How to find out what minerals you own in Texas
Texas land carries two sets of rights, the surface and the minerals, and different people can own them. These are the public records that show where a mineral interest stands, and what each one can and can't prove.
This is general information, not legal advice. It covers Texas records only. Naming a Texas office here is not a statement about where Our Landmen LLC buys.
Start with the deed you hold and read what it says about minerals. Then follow the names through the county clerk's real property records, because the indexes the law requires run by grantor and grantee names. The appraisal district and the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) can point you to a tax account, an operator and a lease number, but neither one decides who owns the minerals. If the owner of record has died, the county where they lived is usually where the probate trail starts. If you were never paid, search the Comptroller's unclaimed property list. What the papers you find add up to is for a title examiner or an attorney to say.
Under Texas law, land ownership includes two separate sets of rights, called estates: the surface estate and the mineral estate. The RRC says they can be owned together, but that in many areas, especially where there has been a lot of oil and gas development, they are commonly owned by different people. The split usually happens when an owner sells the surface and keeps all or part of the minerals (RRC, Oil and Gas Exploration and Surface Ownership). So the person who lives on a tract and the person who owns its minerals can be two different people.
1Start with the deed you hold
Read the deed you got the land or the minerals by. You are looking for words about oil, gas and other minerals: a reservation or exception that keeps them out of the sale, any fraction such as one-half or one-fourth, and any earlier split of the surface from the minerals. The RRC's plain statement of the default is that if an owner sells the surface without limiting the sale to surface only, and without explicitly keeping the minerals, the minerals the owner holds go with it (RRC surface ownership FAQ).
A deed is the first document to read, but it may not be the last one in the chain. Under Property Code § 13.001, a conveyance of an interest in real property is void as to a creditor or a later buyer who paid value and had no notice, unless the instrument was acknowledged, sworn to or proved and filed for record. The same section says an unrecorded instrument still binds the parties to it, their heirs, and a later buyer who didn't pay value or who had notice. So a search that turns up nothing recorded hasn't shown that nothing was conveyed.
What the words of a deed mean, for example whether a clause keeps the minerals or only a royalty, takes a full reading of the instrument. That is a job for an oil and gas attorney, and this page doesn't try it.
2County clerk real property records
To be effectively recorded, an instrument relating to real property must be recorded in a county where part of the property lies (Property Code § 11.001(a)). An instrument that is properly recorded in the proper county is notice to all persons and is open to inspection by the public (§ 13.002). The county clerk has to keep the indexes the law requires (§ 11.004(a)(4)). If the tract crosses a county line, look in each county it touches.
The index the law describes is alphabetical and runs by name. Local Government Code § 193.003 calls for an alphabetical cross-index of grantors and grantees, with the specific location of each instrument in the records. Counties that keep records on microfilm are indexed under §§ 193.008 and 193.009 instead, also alphabetically by party name, and those entries give a brief description of the property if there is one. Neither calls for a tract index, so a search follows names, forward from the owner you know and backward through the people they got the land from. A deed by an executor or administrator is indexed under the name of that person and the name of the person whose estate it is (subsection (b)). A mineral reservation can appear in any deed in the chain, not only the most recent one.
What a county puts online, and how far back it goes, is up to the county. The RRC's own advice is that a call to the courthouse of the county where the land lies usually helps you find out which documents on file are the ones you want (RRC royalties FAQ). Ask the clerk what a copy costs.
What to write down for each instrument
- The recording county and the type of instrument (deed, lease, assignment, affidavit)
- Grantor and grantee, spelled as they appear
- The date of the instrument and the date it was recorded
- The volume and page, or the file number the clerk gave it
- The land description
- The exact words about oil, gas and other minerals
3The appraisal district
A mineral in place is real property for property tax purposes (Tax Code § 1.04(2)(D)). The chief appraiser prepares appraisal records that list the taxable property in the district (§ 25.01(a)). Each record has to carry the name and address of the owner, or a statement that they are unknown, and a unique account number (§ 25.02(a)(1) and (c)).
The Comptroller says most questions about property appraisal go to the county's appraisal district, and that its own office doesn't have access to local appraisal information. Its county directory lists the contact information for each district (Comptroller, Local Property Appraisal and Tax Information). If the district carries an account for the interest, write down the owner name, the mailing address and the account number. Whether it carries one for a particular interest is a question for the district.
