Texas Disability Approval Rates & Wait Times

The first decision is made on paper by a state examiner who has never met you, working from whatever medical records made it into the file. Texas approved 33.8% of adult initial claims in FY 2024. Missing records, unanswered forms, and technical issues sink far more claims than weak medical evidence does. An initial denial says almost nothing about whether your case can ultimately win.

Initial applications and reconsiderations are decided by Texas Disability Determination Services, a state agency operating under the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, applying Social Security's federal rules. If you appeal past reconsideration, your case moves to a federal administrative law judge at one of the hearing offices serving Texas.

Better than at any earlier stage. Across the seven Texas hearing offices, judges awarded benefits in 55.8% of decisions in FY 2026, ranging from 51.6% in San Antonio to 63.5% at Dallas North. Preparation moves those odds substantially. In my practice, clients age 50 and over win 89.2% of the time.

The national average is 192 days so far in FY 2026, down from 231 days in FY 2024. Social Security does not publish a Texas-specific figure, so plan on roughly six months. Terminal illness, certain severe conditions on the Compassionate Allowances list, and dire-need situations can be fast-tracked.

Texas offices are currently faster than the country as a whole. From hearing request to decision, Texas offices average about 250 days, roughly 8 months, ranging from 233 days at Houston North to 258 at Dallas North and San Antonio, against a national average of about 267 days and SSA's own 270-day goal. Every Texas office currently beats that goal.

It follows the Social Security field office that serves your home address. Texas has seven hearing offices: Dallas Downtown, Dallas North, Fort Worth, Houston North, Houston West, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley office in Harlingen. A few areas are served from out of state: the Panhandle and Wichita Falls from Oklahoma City, the Marshall area from Shreveport, and El Paso partly from Albuquerque.

No. The medical rules are federal and identical everywhere, the differences come from state agency staffing and applicant mix, and your case simply transfers if you move. The spread is real, New Hampshire approved 47.0% of initial claims in FY 2024 while Kentucky approved 29.4%, but the lever you control is not geography. It is the quality of your medical evidence and how your case is presented.

No, they are averages across thousands of very different claims. Your age, work history, medical evidence, and how your limitations are documented matter far more than any statewide rate. What the data does show is where the leverage is: the hearing stage approves a majority of the Texans who get there, so a first or second denial is a reason to keep going, not to quit.

Directly from Social Security's published datasets: the State Agency Workload Data file for initial approval rates (FY 2024), the ALJ Disposition Data file for hearing award rates (FY 2026 through July 31, 2026), and the Hearing Office Average Processing Time report for wait times. The full source list with links is at the bottom of this page. SSA updates the hearing files monthly, and we refresh this page as new data lands.