Would Texans need visas or work permits to work in the U.S.?

The terms for Texans working in the United States would be set in the separation negotiation, and the strong likelihood, given how much labor and commerce already crosses that line, is an arrangement that keeps it easy. Plenty of Texans would also keep their US citizenship, which removes the question entirely for them. The honest answer is that the details are negotiated, and every incentive points toward minimal friction.

Many Texans would not need anything, because they keep US citizenship

Start with the simplest case. A large number of Texans hold, and would keep, their US citizenship, because Texas independence does not strip it. A dual citizen of Texas and the United States needs no visa or work permit to work in the US at all; citizenship carries the right to work. For those Texans, the question does not even arise. We cover how US citizenship is retained in the dedicated live answer; the relevant point here is that the visa question is moot for everyone who keeps their US status.

For the rest, this is a negotiated arrangement, and the models are easy ones

For Texans who are not US citizens, cross-border work runs on agreements between the two countries, and there are well-worn models that keep it simple. Contiguous neighbors routinely build streamlined ways for each other's citizens to do business and work across the line. The United States already issues Mexican nationals a Border Crossing Card that lets them travel directly from Mexico into the US, and it already runs work-and-business mobility arrangements with trading partners. Texas, as the United States' largest trading partner among its neighbors, would be negotiating from enormous leverage for terms at least that friendly. Both economies depend on people and goods moving, which is the strongest possible reason to keep the door open.

The deep integration is the argument for easy access, not against it

Opponents sometimes wield how intertwined the two economies are as a reason Texans would face barriers. It cuts the other way. Precisely because so many Texans work with, sell to, and operate across the United States, and so many Americans do the same in Texas, both governments have a powerful interest in arrangements that keep that commerce flowing. Throwing up work-permit walls would damage the United States' own economy as much as Texas's. Integration is leverage for openness, not a trap.

The Texas-US side is the easier of the two borders

It is worth being clear about which relationship this is. The United States manages friendly, high-volume movement with contiguous neighbors as a matter of course, and the live answer on the post-independence border walks through how a Texas-US border functions smoothly using the Canada model. Work mobility sits inside that same friendly framework. This is a negotiation between two parties who both want the answer to be "keep it easy."

Where it is honestly not yet settled

We will not pretend the exact terms exist today. Whether Texans work in the US visa-free, under a streamlined permit, or under a broader mobility agreement is part of what gets negotiated in the separation, and the final shape is for those talks to produce. What can be said with confidence is the direction: shared economic interest, real precedents, and Texas's leverage all push toward low friction, and many Texans sidestep the question entirely by keeping US citizenship.

The bottom line

Texans who keep US citizenship need no visa or permit to work in the US. For everyone else, the terms are negotiated, the working models are easy ones, and the mutual economic interest is overwhelming. The likeliest outcome is an arrangement that keeps Texans working across the line with minimal friction.