4Railroad Commission of Texas
The RRC keeps well and production records. Its public queries are how you find the operator, the lease and the production, and how you match a check stub to a well. They are not how you prove who owns the minerals.
| Tool | What it shows | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Wellbore Query | Wells, searchable by API number, district, oil lease number or gas well ID, county, field, operator or drilling permit number. | Given an API number, it returns the lease name and the lease number. The lease number is what you use in the Production Data Query. |
| Production Data Query (PDQ) | Oil and gas production by lease, field, operator, district or county, from January 1993 to the present. | Operators' reports run about two months behind, and the RRC says the records are substantially complete after about six months. When we looked on September 29, 2026, the PDQ page showed production loaded through July 2026. Production before 1993 comes from the RRC's Central Records. |
| Organization (P-5) Query | An operator, by name or by P-5 number, with the organization report it filed: name, address, contact information, officers and financial assurance. | It tells you who the operator is. It says nothing about who owns the minerals. |
| Oil and Gas Imaged Records | Applications to drill (W-1) with plats, completion reports (G-1 and W-2), plugging reports (W-3) and other well records from 1964 to the present. Well logs have been imaged since July 2004. | The RRC says drilling permit records include plats and other documents that designate the acreage in a pooled unit. |
| Public GIS Viewer | Wells and pipelines on a map, with search by API number, survey and lease ID. | The RRC's own disclaimer says the data generally do not represent an on-the-ground survey, show only approximate relative property boundaries, and have no legal force or effect. |
The RRC says plainly that it has no authority over lease and royalty matters, which it describes as including leasing, payment of royalties and the right to receive royalties. Its research query pages carry a notice that the data sets are for information only, are not an authoritative public record and have no legal force or effect (RRC royalties FAQ; RRC research queries). So use the RRC to identify the operator and the lease number.
The RRC also says the identification number it uses for a well may not be the number on a royalty stub. If your stub doesn't show the RRC lease number, Natural Resources Code § 91.504(c) lets a royalty interest owner who was paid during the preceding calendar year ask the payor, in writing by certified mail, for a report of the lease or well identification numbers, names, field and county, and the RRC lease identification number. The payor has 60 days to answer. The division order and check stub guide covers that request.
5If the owner of record has died
This section only says where the trail starts. It doesn't cover procedure or forms.
- Where it's filed. Venue for a probate proceeding to admit a will or to grant letters is the county where the decedent lived, if they had a domicile or fixed place of residence in Texas. Other rules apply to someone who didn't (Estates Code § 33.001).
- Time limit on a will. A will may not be admitted to probate after the fourth anniversary of the testator's death unless the applicant shows they were not in default in failing to present it in time (§ 256.003(a)).
- Declaring heirs. A court can determine who a decedent's heirs are, and their shares, in a proceeding to declare heirship, and that proceeding may be brought at any time after the death (§§ 202.001 and 202.0025).
- A recorded affidavit. A court receives a statement of facts about family history, marital status or the identity of heirs as prima facie evidence, in a proceeding to declare heirship or a suit involving title, if it is in an affidavit or other instrument that is acknowledged or sworn to, or in a court judgment, and the affidavit or instrument has been of record for five years or more in the deed records of the county where the property lies or the county where the decedent lived (§ 203.001(a)).
Which of these applies to a particular estate is for an attorney or a title company to say.
6If you were never paid
Mineral proceeds held or owing by a holder that the owner hasn't claimed for longer than three years after they became payable, and the owner's underlying right to receive them, are presumed abandoned (Property Code § 75.101(a)). In that chapter, mineral proceeds include royalties, overriding royalties, net revenue interests, production payments, bonuses and delay rentals (§ 75.001(a)(2)). A holder reports that property to the Comptroller and delivers it there (§§ 74.101 and 74.301(a)).
The Comptroller's unclaimed property page lists mineral interests among the examples and sends owners to ClaimItTexas.gov to search (Comptroller, Unclaimed Property). The site asks for a last or business name and a first name. Its scam alert says the Comptroller's office will never text or call to ask for online banking credentials, a secure access code or other personal information (ClaimItTexas.gov).
Texas law also limits what someone who tells you about unclaimed property can take. Under Property Code § 74.507, the amount for services is capped, and for mineral proceeds it can't include part of the underlying minerals or any production payment, overriding royalty or similar payment.
