How to Find Probate Records in Texas by County

Texas has 254 counties, and in every one of them probate is a county clerk function. Not the district clerk. The district clerk handles the district courts, meaning civil, criminal and family matters, and probate is not among them. Getting that wrong is the single most common reason an agent searches a Texas county portal, finds nothing, and concludes no estate was opened.

Where the case is heard depends on county size. Harris County has five statutory probate courts, Dallas County has three, and Travis County has one. Smaller counties run probate through the constitutional county court, sometimes with a county court at law sharing the docket. The records themselves sit with the county clerk regardless.

Texas also has a reputation for moving estate property quickly, and the reputation is earned. What is usually said about why is wrong, and the difference matters for how you time outreach.

# Are Texas probate records public?

Yes. A probate case file held by a Texas county clerk is a public court record, and you do not need to be an heir, a party or an attorney to inspect it.

What is normally in the file: the application for probate of the will or for letters of administration, the order admitting the will, the letters testamentary or letters of administration naming the personal representative, the notices to creditors, and the docket history.

There is one gap that catches people, and it is specific to Texas. Under Estates Code § 309.056, an independent executor may file an affidavit in lieu of inventory where the only unpaid debts are secured debts, taxes and administration expenses. The affidavit states that those debts are covered. It does not list a single asset. In independent administrations, which is exactly the population most probate lead advice tells you to target, a large share of estates therefore produce no public asset list at all. Plan on the appraisal district doing that work instead, not the court file.

# Where are probate records filed in Texas?

In the county where the decedent resided. Estates Code § 33.001 fixes venue in the county of domicile or fixed place of residence. If the decedent had no Texas domicile, the same section sends the case to the county where the principal estate was located or where the person died, which is the route for out-of-state owners of Texas property.

To confirm which court hears probate in a given county, use the Court Activity Reporting and Directory System, the official Texas judicial directory. Court forms, including the probate and guardianship set, are on the Texas Judicial Branch forms page.

Testate and intestate filings read differently

Testate, meaning there is a will, produces an application to probate the will, an order admitting it, and letters testamentary. Under Estates Code § 306.001 the court grants letters before the 21st day after the will is probated, to an executor who is not disqualified and who accepts and qualifies. The operative event is qualification, meaning the oath and any bond, not the granting of letters. Letters are the evidence of authority, not the source of it.

Intestate, meaning no valid will, produces an application for letters of administration, and where independent administration is wanted, a determination of heirship under Chapter 202. These files usually name more people, and several heirs who never planned for it now jointly own a house none of them lives in.

Independent administration is not the default, and that distinction is not academic

Independent administration is the most common form of Texas administration. It is not automatic. Under Estates Code Chapter 401 it has to be created by one of three routes:

• § 401.001, the will provides that no action be had in the probate court beyond probating and recording the will and returning the inventory, appraisement and list of claims. A testator can also expressly prohibit it.
• § 401.002, the will does not provide for it, so all distributees agree on independent administration and on who serves, and the court approves.
• § 401.003, intestate estates, where all heirs agree, the court approves, and heirship is determined under Chapter 202.

If none of those is satisfied, the administration is dependent and court approval is required for most actions, including sales. So the first thing to read on a Texas file is not the filing date. It is whether independent administration was actually created.

Where it was, the difference is real. Estates Code § 402.052 gives an independent executor the same power of sale as a representative in a supervised administration without the requirement of court approval, unless the will limits it. Wills do sometimes limit it. Read the order.

What actually changed on 1 September 2025

One thing, and it is narrower than most write-ups claim.

Estates Code § 309.051(a) was amended by H.B. 3421 and S.B. 1448, both effective 1 September 2025. The inventory must now state whether the decedent was married at the time of death and, if so, identify which property is separate and which is community. Section 309.052 was amended the same way for the list of claims.

Read that carefully before you build a workflow around it. It is a marital-property characterisation, not a richer description of the assets. It does not tell you whether a property is residential, what condition it is in, or what it is worth. What it does tell you, on an estate where the decedent was married, is how much of the house the estate actually controls, which is a title question worth knowing before you pitch a listing.

