Austin 3PL warehouses
Austin and San Antonio share one 80-mile stretch of I-35, but they price like two markets. The Samsung-Taylor corridor northeast of Austin carries some of the highest vacancy in Central Texas, while South San Antonio sits near 5%. Compare vetted facilities by order volume, certifications, systems and retail programs. Partner names stay private until your team chooses who to meet.
Market data updated October 2026 · Reviewed by the 3PL Bridge network and market research team
The Austin to San Antonio corridor is the right single node for brands whose buyers sit mostly in Texas and the south-central US, and a strong second node for brands importing through Mexico via Laredo. It is not a one-warehouse answer for brands with heavy California or Northeast demand, because both coasts are multi-day ground from Central Texas.
Ground reach
About 25.4 million consumers within 250 miles of Austin and San Antonio (Texas Real Estate Business, 2022), a radius that takes in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. California and the Northeast are multi-day ground.
Warehouse rent
Austin: $11.96/SF net asking with 21.8% vacancy. San Antonio: $8.85/SF with 10.6% vacancy (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026). San Antonio is about 26% cheaper per foot.
Labor floor
$7.25/hr Texas minimum, unchanged since July 24, 2009, and cities cannot set a higher one. Market pay for warehouse roles averages about $19.05/hr in Austin and $17.51/hr in San Antonio (Indeed Flex, January 2026).
Sales tax trigger
$500,000 in Texas sales over the prior 12 months for remote sellers, but inventory in a Texas 3PL warehouse creates nexus on its own. 6.25% state rate, up to 8.25% combined. No state income tax.
Air cargo
Austin-Bergstrom handled 276.4 million pounds of cargo in 2025 (FedEx, UPS, Amazon Air, DHL). Laredo, at the southern end of I-35, took 2.95 million inbound trucks from Mexico in 2025, the most of any land port (BTS).
Vetted network
7 facilities across 4 submarkets, each run by an operator with a signed 3PL Bridge agreement. No cost to brands.
Filter by what your operation needs. Pins sit at the facility's town, not its street address. Click any pin or card to open the full facility profile.
A facility in Taylor sits next to a $37 billion chip fab and competes with it for land and hourly workers, while one in South San Antonio sits on the I-35 run from the Laredo border crossings and pays roughly a third less in rent. That choice sets your inbound truck miles, the labor pool and the base rent your 3PL builds its storage rate on, before anyone sends you a quote.
Rents are weighted average net asking rates for warehouse and distribution space in dollars per square foot per year, before taxes, insurance and common-area costs, and they are what a 3PL pays its landlord, not what a brand pays per pallet.
Six local factors that move a Central Texas fulfillment quote more than the headline rate does.
Laredo was the busiest US land port in 2025, with $354 billion in trade and 2,945,388 inbound trucks from Mexico, 38.8% of all truck crossings on the southern border (BTS, February 2026). Most of that freight runs north on I-35 through San Antonio and Austin. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute ranked I-35 through central Austin the most truck-congested road in Texas in its 2020 report, at an estimated $45 million a year in truck delay costs. TxDOT's $4.5 billion Capital Express Central rebuild has segments running to 2033, and Capital Express South (SH-71 to SH-45 Southeast) is due in late 2028, so lane closures will shape delivery windows for years.
Ask: Which side of the river is your building on, and how do you schedule outbound linehaul around the I-35 closures through downtown Austin? What do you charge to receive a cross-border trailer, and can you transload freight that arrives from Laredo?
Sources: BTS, border crossing data 2025, Feb 2026; FreightWaves, Austin I-35 truck congestion, Dec 2020; TxDOT, I-35 Capital Express South.
UPS runs package hubs in Northeast San Antonio and San Marcos, a 225,000-SF automated center in Round Rock, and a 176,000-SF Schertz facility rated for 7,500 packages an hour, planned to open in mid-2024 for the I-35 suburbs. Amazon runs an 820,000-SF fulfillment center in Pflugerville, a 308,000-SF sortation center in Kyle, and about a dozen fulfillment centers in the San Antonio area. Austin-Bergstrom hosts FedEx, UPS, Amazon Air and DHL, and handled 276.4 million pounds of cargo in 2025, down 8.45% from 2024. Amazon ended its air cargo operations at Port San Antonio in April 2024, so air-dependent programs lean on Austin.
Ask: What are your last daily pickup times for UPS, FedEx and USPS, and does the carrier sweep your building or do you drive to the hub? How many ground days do your current clients see to California and the Northeast?
Sources: Connect CRE, UPS Schertz facility, 2023; Austin-Bergstrom, December 2025 traffic and year-end; San Antonio Current, Amazon Air exits, Feb 2024.
Texas adopts the federal $7.25 minimum, unchanged since July 24, 2009, and Labor Code section 62.0515 bars Austin and San Antonio from setting a higher private-sector wage. Real pay for warehouse roles averages about $19.05 an hour in Austin and $17.51 in San Antonio (Indeed Flex, January 2026), a gap that favors the southern end of the corridor. Tesla's Giga Texas in Del Valle reported 16,506 workers in 2025, down from 21,191 in 2024, and Samsung's $37 billion Taylor fab is preparing for mass production in early 2027. HB 2127, effective September 1, 2023, nullified Austin's 2010 rule requiring 10-minute water breaks every four hours for construction workers, so heat protections depend on each employer's own policy.
Ask: What is your starting wage, your peak-season temp share, and last year's turnover? Have you lost staff to Samsung, Tesla or their suppliers, and what is your written heat-illness policy for dock crews?
