Seasonal Christmas light installation in Dallas-Fort Worth runs $7 to $12 per linear foot of C9 roofline, lights included, with full packages from $500 to $2,500 and up, from the 12 DFW companies I checked on September 7, 2026. Permanent track starts at $25 a foot. Whether Texas sales tax applies to the install is not settled on the Comptroller's pages, so ask your accountant. I install permanent lighting in Ottawa; these are Dallas's public numbers, dated and linked.
Dallas price points, public and dated#
Every figure is in USD as the company published it. None of the pages say whether tax is included, so treat them as before tax.
| What |
Dallas price |
Includes |
Source |
| C9 roofline, per foot, lights included |
$7 to $12 |
Design, install, in-season service, January takedown, storage |
Christmas Lights Experts DFW |
| C9 roofline, per foot, lights included |
$7 to $10 |
LEDs, clips, cords, season maintenance, takedown |
Cattlemen, Prosper and Frisco |
| Labour only, customer's lights, per foot |
$2.50 to $3.50 |
Hanging only |
ProMatcher Dallas |
| Package, from |
$499 to $500 |
Full service |
Window Genie Grapevine, Splendid Christmas Co. |
| Package, from |
$800 |
Lights, install, takedown January 4 to February 15, storage |
Elevated Illumination, Grapevine |
| Package, from |
$1,000 |
Materials, timers, warranty, January takedown |
DFW Lights, Frosty's, Twinkle and Shine |
| Package, from, year one buys the lights |
$1,100; year two 45% to 55% |
Custom-cut lights, install, takedown |
Shack Shine North Dallas |
| All-inclusive package, from |
$2,000 |
Lights, garland, wreaths, timers, 48-hour service, takedown, storage |
The Perfect Light, Fort Worth |
| Most homes |
$1,000 to $1,500 (Arlington); $1,500 to $5,000 (Dallas) |
|
Christmas Lights Experts, Arlington, Twinkle and Shine |
| Permanent, per foot installed |
$25 to $35 |
Track, controller, app |
Trimlight DFW, DFW LED Lite |
$7 to $12, and the two companies that publish a per-foot rate agree on the bottom of it. Christmas Lights Experts DFW lists $7 to $12 per linear foot for residential C9 LED and $7 to $15 for commercial, with design, install, in-season service, January takedown and year-round storage inside the number. Cattlemen Christmas Lights, working Prosper, Frisco, McKinney and Celina, lists $7 to $10 a foot with LEDs, clips, cords, full-season maintenance and takedown.
That is a lights-included, full-service rate. Labour on a customer's own strings is a different job at a different number: ProMatcher's Dallas report puts it at $2.50 to $3.50 per foot, or $269.33 for a typical two-storey with a $151.20 to $387.45 range, and $125 for the takedown. Those are aggregator figures, not a company's price list, so treat them as a floor. The method behind both numbers is on our seasonal per-foot pricing page.
Beyond the roofline, Christmas Lights Experts publishes the add-ons DFW customers actually buy: trees at $280 small, $600 medium, $1,000 large and $1,600 estate, 36-inch lit wreaths at $220, and garland at $15 to $30 a foot unlit or $25 to $45 lit. On a Plano two-storey with two live oaks, the trees can out-price the roofline.
What does a full-service package cost in Dallas?#
From $500 to $2,000 to start, and $1,000 to $2,500 for most homes. The spread is the business model more than the house:
Year one buys the lights. Shack Shine North Dallas starts around $1,100 with custom-cut strings the customer keeps, then 45 to 55 percent of that ($495 to $605) for install and takedown in later years. Christmas Lights Experts' Arlington page works the same way: a lower flat price for install and takedown once the lights are paid for.
Lease, the company keeps the lights. Frosty's starts at $1,000 residential and $2,000 commercial with company-owned lights, 48 business-hour maintenance and takedown from January 2. The Perfect Light in Fort Worth starts at $2,000 with garland and wreaths in the package.
