§ 129.001.Age of Majority

Eight words with consequences throughout Texas law: the age of majority in this state is 18 years.

The provision does not say what majority means, and does not need to. It fixes the age; the consequences come from everywhere else — capacity to contract, to sue and be sued, to consent, and to hold property.

Its most frequent appearance in this code is in limitations. The disability provisions in the limitations chapter suspend the clock for a person younger than 18, so this section is what sets the moment the clock starts running for a claim belonging to a child.

The adverse possession subchapter uses the same threshold in its own disability rule.

Texas lowered the age from 21 in 1973, following the Twenty-sixth Amendment and the wave of state legislation that followed it. The neighbouring section handles the transition for laws written before that change.

Note that majority and minority are not the only relevant ages. Texas law attaches consequences to other ages for particular purposes, and the section that follows preserves one of them expressly — the Alcoholic Beverage Code, which prevails over this chapter.

The provision is also the reason the wrongful death and survival chapters, and the sexual offence limitations provision, work as they do for claims arising in childhood.