Two related corrections, because both circulate widely:

• Mandatory e-filing is not a 2025 change. The Supreme Court of Texas ordered it in Misc. Docket No. 12-9206, phased in by county population between 1 January 2014 and 1 July 2016 and expressly covering probate matters in constitutional county courts, statutory county courts and statutory probate courts. Every county on ProbateData's Texas list has been in the mandatory tier since 2014 or 2015. The duty runs to attorneys; self-represented filers may e-file but are not required to. The genuine 2025 tweak amended Government Code § 80.002(b) so that statutory probate courts must deliver the orders they enter to parties through the e-filing system. That is courts pushing documents out, not a filing mandate, and it does not change how fast new applications surface.
• No 2025 act shortened creditor notice. Sections 308.051, 308.053 and 308.054 were last amended in 2023 and nothing was compressed. The nearest real change is § 51.057, added effective 1 September 2025, which governs how citation is served on a person who survived the decedent but has since died. Narrow service mechanics, no effect on outreach windows.

# How do you look up probate records in Texas?

County by county, through the county clerk. There is no single statewide probate search that returns full case files to the public. re:SearchTX, run through the Texas judiciary, is the closest thing to a statewide index and is worth registering for, but county portals remain the primary route.

The three counties below are the ones with a portal confirmed for probate. County detail beyond this sits in the companion guide.

Harris County

Houston. Five statutory probate courts, more than any other Texas county.

The Harris County District Clerk site is not the place to look. It serves the civil, family and criminal district courts, and probate appears nowhere on it. A large amount of published Texas probate guidance sends readers there.

Dallas County

Three statutory probate courts.

Use the full portal path. The bare courtsportal.dallascounty.org domain returns a 403.

Travis County

Austin. One statutory probate court.

As in Harris, the Travis County District Clerk is the wrong office. It is custodian for the district courts and makes no reference to probate.

Which Texas counties have online probate search

The nine counties marked "check" have not been individually verified here, and stating otherwise would be guessing on your behalf. Portal depth in Texas varies, and older filings in several counties are still a written request or a courthouse visit. County-level detail, including court structure and contacts, is in the Texas probate records by county guide.

# What does it cost to pull Texas probate records?

Texas publishes no single statewide fee for probate copies. County clerk fees sit under Local Government Code Chapter 118, and each clerk publishes its own current schedule for plain copies, certified copies and record searches. Check the clerk's published schedule before ordering a batch, and confirm the amount with the office rather than relying on a third-party summary.

The cost that actually constrains this work is not the copy fee. It is that a Texas estate can be identified from a free portal index but not evaluated from it. Confirming that an estate holds residential real property normally means a second search at the county appraisal district, and on affidavit-in-lieu estates the appraisal district is the only search that will tell you anything.

# How long does probate take in Texas?

Independent administrations commonly run several months to a year. Dependent administrations run longer because each significant action needs a court order. Texas sets no outer deadline for completing an administration, but it does set fixed interim deadlines, and those are what keep a stalled estate generating public filings.

The 121-day bar is widely misread. It attaches to the permissive written notice to unsecured creditors under § 308.054, not to the published general notice, and it governs when a representative can safely distribute to beneficiaries. It does not gate a sale. An independent executor's power of sale under § 402.052 does not wait for any claims window to run.

# How do you turn a Texas probate filing into a real estate lead?

The filing tells you an estate is open. Four more steps tell you whether it is worth your time.

1. Confirm the administration type and who qualified. Read the order. Was independent administration created under § 401.001, § 401.002 or § 401.003, or is this a dependent administration where the court controls sales? Then confirm the personal representative has qualified, not merely been named in an application. On a dependent administration your timeline is the court's, not the executor's.

2. Assume there is no public asset list, and go to the appraisal district. Because of § 309.056, many independent executors file an affidavit in lieu of inventory, which lists nothing. Search the decedent's name at the county appraisal district instead. HCAD for Harris, Dallas CAD for Dallas, Travis CAD for Travis, each county's own district elsewhere. A homestead exemption on the parcel tells you it was a primary residence. This is the load-bearing step in Texas, not an optional add-on.

3. Check the marital-property position on post-September-2025 inventories. Where an inventory was filed and the decedent was married, § 309.051(a) now requires it to say which property is separate and which is community. That is a title fact worth knowing before you talk about a listing, because it shapes who has to sign.

4. Do not wait for the creditor window to close. An independent executor can list and sell after qualifying. The claims period bears on distributions to beneficiaries, not on the ability to transact. Advice to hold off until claims are barred costs you the whole window on exactly the estates that move fastest.

