Texas Unclaimed Money: More Than $9 Billion Held, and the Free Official Search

Texas is holding more than $9 billion in unclaimed property — in cash and other valuables, according to Texas Comptroller, January 2025. It is money from dormant bank accounts, unpaid insurance benefits, uncashed paychecks and forgotten deposits, and it still legally belongs to the people it came from. The Comptroller of Public Accounts returned a record $422 million in fiscal 2024, and more than $4 billion in total since the programme began in 1962.

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Unclaimed Property Program runs the official search. It is free, it takes a last name, and there is no account to create.

How long Texas waits before your money becomes unclaimed property

Texas's dormancy period is anywhere from one year to fifteen, set property type by property type — the widest spread of any large state. Dormancy is the waiting time before a business that cannot reach you is legally required to hand your asset to the state, and knowing your own state's clock tells you how far back a search is worth running.

• Payroll, utility deposits and demutualisation proceeds escheat after just one year
• Bank accounts, matured certificates of deposit, insurance proceeds, stocks, money orders and gift cards run to three years
• Safe deposit box contents are reported after five years
• Travellers' cheques take fifteen years
• Governing law is Texas Property Code Title 6, Chapters 72 to 77

Why the Texas open-data listing is not what it looks like

Texas appears on the state open-data portal with a dataset called the Texas Unclaimed Property Listing, and people reasonably assume it is a downloadable copy of the database. It is not. The dataset carries no records at all — its description simply instructs you to email the Comptroller's office to request access, and asks for your name, company, mailing address, phone number and, revealingly, a Texas Private Investigator's licence number if you hold one.

That last detail tells you who the bulk file is really for. It is aimed at the professional locator industry, not at a person checking their own name. For an individual, the free search at claimittexas.gov is not merely the easier route, it is the only practical one.

It is also the complete one. The public search covers the same records, costs nothing, and does not require you to explain who you are before it will tell you whether the state is holding something of yours.

What Texas asks for when you file a claim

Texas runs claims through claimittexas.gov, which also carries a separate claim-status search so you can follow a filed claim without calling. In practice the state wants identification plus something that ties you to the address or the account on the record: an old utility bill, a bank statement, a lease, a pay stub.

• Photo identification, and in some cases a Social Security number for verification
• Proof of the address on the record — an old bill, statement or lease works
• For an estate: the death certificate, proof of relationship, and letters of administration or a small-estate affidavit
• For a business: documentation showing you are authorised to act for the entity

Escheatment and dormancy: why your bank account was handed to Texas

Before transferring an asset, a holder is generally required to send written notice to the last address it has on file, and many states then publish a further notice of their own. Both attempts land at an address you have already left, which is exactly why the property became unclaimed. The notice requirement is real. It just cannot outrun a house move.

The state then becomes the custodian rather than the owner. Texas holds the asset and publishes it in a searchable index so that you, or your heirs, can reclaim it. That is why the search is worth running even for accounts you are certain you closed properly — closing an account and having a final interest payment post afterwards is one of the most common ways a small balance ends up listed.

How much the average state unclaimed property claim actually pays

Across 49 reporting state offices, $4.25 billion was returned to owners in fiscal 2025. The prior year's report from the state administrators gave the two numbers that matter for expectations: the average claim paid through the multi-state search was $2,080, and the median claim was $100.

Those describe different people. A small number of large estates pull the average up, while the typical person who finds something finds a couple of hundred dollars. It is still money that already belongs to you and costs nothing but a name and two minutes to collect.

Paid asset locators vs the free state unclaimed property search

Asset locators and heir finders are licensed in most states and many states cap by statute what they may charge. They earn that fee untangling complicated multi-state estates. But a property listed under your own name in your own state takes about a minute to find on the official site, and no locator can add anything to that. If someone contacts you already knowing what you are owed and asks you to sign for a percentage, you can simply go and look for yourself first.