7What you'll have when you're done
Not all of it will be there. A half-filled page is still useful. Here is where each piece goes if you ask us to look at an interest.
| What you found | The request form asks for |
|---|---|
| The county, in Texas | County and state, together, such as Reeves County, TX |
| Whether you hold minerals, a royalty only, or an overriding royalty | What you own: Minerals, Royalty only (NPRI), Overriding royalty (ORRI) or Not sure |
| Whether checks come, a lease is on record, or neither | Is it producing?: Yes, I get checks; Leased, no checks yet; Not leased; or Not sure |
| The operator on the stub or in the RRC's records | Operator on the check (optional) |
| Net mineral acres, or the decimal off the stub | Net mineral acres or decimal (optional) |
| The legal description, or the words on the deed or stub | Legal description, or what the deed or check stub says (optional) |
The form also asks for your name and email. Sending it commits you to nothing, and we don't make an offer on every request. The record research on this page doesn't need us. It is a starting map. Reading the whole chain of title, and saying what an interest is, is the work of a title examiner or an attorney.
Sources
Last checked . Each page below was opened that day. The Texas statutes site said its statutes were current through the 89th 2nd Called Legislative Session, 2025. Laws and agency pages change, so check the current text before relying on any of it.
- Texas Property Code, chapter 11§§ 11.001 and 11.004: place of recording; duty of the recorderhttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.11.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Property Code, chapter 13§§ 13.001 and 13.002: unrecorded instruments; effect of a recorded instrumenthttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.13.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Local Government Code, chapter 193§ 193.003: index to real property recordshttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.193.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Tax Code, chapter 1§ 1.04(2)(D): a mineral in place is real propertyhttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TX/htm/TX.1.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Tax Code, chapter 25§§ 25.01 and 25.02: appraisal records and their contenthttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TX/htm/TX.25.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Estates Code, chapter 33§ 33.001: venue for probate of wills and administrationhttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.33.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Estates Code, chapter 202§§ 202.001 and 202.0025: proceeding to declare heirshiphttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.202.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Estates Code, chapter 203§ 203.001: recorded statement of facts as prima facie evidence of heirshiphttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.203.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Estates Code, chapter 256§ 256.003: period for admitting a will to probatehttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.256.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Property Code, chapter 75§§ 75.001 and 75.101: mineral proceeds; presumption of abandonmenthttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.75.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Property Code, chapter 74§§ 74.101, 74.301 and 74.507: report and delivery to the Comptroller; fee for assisting a claimanthttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.74.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Texas Natural Resources Code, chapter 91§§ 91.402(b) and 91.504(c): withholding without interest; request for a report of lease and well identificationhttps://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/NR/htm/NR.91.htmOpened September 29, 2026
- Railroad Commission of Texas, Oil and Gas Exploration and Surface OwnershipFAQ on the surface estate, the mineral estate and severancehttps://www.rrc.texas.gov/about-us/faqs/oil-gas-faq/oil-gas-exploration-and-surface-ownership/Opened September 29, 2026
- Railroad Commission of Texas, Royalties FAQLimits of RRC authority; courthouse records; well identification numbers; unclaimed royaltieshttps://www.rrc.texas.gov/about-us/faqs/royalties-faq/Opened September 29, 2026
- Railroad Commission of Texas, Online Research QueriesList of queries and the data disclaimer. The About Oil and Gas Data Queries page describes the Wellbore and P-5 queries.https://www.rrc.texas.gov/resource-center/research/research-queries/https://www.rrc.texas.gov/resource-center/research/research-queries/about-oil-gas-data-queries/Opened September 29, 2026
- Railroad Commission of Texas, Production Data Query and its FAQCoverage from January 1993, reporting lag, lease number from an API numberhttps://webapps.rrc.texas.gov/PDQhttps://www.rrc.texas.gov/about-us/faqs/oil-gas-faq/production-data-query-system-faqs/Opened September 29, 2026
- Railroad Commission of Texas, Public GIS ViewerSearch features and the data disclaimerhttps://www.rrc.texas.gov/resource-center/research/gis-viewer/Opened September 29, 2026
- Railroad Commission of Texas, Oil and Gas Well RecordsImaged well records from 1964; well logs imaged since July 2004https://www.rrc.texas.gov/oil-and-gas/research-and-statistics/obtaining-commission-records/oil-and-gas-well-records/Opened September 29, 2026
- Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Local Property Appraisal and Tax InformationCounty directory of appraisal districts and tax officeshttps://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/county-directory/Opened September 29, 2026
- Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Unclaimed Property, and ClaimItTexas.govMineral interests listed among examples; search and scam alerthttps://comptroller.texas.gov/programs/unclaimed/https://www.claimittexas.gov/Opened September 29, 2026
If you want to go further
The worksheet on the home page turns your acres and royalty, or your decimal and unit size, into net royalty acres. If you'd like us to look at an interest, the request form takes the six things in the table above. Sending it commits you to nothing.