A Nueces County DBA is filed with the County Clerk — if your business is unincorporated

Say you're opening 'Coastal Bend Lawn Care' as a one-person operation or a handshake partnership. That assumed name has to be put on record, and in Nueces County the County Clerk's office at 901 Leopard Street is the only place that files it, an unincorporated assumed-name certificate in the formal phrasing. It's a quick public-record filing, not a business license.

Here's where people get tangled up. If you've already formed an LLC or corporation and registered the name with the Texas Secretary of State, you don't file the DBA with the county, since the state registration covers it. The county clerk's filing is specifically for the unincorporated businesses the state doesn't track: sole proprietors and general partnerships.

And a DBA is just a name on file. It doesn't stand in for a health permit, a city sign permit, sales-tax registration, or an alcohol license. Depending on what you're selling, the name filing is the first small step, not the last one.