The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts runs the state's unclaimed property programme, and its programme page opens with a definition wider than most states use: unclaimed property can be any financial asset or safe deposit box contents that has been abandoned by the property owner for one or more years. The examples it gives are abandoned bank accounts, uncashed checks, overpayments, payroll and vendor checks, unredeemed gift cards, insurance proceeds, dividends and mineral interests. Businesses and government entities doing business with Texans are holders, and holders are required by statute to file an annual report with the Comptroller's office, filed online, with a negative report for those who have nothing to send. Individuals and businesses search for their property at ClaimItTexas.gov, which has been the search since October 16, 2017, when the Comptroller retired the old search at its own site.
The claim portal and the programme pages divide the work cleanly. The Comptroller's own site carries the holder material, the reporting instructions guide, the property type codes and abandonment periods, the Texas Property Code, the reporting videos for oil and gas, general business, financial institution and manual online reporting, and the email lists for reporting updates, legislative changes and webinars. ClaimItTexas.gov carries the property search, the claim, the document upload, the status check, the holder remittance and negative reports, the TEXNET payments, the reporting deadlines, the voluntary disclosure agreements, the forms and the Spanish language help. The Unclaimed Property Division answers at (800) 321-2274 and unclaimed.property@cpa.texas.gov. For other Texas records by place, see the Texas county pages.
- Search: at ClaimItTexas.gov by last or business name with a first name where it applies, narrowed by city when the list is long, or by the property identifier printed on a mailed owner notice.
- Abandonment: one or more years without contact or business dealings with the owner, with the exact period set by property type in the Comptroller's property type codes and abandonment periods table.
- Holder calendar: owner notices warning that the property must go to the Comptroller by July 1 if unclaimed, the annual report filed online, a negative report when there is nothing to report, and report records kept for at least ten years.
- Claim: four steps, search for property, initiate the claim, complete it with the mailing address, email address and relationship to the owner, and track it with the Claim ID from the home page.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Texas's own systems: the Texas Comptroller unclaimed property programme page, the Comptroller's how to file page for holders, the Comptroller's unclaimed property annual notification for state agencies, the ClaimItTexas how to search page, the ClaimItTexas how to submit a claim page, the Comptroller's former unclaimed property search notice, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Searching, and what a property identifier does
The portal's first step is the property search page, reached from the claiming property menu or from the get started button on the home page. A searcher types the last or business name, and the first name where one applies, and runs the search; too many results are narrowed by adding a city. Anyone who received an owner notice in the mail has a shortcut, since typing the property identifier from that notice into its own field brings up the single record it refers to.
Each property that belongs to the searcher is added with the claim button, and the continue to file claim button moves the whole selection into the claims process.
Filing the claim
Filing begins with a review: after the view claimed properties button the claimant checks each property carefully before clicking file claim, so that nothing is claimed by mistake. The claim form then takes the claimant's information, including the current mailing address where the funds are to be mailed and an email address, which the Comptroller recommends because corresponding by email helps to speed the claim along, and the relationship to the owner for each property, which decides what the office will ask for next, since entering the correct relationship allows the office to provide the details necessary to claim that property.
An extra screen may appear asking the claimant to verify the address, so that the check is mailed somewhere valid. The claim is reviewed once more and submitted, and the portal issues a Claim ID, which is the reference for the file and the key to checking the status from the home page at any time. Documentation, where a claim needs it, is uploaded through the portal's own upload page, and the office's contacts, forms and resources and Spanish language help sit in the same menu.
What a holder has to do
The Comptroller's how to file page walks a business through the same sequence in the other direction. A holder closing its books and finding uncashed checks or other financial assets owed to a Texas vendor, client, customer or employee first determines whether the property is abandoned, which means working out whether there has been communication or other business dealings with the owner during the abandonment period, a period that varies by property type and is published in the Comptroller's property type codes and abandonment periods table.
The holder then sends notices to the property owners, and the page is specific about what the notice says: that the holder is holding the property, and that the holder is required to deliver the property to the Comptroller's office by July 1 if the owner does not claim it. Finally the holder submits the owner's money or financial assets together with the owner information in a report to the office, following the reporting instructions guide, and retains the records of that report for at least ten years.
Property is not reported until it has reached the end of its abandonment period, and a holder with nothing to report this year files a negative report through the online manual reporting function. The programme page lists the training the office provides for this, with reporting instruction videos for oil and gas, general business, financial institutions and manual online reporting, and subscriptions for reporting updates, legislative changes and webinars.
Even the state has to look
Unclaimed property turned over to Texas sometimes belongs to the state's own agencies and universities, and the Comptroller's annual notification tells them what happens if they ignore it: under Property Code section 74.601(g), if an agency or institution does not claim its property after the annual notification, the office deposits the money into unappropriated general revenue. Agencies and institutions are urged to contact the Unclaimed Property Division or search the portal regularly, to give the contact details of their financial representative, and to act before the sweep date the notice sets.
An agency operating a general revenue dedicated account or a special fund outside general revenue may still be able to claim property held by the office, if it supplies documentation establishing that the original source of the funds was that account or fund, in which case the property may be returned to the original fund and may be subject to future appropriation; the burden of establishing the original source lies on the claiming entity.
The notice also gives search advice that works for anyone, not just agencies: the database reflects how the money was reported rather than any official name, so a searcher should try previous names, such as Texas Employment Commission for the Texas Workforce Commission, common acronyms such as Texas DPS or UT Austin, and common unofficial names such as Highway Department for the Texas Department of Transportation.
Reading a Texas result
A record in the Texas database is an asset a holder gave up after the abandonment period for that property type, filed under the name and spelling the holder used, which is why name variations, former names and acronyms are worth trying; a property identifier from a mailed notice goes straight to one record. The holder named in the record is the business that reported the money, the Claim ID follows the claim once filed, and the Unclaimed Property Division at (800) 321-2274 and unclaimed.property@cpa.texas.gov handles the questions the portal does not answer.
Nothing in the programme covers real property, and nothing is charged by the state for making a claim.
Questions about unclaimed property in Texas
Related Texas records
Texas's other public records guides on this site are the Texas background check guide for the state criminal history search, the Texas court records guide for the district and county clerks, the Texas arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Texas county pages for every county office.