Between September 10, 2025 and September 10, 2026, Austin Public Health recorded 6,777 scored food inspections at 4,772 permitted establishments. Thirty-five of them came in under 70, the line the city treats as failing. That is about one in every 194 inspections. Two-thirds landed at 90 or above, and the average was 91.2.
If you are new to town and eating out most of this week, those numbers are a useful corrective to both the horror-story version of restaurant inspections and the shrug version. This piece lays out what we found, how the system works, and what a score can and cannot tell you.
What we pulled
The City of Austin publishes every scored inspection from the past three years as the open dataset Food Establishment Inspection Scores. The city last updated it on October 1, 2026, and the newest inspection in it is dated September 10, 2026. Austin Local Team analysis of those records, with our research database copy last synced October 2, 2026 and checked against the city's live feed the same morning, gives this picture for the twelve months ending September 10:
| Score band (city's own categories) | Inspections | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 90 and above (Green) | 4,521 | 66.7% |
| 70 to 89 (Yellow) | 2,221 | 32.8% |
| Under 70 (Red) | 35 | 0.5% |
| All scored inspections | 6,777 | 100% |
A perfect 100 is rarer than the green band suggests: 651 inspections, or 9.6 percent. Of the 6,777, 30 were follow-up inspections rather than routine ones, and none of those scored below 70.
One caution on method. Our database copy holds some duplicate rows, so we count distinct facility and inspection-date pairs, which gives 6,774 against the city's 6,777. The city's figures are the ones we publish.
How the score works and what happens after a failure
Scores run from 0 to 100, and 70 is the passing line. Inspectors from Austin Public Health's Environmental Health Services Division score against the Texas Food Establishment Rules and city code. According to KUT's August 13, 2026 reporting, a first failure carries a $134 fee and a reinspection within 10 days and stays on the establishment's record for three years. A second failure inside that window brings another fee, a reinspection and a criminal complaint. A third closes the establishment until the owner meets with a program manager on an action plan. KUT also reports that an inspector covers roughly three to five restaurants a day, depending on kitchen size, and that the same division handles pools, farmers markets and mosquito surveillance.
The public can read individual inspection reports through the city's Austin Public Health inspection portal. The open data file carries scores only, which is why it is better for patterns than for the story of any one kitchen.
What else stood out in the records
- The volume is not constant. From January through July, the city's records show 3,786 inspections in 2024, 4,728 in 2025 and 4,403 in 2026. The 2026 count is 7 percent below 2025. The city publishes in batches, so recent weeks may still be filling in, and we do not know the cause of the dip.
- October 2025 is thin. It has 224 recorded inspections, the lowest full month in the year-long window. January through August 2026 ran between 390 and 782 a month.
- Scores barely moved. Monthly averages in the window stayed between 89.9 and 92.8, with no month standing out.
What a score is, and is not
A score is one inspector's count of violations on one day. A place that scores 88 once is a different story from one that scores 88 three visits running. The city's colour bands also lump every score from 70 to 89 into one band, a twenty-point spread squeezed into one colour.
That is why we are not publishing a ranking of places, and why we have left individual business names out of this piece. The records are public and you should look up the places you actually eat. A list of winners and losers built from single-day snapshots would mislead more than it informs.
What this means if you're moving to Austin
- Treat the number as a starting point. A score in the 90s is typical here. Anything under 80 is worth reading the full report for, using the portal link above.
- Look at the history, not one visit. Open the last two or three inspections for a place before you decide anything.
- Do not read a score as a statement about a street or an area. Inspection results describe a single food business on a single day, not the people, the housing or the character of the surrounding blocks. If you are comparing parts of town, our neighborhood pages and Austin data hub point to the city's own records for the things that bear on a move, such as permits and development activity.
The raw pulls behind this piece, and the other city datasets we track daily, are on our research page. For general information only: this article does not rate, recommend or warn against any business, and it is not health or legal advice.
If you are planning a move to Austin and want a local agent to talk through the areas you are weighing, start here.