Tiers. Christmas Lights Experts sells Starter at $750 to $1,500, Classic at $1,500 to $2,500 and Luxury Estate above $2,500, and says most homes fall between $750 and $2,500. Twinkle and Shine starts at $1,000 and says most customers spend $1,500 to $5,000.
Same house, three prices, because one quote is a purchase and the next is a rental. Our lease versus buy page runs the three-season math; the short version is that Shack Shine's model is cheaper by season three and Frosty's model never hands the customer a bin of lights to store.
What do permanent lights cost in Dallas?#
$25 to $35 per foot installed, from two DFW dealers with a price page. Trimlight DFW lists $25 to $35 a foot, $3,000 to $6,000 for the front of a home, and size tiers: 50 to 99 ft at $2,200 to $4,500 and up, 100 to 149 ft at $3,000 to $6,000 and up, 150 to 200 ft at $4,000 to $8,000 and up. Commercial runs $30 to $40 a foot and down lights $300 to $500 each. DFW LED Lite starts at $25 a foot flat, says most Dallas-Fort Worth homes come in at $3,500 to $7,000, and includes track, wiring, controller, app setup, lifetime workmanship and a three-year parts warranty.
That brackets Ottawa's $37.30 CAD average (about $26.95 USD) and sits inside the US range on our permanent cost page. A 160 ft DFW front at $30 is $4,800, or about three seasons of a $1,500 package, which is the crossover most homeowners ask about.
Is Christmas light installation taxable in Texas?#
Ask your accountant before the first quote goes out, because the Comptroller's pages do not settle it. What they do say: the state sales and use tax is 6.25 percent, local jurisdictions add up to 2 percent, and the city rate table shows Dallas at a combined 8.25 percent. Publication 96-259 lists the taxable services, naming landscaping, pest control, janitorial and surveying work; holiday lighting is not named. Labour to repair or remodel residential real property is treated differently from a sale of goods, and the lights you sell a customer in year one are goods.
So the rate is clear and the taxability of your labour line is not. On a GlowBid rate card the tax line is a percent and a label, so once your accountant answers, set 8.25 and "Texas sales tax" once and every quote carries it. Until then, quote before tax and say so on the PDF.
When is the Dallas season?#
October through Thanksgiving for installs, January into February for takedown. DFW's average first freeze is November 22, and the 1991 to 2020 normals put November at a 66.6 high and 46.2 low with only 2.3 days at or below 32. Most of the install season is in shirtsleeves, and that long mild window is part of why a full-service DFW rate can sit at $7 to $12.
The window is set by HOAs more than weather. FirstService Residential says some Texas communities allow displays from 30 days before Christmas with takedown by mid-January. Two DFW companies publish their takedown windows: Frosty's from January 2, Elevated Illumination January 4 to February 15. Write yours into the agreement, with a weather clause, because the one week Dallas does freeze is the week you are on ladders.
What do ice storms and HOAs do to the price?#
They set the clauses, not the per-foot rate. Three DFW realities that belong on a rate card:
- The February ice week. DFW Airport sat 88 consecutive hours at or below freezing from January 30 to February 1, 2023, with up to half an inch of ice, and February 14 to 17, 2021 put five inches of snow on the airport. Nobody takes lights down on an iced roof. A takedown window plus "weather permitting" beats a fixed date.
- HOA windows. If the neighbourhood says down by January 15, every customer in it wants the same week. Cluster them, and price a late-takedown fee for the ones who book after the window closes.
- Late bookings. DFW's mild October means the early weeks are the profitable ones and the last two weeks of November are the scramble. A rush premium after a cut-off date, 20 percent on the GlowBid default, is how you get paid for the scramble instead of absorbing it.
- Material waste in the heat. Texas attics and garages cook stored strings. A 10 percent materials buffer, shown on the quote as the installer's choice, covers the strands that do not survive storage.