Sources: Teambridge, Texas minimum wage, Apr 2026; Drive Tesla Canada, Giga Texas headcount, Apr 2026; KSAT, HB 2127 and water breaks, Jun 2023.
Remote sellers must register once Texas revenue reaches $500,000 over the preceding 12 months, and collection starts by the first day of the fourth month after crossing it. Owning inventory in a Texas fulfillment center makes you engaged in business here regardless of sales; the narrow exception covers inventory held only by a certifying marketplace provider while you stay under $500,000. A seller located in Texas cannot use the 1.75% single local use tax rate, so you collect the destination rate of up to 8.25%. Texas has no personal income tax, but marketplace-stored inventory alone can still create franchise tax responsibility. Confirm all of this with a tax advisor before you ship inventory in.
Ask: Will you keep our direct-to-consumer inventory separate from any marketplace-prep stock, and can you report it by location for our tax filings? Which appraisal district covers your building, and do local taxing units grant the freeport exemption?
Sources: Texas Comptroller, remote sellers; Texas Comptroller, remote sellers and marketplace FAQ; Numeral, Texas nexus and inventory.
On February 15, 2021, during Winter Storm Uri, the ERCOT grid came within 4 minutes and 37 seconds of a collapse that could have lasted weeks, and Texas later put the storm's death toll at 246. Heat is the steady load: 2023 was Austin's hottest year on record at Camp Mabry, with a record 45 straight days at 100 degrees or more and 10 straight days at 105 or more in July. ERCOT set its all-time demand record of 85,508 MW on August 10, 2023, and declared an Energy Emergency Alert on September 6, 2023. Austin's latest-ever 100-degree day came October 13, 2024, while summer 2025 was milder, with 7 triple-digit days through August 6.
Ask: Do you have backup generation for the WMS, dock doors and any climate-controlled rooms, and how long were you down in February 2021? What are your dock temperatures in August, and are heat-sensitive SKUs stored in a conditioned zone?
Sources: KUT, ERCOT 4 minutes 37 seconds from collapse, Feb 2021; KVUE, 2023 Austin's hottest year on record; ERCOT, all-time peak demand records.
Austin vacancy sits at 21.8% with net asking rent at $11.96/SF, down 0.7% year over year, after years of speculative buildings delivering empty (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026). The turn may be close: CBRE counted 9.77M SF of Austin leasing through Q3 2026, already more than all of 2024 or 2025, while the pipeline is down 6.46M SF from its 2023 peak. San Antonio is tighter at 10.6% vacancy and $8.85/SF, up 3.1% year over year (Cushman & Wakefield), and CBRE recorded rents up 5.0%. A 3PL that renewed its Austin lease in 2026 has room to hold storage rates; one in South San Antonio likely does not.
Ask: When does your building lease expire, and does our storage rate carry an escalator tied to your rent? Will you lock pallet and per-order rates for 24 months?
Sources: Cushman & Wakefield, Austin Industrial Q3 2026; CBRE, Austin Industrial Figures Q3 2026; Cushman & Wakefield, San Antonio Industrial Q3 2026.
Yes, if most of your customers are in Texas and the south-central US. Austin and San Antonio together reach about 25.4 million consumers within 250 miles (Texas Real Estate Business, 2022), a radius that takes in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. Brands with heavy California or Northeast demand should pair Central Texas with a coastal node, because both coasts are multi-day ground.
Austin averaged $11.96/SF per year net asking in Q3 2026 and San Antonio $8.85/SF (Cushman & Wakefield). Warehouse rents range from $7.18/SF in South San Antonio to $14.15/SF in Round Rock. A 3PL turns that rent into per-pallet storage charges, so San Antonio facilities usually quote cheaper storage.
It depends on where your customers are and how freight arrives. Hays County around Buda, Kyle and San Marcos can serve both Austin and San Antonio from one building. Southeast Austin suits air-dependent SKUs near Austin-Bergstrom, and South San Antonio suits cross-border programs fed from Laredo, with 5.0% vacancy (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026).
They are the main operating risks. 2023 was Austin's hottest year on record, with 45 straight days at 100 degrees or more, and ERCOT set an 85,508 MW demand record on August 10, 2023. In February 2021 the grid came within 4 minutes and 37 seconds of collapse. Ask any 3PL about backup power, dock temperatures and conditioned storage for heat-sensitive products.
Most of it crosses at Laredo and runs north on I-35. Laredo took 2,945,388 inbound trucks from Mexico in 2025, 38.8% of the southern border total (BTS). South San Antonio is the closest large submarket to the border, while Austin warehouses add the I-35 stretch through central Austin, which is under TxDOT's Capital Express rebuild through as late as 2033.
Yes. Inventory you own in a Texas fulfillment center generally creates nexus by itself, even below the $500,000 remote-seller threshold, and you then collect the destination rate of up to 8.25% instead of the 1.75% single local rate. Texas has no personal income tax, but stored inventory can still bring franchise tax duties. Confirm your situation with a tax advisor.
Ask how they schedule outbound trucks around the I-35 Capital Express closures. Ask for UPS, FedEx and USPS pickup times and whether carriers sweep the building. Ask for starting wages and whether they have lost staff to Samsung, Tesla or their suppliers, what backup power covered them in February 2021, and when their building lease expires.
Every facility belongs to an operator with a signed agreement with 3PL Bridge, and each profile reflects what the facility runs today: order volume, certifications, systems and retail programs. Operator names stay private until the brand chooses who to meet. There is no cost to brands.