For Collin County families, new tutoring and test-prep options outpace Dallas County's

Collin County has passed Dallas County in new tutoring and test-prep outlets this year. A year ago, Dallas County was well ahead.

Across Collin, Denton and Dallas counties, 28 currently active education-support outlets logged their first sales between Jan. 1 and Oct. 24, 2026. The same stretch of 2025 produced 29.

That puts this year one short of last year, a dip of 3.4%. The combined total barely moved. Where the new outlets opened changed a lot.

Collin climbs, Dallas County slides

Collin County recorded 11 new outlets in this year's window, up from six in the same months of 2025. Dallas County went the other way, falling to 10 from 15.

Denton County held close to steady, with seven new outlets this year against eight last year.

In this small corner of the economy, the new activity shifted out of Dallas County and into Collin. Collin's gain matched Dallas County's drop, which is why the combined count looks so calm.

For parents, the county lines matter. A family in Collin County shopping for a tutor or a test-prep course this fall has more newly opened places to pick from than it did a year ago. A family in Dallas County has fewer new ones than it did last year.

Dallas County's existing base

Newcomers are only part of the picture. Dallas County has 36 active outlets in these categories, counting every first-sales date on file.

The slowdown is in new arrivals. This year's 10 new Dallas County outlets came in below last year's 15.

A few cities carry the count

New outlets are concentrated rather than spread evenly across the region's cities. The busiest city logged five of this year's new active outlets, and a short list of other cities holds the bulk of the remainder.

The counts are small, so a handful of openings in any one city can reorder the list from one year to the next. Even one new learning center can register in a suburb's tally.

The 2026 count covers activity through Oct. 24, matching the same cutoff for 2025, and the year still has its final weeks to run. Any outlet that opens before Dec. 31 will add to this year's total, and any that closes will drop off the active list.

About the data

We used the Texas sales-tax permit file, refreshed Oct. 17, 2026, and counted currently active outlets in Collin, Denton and Dallas counties filed under the federal industry codes for exam preparation and tutoring and for educational support services. We compared outlets whose first-sales date fell between Jan. 1 and Oct. 24 in 2026 with the same window in 2025, by county and by the city listed for each outlet.

• Only outlets still active today are counted, so businesses that opened in either window and have since closed are not included, which may understate 2025 relative to 2026.
• Counts are small, so a few openings or closings can swing county and city comparisons sharply.
• A sales-tax permit shows where an outlet registered and began selling taxable items, not how many students it serves or how much it charges.

Education-support outlet: a business location filed under the federal industry codes for exam preparation and tutoring or for educational support services. First-sales date: the date an outlet reported it began making taxable sales, used here as a stand-in for when it opened.

Sources

• The publisher's Socrata open-data portal (named with each dataset): Active Sales Tax Permit Holders, latest period 2026-10-24, released Oct. 24, 2026; retrieved Oct. 24, 2026. Data