On timing, ProbateData's own guidance rather than any statutory rule: the productive contact window is usually the first 30 to 60 days after letters are issued, it stays viable for several months on independent administrations, and it is effectively closed once a listing or a deed transfer appears. Executors are fiduciaries, not distressed sellers. Outreach that acknowledges the obligation to the heirs and offers a clear timeline performs better than an investor letter. Where an attorney of record is named, the attorney is usually the better first call and carries more than one client in the same position.

# Which Texas counties does ProbateData cover?

Twelve: Bexar, Collin, Dallas, Denton, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Hays, Montgomery, Tarrant, Travis and Williamson. That is Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio plus their growth corridors.

Every lead is a verified court filing with a case number, not a death record or a pre-probate prediction. Each carries the property records matched to the estate, the personal representative skip traced with mailing address, phone and email where available, the attorney of record where one is named, and MLS tracking so you can see whether the property has already listed. On the most recent owner of record, which in an estate context is the thing you need, that is the ownership data provided.

Run manually, this is twelve county clerk systems, an appraisal district search on nearly every case because the inventory may not exist, and skip tracing after that. The research is legitimate and it works. It is also most of a working week each month.

You can see the full coverage list at probatedata.com/counties, or start a 7-day trial for $1, which converts to Deliver at $147 a month, and search the Texas counties directly.

For the wider method across every state, see the national guide to finding probate records by county.

# Frequently asked questions

Are Texas probate records public?

Yes. A probate case file held by a Texas county clerk is a public court record, and you do not need to be an heir, a party or an attorney to inspect it. The file normally contains the application, the order admitting the will, the letters testamentary or of administration, the creditor notices and the docket history. It may contain no asset list at all, because an independent executor can file an affidavit in lieu of inventory under Estates Code 309.056.

How do you look up probate records in Texas?

County by county, through the county clerk, not the district clerk. Harris County probate cases are searchable on the Harris County Clerk case search, Dallas cases on the Dallas County courts portal at courtsportal.dallascounty.org/DALLASPROD, and Travis cases on the Travis County Odyssey portal. re:SearchTX at research.txcourts.gov is the closest thing to a statewide index, but county portals remain the primary route and there is no single statewide public probate search.

Is independent administration the default in Texas?

No. It is the most common form of Texas administration but it is not automatic. Under Estates Code Chapter 401 it must be created one of three ways: the will provides for it under 401.001, or the distributees agree and the court approves under 401.002, or in an intestate estate all heirs agree and the court approves under 401.003 with heirship determined under Chapter 202. If none applies, the administration is dependent and court approval is needed for most actions including sales.

What changed in Texas probate law on 1 September 2025?

Estates Code 309.051(a) was amended by House Bill 3421 and Senate Bill 1448 so that an inventory must now state whether the decedent was married at the time of death and, if so, identify which property is separate and which is community. Section 309.052 was amended the same way for the list of claims. Mandatory e-filing was not a 2025 change: the Supreme Court of Texas phased it in between 2014 and 2016. No 2025 act shortened the creditor notice deadlines.

Can a Texas executor sell a house before the creditor period closes?

An independent executor can. Estates Code 402.052 gives an independent executor the same power of sale as a representative in a supervised administration without the requirement of court approval, unless the will limits it. The 121-day claims bar attaches to the permissive written notice to unsecured creditors under 308.054 and governs when the representative can safely distribute to beneficiaries, not whether property can be sold. A dependent administration is different and needs a court order.

How long does probate take in Texas?

Independent administrations commonly run several months to a year, and dependent administrations run longer because each significant action needs a court order. Texas sets no outer deadline for completing an administration but does set interim ones: letters are granted before the 21st day after the will is probated under 306.001, the inventory or affidavit in lieu is due by the 90th day after qualification under 309.051 and 309.056, published creditor notice within one month of receiving letters under 308.051, and personal notice to secured creditors within two months under 308.053.

What does it cost to get copies of Texas probate records?

Texas publishes no single statewide fee for probate copies. County clerk fees sit under Local Government Code Chapter 118, and each clerk publishes its own current schedule for plain copies, certified copies and record searches. Confirm the amount with the clerk's office before ordering a batch rather than relying on a third-party summary.

Which Texas counties have the most probate courts?

Harris County operates five statutory probate courts, more than any other Texas county. Dallas County has three and Travis County has one. Smaller counties handle probate through the constitutional county court, sometimes with a county court at law sharing the docket. The Court Activity Reporting and Directory System at card.txcourts.gov confirms which court hears probate in any given county.