Justice Court vs. County Court: Where Texas Eviction Cases Are Filed and Heard

Most landlords overthink this. The choice isn’t really yours, it’s the statute’s, and the statute is unambiguous: Texas eviction cases start in Justice Court (JP court) at the precinct where the property sits, and the only place they go from there is county court at law on appeal. There is no strategic court choice in the typical Texas eviction.

So why have a page on it? Because the practical questions that come up are not about choice. They’re about which JP precinct is the right one (a venue question SB 38 made more consequential), how the JP procedure differs from a small-claims case (which is a different docket within the same court system), what the JP court can and cannot decide (which determines what gets cut off from the eviction and has to be brought separately), and what to expect from county court at law on appeal (which under SB 38 runs faster and tighter than landlords expect).

The doctrinal differences between the two courts are well-documented and easy to recite. The practical question is which one you’re in, what it can do for you, and what it can’t.

Justice Court: the trial court for Texas evictions

Justice of the Peace courts (also called Justice Courts or JP courts) are the lowest tier of trial courts in Texas. They are courts of limited jurisdiction, meaning their authority is constrained by statute to specific types of cases.

JP courts have exclusive jurisdiction over forcible detainer cases, meaning evictions must be filed in JP court at the trial level. They cannot be filed in district court, county court, or any other Texas trial court.

Each county is divided into precincts, and each precinct has at least one JP court. Dallas County, for example, has five precincts (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), each with its own JP court (and most precincts have multiple JP positions). Filing must occur in the precinct where the property is located. SB 38 tightened venue rules: an eviction must be filed in the precinct where the property is located, and a case filed in the wrong precinct must be dismissed rather than transferred (Section 24.0041; Rule 510.6(c)).

A note on terminology: JP Court is not Small Claims Court

This confusion shows up in older Texas legal materials and on many Texas-area landlord websites. Justice Court is not Small Claims Court; those are different terms even though both deal with smaller civil matters.

The history: Texas had a separate Small Claims Court system until 2013. In 2013, the Texas Legislature abolished Small Claims Court and folded its docket into the Justice Courts. Today, what used to be called “Small Claims” is now an informal small-civil-claims docket within the Justice Court structure.

Eviction cases, forcible detainer actions, were never Small Claims matters. They were always handled by Justice Courts under Chapter 24 and the predecessors of Rule 510. Calling JP Court “Small Claims Court” in an eviction context is not just imprecise, it is wrong. JP Court has its own rules (Rule 510 and related), its own procedure (the SB 38 framework as of 2026), and its own jurisdiction (forcible detainer specifically).

If a Texas landlord-tenant resource refers to “Small Claims Court” for evictions, that resource is out of date. The current correct terminology is Justice Court (or JP Court).

What JP Courts can decide in eviction cases

JP courts have authority to:

• Determine possession of the property. The core question: does the landlord get possession back?
• Award unpaid rent. Up to the JP court’s monetary jurisdiction limit (currently $20,000 in Texas, but the rent claim is typically far below this).
• Award attorney’s fees under § 24.006 if the lease provides or if the statutory pre-suit notice was given.
• Enter judgment by default if the tenant fails to appear, with required mailing under § 24.0061.
• Issue the writ of possession after the six-day waiting period.
• Resolve summary disposition motions under SB 38 in unauthorized-occupancy and forcible-entry cases.

What JP courts cannot decide in eviction cases (especially under SB 38):

• Counterclaims by the tenant. SB 38 expressly bars tenant counterclaims in JP eviction cases.
• Third-party joinder. SB 38 bars third-party joinder in JP eviction cases.
• Title disputes. JP courts cannot adjudicate ownership of real property. If the eviction case raises a genuine title dispute, the case is removed to district court.
• Damages beyond unpaid rent. The JP court can award unpaid rent (and late fees, where statutorily authorized) but cannot award broader damages, those must be brought separately.
• Habitability claims as affirmative claims. Texas does not recognize a general common-law warranty-of-habitability defense to possession, so habitability is not, by itself, a defense that defeats an eviction. It is an affirmative statutory claim under Chapter 92 that must be brought as a separate suit, not raised as a counterclaim in the JP eviction. The defense that is recognized in a possession case is retaliation under § 92.331, where a tenant’s protected act, such as a good-faith repair request, can bar an eviction brought in response.
• Deposit return claims. These are separate causes of action, not part of the eviction. Deposit cases are typically filed separately, often in JP court but as small-civil-claims cases rather than as part of the eviction.

