Tennessee 811 calculator: when can I start digging?

"Call 811 three days before you dig" sounds simple until a holiday lands in the middle of the week, or you file on a Friday afternoon and wonder whether Monday counts. Tennessee's Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act counts the notice in working days, and it defines exactly what a working day is. Tennessee 811 publishes which holidays it skips. Put the two together and the earliest legal start time for a normal locate request can be worked out to the hour. That's all this calculator does: pick the day and time your request goes in, and it shows when you may start, the furthest out you could have scheduled the work, and when the ticket runs out.

How the count works

The Act says a request has to reach the one-call center at least three working days before excavation starts, and no more than ten full working days ahead (TCA 65-31-106). It defines a working day as any day except Saturday, Sunday, and national and legal state holidays, and it says each working day begins at the moment the notice is received and ends at the same time on the next working day (TCA 65-31-102). So the clock runs in whole working days from the minute your call or online ticket goes in, not from midnight.

A request filed at 2:15 p.m. on a Monday of an ordinary week runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and the earliest legal start is Thursday at 2:15 p.m. File the same request on a Friday afternoon and the weekend drops out: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you may start Wednesday afternoon.

Holidays that stop the clock

Tennessee 811 lists twelve holidays that don't count as working days. On six of them the call center won't take normal requests by phone at all; on the other six it answers the phone, but the day still doesn't count toward your ticket. A holiday that falls on a Saturday is observed on the Friday before, and one on a Sunday moves to Monday. The day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve are ordinary business days for counting purposes.

Two examples from late 2026. A request at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 25 counts Friday the 27th, Monday the 30th and Tuesday, December 1, so digging can start December 1 at 10 a.m. A request at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 23 counts Thursday the 24th, skips Christmas, then Monday the 28th and Tuesday the 29th. Online tickets can be entered any hour; phone requests for normal locates are taken 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central on weekdays.

What happens after you file

1. Utilities get the ticket. Tennessee 811 doesn't mark anything. It passes the request to its member utilities and their contract locators.
2. Marks and responses come in. Each utility either paints and flags its lines or reports that it has nothing there, through Positive Response. When every one has answered, you can start, even if that's before the legal start time.
3. If marks are missing. Tennessee 811 says digging may begin when every utility has responded or when the legal start time arrives, and it warns that starting early can cost you the protection the law gives. If a utility hasn't marked or responded, file a second notice with 811 before you put a bucket in the ground near where its line might run.
4. Dig carefully near the paint. Marks are approximate. Within the width of the line plus 24 inches on each side, Tennessee expects hand digging or other careful methods; our Tennessee 811 guide covers the tolerance zone and the private lines that 811 never marks.
5. Watch the expiration. The Act gives a ticket 15 calendar days from the start date. If the job will run longer, file the update at least three working days before day 15 runs out. A 2026 bill (SB 2152) proposed stretching that to 20 days; when we checked the General Assembly's bill page in October 2026 it was still sitting in a Senate subcommittee, so 15 is still the rule.

Planning a dirt job around the clock

The three-day minimum is the reason a good excavator files the locate request as soon as you agree on a start date, not the morning the machine arrives. Since the law allows up to ten working days of notice, it often makes sense to file early with the real start date on the ticket. Tennessee 811 notes that postdating can make the start date more dependable during busy stretches. For a trench for a water or power line, a fence row, or a house pad or footing dig, ask the contractor for the ticket number and check its status yourself through Positive Response.

Sources: the Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act, TCA 65-31-101 et seq., as compiled by the Tennessee Public Utility Commission (current through the 2024 session); Tennessee 811's call center hours and holidays, home page and FAQ; and the General Assembly's SB 2152 bill history, all read October 2026. The calculator follows those rules but isn't legal advice; your ticket's own legal start time is the one that counts.

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