How Texas calculates your weekly check
While your doctor keeps you off work, Texas pays temporary total disability (TTD) benefits of 70% of your average weekly wage. The result is limited to a weekly maximum and minimum that Texas resets on a fixed schedule. Your limits are the ones in effect on your date of injury.
- Maximum: $1,314.00 a week (injuries from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027).
- Minimum: $197.00 a week.
- Previous maximum: $1,271.00 for injuries October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026.
- When the cap applies: an average weekly wage above $1,877.14 reaches the maximum.
Texas calls these temporary income benefits (TIBs). If you earn less than $10 an hour, the rate is 75% for the first 26 weeks.
If you work at lower pay while recovering, TIBs are 70% of the difference between your average weekly wage and what you now earn.
The maximum is 100% of the state average weekly wage ($1,314.32 for this period), and the limits in effect on your date of injury apply for the whole claim.
| Average weekly wage | Weekly benefit | Share of wage | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| $600 | $420.00 | 70% | Standard rate |
| $1,000 | $700.00 | 70% | Standard rate |
| $1,500 | $1,050.00 | 70% | Standard rate |
| $2,200 | $1,314.00 | 60% | Capped at maximum |
Waiting period
Benefits begin on the eighth day of disability. If disability lasts 2 weeks or more, the first week is paid back. The waiting period applies to wage benefits only; medical treatment is covered from the first day.
How long benefits last
Paid until you reach maximum medical improvement, which the law sets at no later than 104 weeks after income benefits begin. It can be extended for spinal surgery.
Permanent disability and settlements
Texas does not use a body-part schedule. After maximum medical improvement, a doctor assigns a whole-body impairment rating, and you receive impairment income benefits (IIBs) for 3 weeks per percentage point, paid at 70% of your average weekly wage up to $920 a week for injuries from October 1, 2026.
With a rating of 15% or more, you may qualify for supplemental income benefits after IIBs end if you have not returned to work, or earn less than 80% of your old wage, because of the impairment.
Lifetime income benefits are paid for listed catastrophic injuries, such as the loss of both hands, both feet or both eyes.
Example: A 10% whole-body rating is 30 weeks. At a $1,000 weekly wage the rate is $700.00 a week, for a statutory value of about $21,000.
| Rating | Weeks | Example value |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | 15 | $10,500 |
| 10% | 30 | $21,000 |
| 15% | 45 | $31,500 |
| 20% | 60 | $42,000 |
| 30% | 90 | $63,000 |
| 50% | 150 | $105,000 |