County Court at Law: what actually happens on appeal

When a JP eviction is appealed, the case goes to county court at law (or, in counties without a county court at law, the constitutional county court). Three things about appeals that catch landlords off guard:

The case is tried de novo, meaning the case is tried again from scratch. The county court doesn’t review the JP’s decision for error; it holds a new trial as if the JP proceeding had never occurred. A landlord who won at the JP level cannot rely on that win on appeal. Everything has to be proven again.

County court has broader jurisdiction than the JP. It can hear claims and counterclaims that the JP could not, award damages beyond unpaid rent, and resolve issues that go beyond pure possession. In practice, that broader jurisdiction matters less than it sounds, because most appeals are still about possession and the same statutory framework applies. But it’s available where it matters.

Under SB 38, the county court must hold trial within 21 days of the transcript being filed. This is a hard outer deadline. It was added precisely because pre-SB-38 appeals routinely sat for months while the tenant remained in possession. Continuances are now permitted only on good cause and only when the requesting party can demonstrate the continuance doesn’t undermine the policy of speedy resolution. In practice, landlords get to a trial within 21 days much more reliably than they did before SB 38.

County court at law issues its own writ of possession after a six-day waiting period if the landlord prevails on appeal. The writ doesn’t go back to the JP. The county court can award attorney’s fees on the appeal as well as the JP-stage fees.

A county court at law judgment is the operative judgment once entered. Further appeals to the Court of Appeals are available but limited and rarely sought; the cost and time investment usually doesn’t justify it for an eviction case.

For background context: Texas trial courts sit in tiers, with district courts handling large and complex civil matters (title disputes, real estate damages claims), county courts at law handling moderate-size civil matters and JP appeals, and Justice (JP) courts handling forcible detainer, small civil claims, and limited other matters. The Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court sit above them. For an eviction, the typical path is JP court to county court at law and stops there.

The practical decisions that actually come up

A few practical issues that come up routinely for landlords working through the Texas eviction court structure:

Filing in the wrong court is more common than it should be. Eviction cases must be filed in JP court for the precinct where the property sits. Filings in district court get dismissed or transferred. Filings in county court at law without a JP judgment get dismissed (county court is appellate, not original, for evictions). Filings in JP court for the wrong precinct get dismissed (not transferred) under SB 38’s tighter venue rules. And filings as small-civil-claims rent suits rather than as forcible detainer cases miss the point entirely, the small-claims docket can recover money but cannot recover possession.

A small-civil-claims case (still in JP court, but a different docket) is the right vehicle when the landlord wants only money damages and not possession, when the tenant has already moved out and the landlord is pursuing post-eviction collections, or when the dispute is over a security deposit return. These cases follow different procedure than forcible detainer.

A district court case is the right vehicle only in unusual situations: a genuine title dispute that requires adjudication, substantial damages beyond unpaid rent (property destruction, business losses), or complex commercial issues that exceed JP court jurisdiction. These are rare in the routine eviction context.

Self-representation works for individual landlords, and entity landlords have more flexibility in JP court than many expect. Texas JP courts permit individual landlords to appear pro se. For entities, § 24.011 allows a party to an eviction suit in Justice Court, including a corporation, LLC, or partnership, to appear and represent itself through an authorized agent who need not be a licensed attorney. That agent can be a property manager, employee, or owner. This JP-court rule does not carry over to county court on appeal, where the general rule applies and an entity must ordinarily appear through licensed counsel. On appeal, self-representation remains available to individuals, but the procedural complexity of de novo trial under SB 38 deadlines usually justifies counsel even where it wasn’t needed at the JP level.

For most routine residential evictions, JP court is the right forum and the procedural rules are manageable. The SB 38 changes have made counsel involvement more common earlier in the process than was typical pre-2026, but it’s still a forum where individual landlords with clean cases can succeed pro se.