A worked example: a 140 ft ranch on GlowBid's default C9 card#
A one-storey brick ranch with a hip roof, one small entry gable, a walkway and a crape myrtle in the front bed, a common DFW house type. Measured from the homeowner's photo with the 16 ft garage door as the reference: 140 ft of roofline, two 10 ft peak runs on the entry gable, two jumps totalling 8 ft, 40 ft of walkway and one 40 ft tree wrap. Every rate is the GlowBid default on the Seasonal C9 line; installers set their own.
| Line |
Footage |
Rate |
Base |
Premiums |
Line total |
| Roofline (storey 1) |
140 ft |
$8.00 |
$1,120.00 |
none |
$1,120.00 |
| Peaks, entry gable, 2 runs |
20 ft |
$9.00 |
$180.00 |
pitch 15%: $27.00 |
$207.00 |
| Jumps, 2 runs (unlit) |
8 ft |
$4.00 |
$32.00 |
flat per jump: $0 |
$32.00 |
| Ground, walkway |
40 ft |
$5.00 |
$200.00 |
none |
$200.00 |
| Tree wrap, crape myrtle |
40 ft |
$6.00 |
$240.00 |
none |
$240.00 |
| Run subtotal |
|
|
|
|
$1,799.00 |
| Timer (add-on) |
1 |
$45.00 |
|
|
$45.00 |
| Minimum job check ($1,500) |
|
|
|
met, no adjustment |
$0.00 |
| Total before tax |
|
|
|
|
$1,844.00 |
| Deposit at signing (30%) |
|
|
|
|
$553.20 |
Lit footage is 240 ft; with the 10 percent buffer the materials list says 264 ft of cord. The house-only part (roofline, peaks, jumps: $1,359) is $8.49 per foot of roofline and peak, inside Christmas Lights Experts' $7 to $12 and Cattlemen's $7 to $10. The whole ticket sits in the Classic tier and just above "most Arlington homes at $1,000 to $1,500", because of the tree and the walkway. Tax is left at zero until your accountant answers the Texas question. Draw your own house in the free roofline tool and the footage is there in two minutes; it is an estimate confirmed on site, and the quote says so.
Setting a Dallas rate card#
Five settings that make a card DFW-ready:
- Tax: 8.25, once you know it applies. Label it "Texas sales tax", show it as a line, never bury it in the per-foot rate.
- Trees as their own run type, priced per each. DFW trees run $280 to $1,600 on the published page. Set the tree run to a flat price per wrap so a live oak does not get priced like 40 ft of roofline.
- Wreaths and garland as add-ons. $220 wreaths and $25 to $45 a foot of lit garland are line items with a quantity, not a per-foot fudge.
- Year-two pricing on the card. Shack Shine North Dallas and Christmas Lights Experts' Arlington page both sell year one with the lights bought and a lower price to re-install; Shack Shine's is 45 to 55 percent. Our rebook and re-install page shows how to hold both prices on one card.
- Rush after your cut-off. DFW's weather lets you start in October; charge for the ones who book after your cut-off.
GlowBid bills in US dollars; the rate card holds whatever numbers you type. Founding pricing is on the pricing page.
Mistakes to avoid pricing in Dallas#
- Quoting a ranch with the two-storey number. Dallas stock is long, low and hipped: lots of roofline, few peaks. A $1,500 package on 140 ft of roofline is $10.71 a foot before the tree, near the top of the local range. Price the footage, not the average.
- Selling a lights-included package at a labour-only rate. $2.50 to $3.50 a foot is the ProMatcher hang-only figure. Put C9 strings, clips and cord inside it and you are working for free.
- Leaving the tree out of the quote. A 40 ft crape myrtle wrap and a mature live oak are not the same job. Quote it as its own line or the customer assumes it is in.
- A fixed takedown date. January 15 on paper, ice on the roof February 1, and an HOA letter in the mailbox. Window, weather clause, done.
- Guessing on tax. An 8.25 percent surprise on a $1,844 invoice is $152.13 the customer did not agree to. Get the accountant's answer before the season, not after.
- Booking the whole calendar into the last two weeks of November. DFW's weather lets you start in October. Fill October first and price the late weeks as rush.