliper, not DBH, and does not state a measuring height for this provision.
What's protected in Laredo
- Trees on public land within the city limits with a caliper of eight inches or more. This includes the street right-of-way strip in front of a house, which is public land even though the adjoining owner maintains it.
Fees, penalties, and the ordinance
- Penalties
- Each destruction or removal of a protected tree is a separate violation. A person, firm or corporation violating the tree provisions is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction may be fined up to $500.00 per violation.
- Ordinance
- City of Laredo Land Development Code Section 24-83 — Trees and Shrubs, in Article V (Performance Standards). Land Development Code codified through Ordinance No. 2025-O-067, enacted April 22, 2025.
Worth knowing
- The scope clause is what settles this. Section 24-83.5(1) limits "protected trees" to trees on public land, and Section 24-83.5(2)(a) says no person shall remove a protected tree "on public land" without approval. Private-property trees are outside that rule.
- Section 24-83.6(1) is the only provision aimed at private trees: "Any tree on privately owned property that is found to be a nuisance shall receive a notice to abate such nuisance as described in Chapter 21 of the Code of Ordinances, City of Laredo."
- Laredo does require tree PLANTING in some situations, which people confuse with removal rules. Two trees per single-family lot must be planted in new subdivisions, and planting is a condition of issuing a building permit in existing subdivisions — but that requirement expressly excludes permits "issued for the reconstruction, modification or addition to property used for single family residential purposes."
- If you are preserving an existing healthy tree to earn credit against a planting requirement, the tree must have a minimum caliper of six inches, and credit runs at two street trees for each preserved tree.
- The Engineering Department has a separate Land Clearing Notice Application, which applies when a site is being cleared rather than when a single tree comes down.
What we could not confirm
We would rather tell you what we don't know than guess. Call the office below to confirm these before you cut.
- — CONTRADICTION, recorded not resolved: Section 24-83.5 assigns every tree approval to "the Tree Board," but Land Development Code Section 24-1.7, which created the Tree Board, reads "(DELETED: Ord. No. 2007-O-089; 5/21/07)." The board that the tree ordinance relies on was deleted from the code in 2007 and the tree section was never updated. Both provisions are in the currently codified text. Ask the city who now performs the Tree Board function before relying on any public-tree approval process.
- — A direct phone number for a Laredo tree or forestry desk. cityoflaredo.com is behind Akamai and blocks automated access, so the department-level number could not be read from the city site.
- — Permit fees, since no tree removal permit was found for private property.