What Do I Do If My Employer Didn’t Pay Me in Texas?

If your employer didn’t pay you in Texas, you have three main options: file a wage claim with the Texas Workforce Commission, file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor, or sue your employer in court. Which one fits depends on what kind of wages are owed and how much. One thing to lock in first: the state administrative route has a hard 180-day deadline from the date the wages were due, and missing it closes that door entirely.¹

Confirm Your Employer Actually Missed a Deadline

The Texas Payday Law sets when wages must be paid. If you were fired, laid off, or discharged, your employer has six calendar days from your last day to pay everything you’re owed. If you quit, resigned, or retired, payment is due by the next regularly scheduled payday.²

If you’re still employed, exempt workers must be paid at least once a month and non-exempt workers at least twice a month.³ Any missed deadline starts the clock on your right to recover.

Gather Records Before You File

Documentation decides most wage claims. Pull together employment contracts or offer letters, pay stubs, time sheets, bank statements showing missed deposits, and any texts or emails about your pay. If commissions or bonuses were promised, find whatever spelled out the terms.

Federal law helps you here. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep detailed payroll records for every non-exempt worker — daily hours, weekly totals, pay rates, deductions — and to preserve them for at least three years.⁴ If your employer can’t produce them during an investigation, that typically cuts against the employer.

Consider sending a written demand to your employer first. State the specific dates you worked unpaid, the amounts owed, and a reasonable payment deadline. Keep copies. This isn’t required, but it sometimes resolves things quickly and builds a paper trail if it doesn’t.

Filing a Wage Claim With the Texas Workforce Commission

The TWC handles claims under the Texas Payday Law. This route covers unpaid wages, commissions, bonuses your employer agreed to, and fringe benefits like vacation or sick pay when required by your employer’s written policy or agreement.² Filing is free and you don’t need a lawyer.

Two boundaries matter. The TWC process is for employees, not independent contractors; if your status is unclear, the TWC recommends filing anyway and letting them sort it out. And the TWC does not handle minimum wage or overtime claims. Those are federal and go to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The 180-Day Deadline

You have 180 days from the date the wages were supposed to be paid. The statute treats this as jurisdictional, meaning the TWC cannot accept a late claim no matter how strong the underlying case is.¹ Each unpaid paycheck has its own 180-day clock, so file promptly to protect the oldest wages.

How to File

You can submit online through the TWC portal, by mail, by fax, or in person at a TWC office. Online gives you immediate confirmation. If you use a paper form, fill in every field, sign it, and attach copies of pay stubs, time records, and communications about your pay. You’ll need your employer’s full legal name and address, your employment dates, and a detailed breakdown of what you’re owed.

What Happens After You File

The TWC sends an acknowledgment to you and forwards a copy of the claim to your employer, who has 14 days to respond. An investigator reviews both sides and may ask for more information. The TWC investigates individual claims one at a time and doesn’t run broad payroll audits the way the U.S. Department of Labor does.⁵

The agency then issues a Preliminary Wage Determination Order stating what it believes you’re owed — full amount, partial, or nothing. That order becomes final 21 calendar days after it’s mailed unless either side appeals.² Appeals go first to the Wage Claim Appeal Tribunal, usually by telephone hearing, with a wait of six to eight weeks for a hearing date. Further review by the three-member Commission and then a civil court is available if you’re not satisfied.⁶

Minimum Wage and Overtime: File With the U.S. Department of Labor

The TWC won’t touch minimum wage or overtime disputes. Those are governed by the FLSA and enforced by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Texas has no state minimum wage above the federal $7.25 per hour,⁷ so federal law governs most Texas wage-and-hour disputes.p>

You can file a complaint online or by calling 1-866-487-9243. The nearest field office should contact you within two business days. If the investigation finds a violation, you may receive a check for your lost wages directly.⁸

One detail worth checking on overtime: to be exempt from overtime, an employee must earn at least $684 per week ($35,568 annually) on a salary basis and perform certain executive, administrative, or professional duties.⁹ If you earn less than that and your employer classified you as exempt to avoid overtime, you likely have a claim.

Suing Your Employer

A lawsuit makes sense when the TWC route isn’t available for your type of claim, when the dollars are larger, or when you want remedies the TWC can’t award. You can sue instead of or in addition to filing a TWC claim. For FLSA violations like unpaid overtime, a lawsuit is often the strongest option.

Where you file depends on the amount. Justice Courts handle civil cases up to $20,000.¹⁰ Larger claims go to County Court or District Court.

Damages and Attorney’s Fees

Under the FLSA — minimum wage or overtime cases — the law allows liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages. That can double your recovery. If your employer owes $5,000 in unpaid overtime, a court can award another $5,000 on top. The court must also award reasonable attorney’s fees to a winning employee, which takes much of the financial risk out of hiring a lawyer.¹¹

For claims under the Texas Payday Law alone, remedies are narrower. The Payday Law does not provide the same liquidated damages. If your case is straight unpaid wages rather than overtime or minimum wage, you’re generally recovering what you’re owed, not double.

How Long You Have to Sue

For FLSA claims, you have two years from the date the wages were due, extended to three years if your employer’s violation was willful, meaning they knew they were breaking the law or acted with reckless disregard.¹² The TWC administrative window is much tighter at 180 days.¹ If that 180 days has already passed, a lawsuit may still be available depending on your circumstances.

If the Problem Is Unauthorized Deductions

Sometimes the issue isn’t a missing paycheck but deductions your employer took out of it. The Texas Payday Law allows an employer to withhold or deduct wages only in three situations: a court orders it, state or federal law authorizes it (like tax withholding), or you signed a written authorization for a specific, lawful deduction.³ Your employer cannot dock your pay for mistakes, register shortages, or damaged equipment without your written authorization for that specific type of deduction.

You can file a TWC wage claim for unauthorized deductions using the same process above. The 180-day clock runs from each paycheck that included the improper deduction.

Retaliation Is Illegal

Many people hold back out of fear of being fired or punished. The FLSA prohibits employers from retaliating against any employee who files a wage complaint, participates in an investigation, or testifies in a related proceeding. The protection applies to oral and written complaints, and most courts have held that internal complaints to your employer are covered too.¹³

If your employer retaliates, you can file a retaliation complaint with the Wage and Hour Division or bring a private lawsuit for reinstatement, lost wages, and liquidated damages equal to those lost wages. The protection also extends to former employees, so an old employer can’t blackball you for filing after you’ve left.¹³

When Wage Theft Becomes a Crime

Most unpaid-wage disputes are civil. Texas law does include a criminal provision for the worst cases: an employer who intended to avoid paying wages at the time they hired the employee, and then fails to pay after the employee demands payment, commits a third-degree felony under the Texas Payday Law.¹⁴ Prosecutions are rare, and the provision reaches employers whose failure to pay was intentional from the start, not those who ran into cash flow trouble later.

1
State of Texas. Texas Labor Code 61.051 – Filing Wage Claim
2
Texas Workforce Commission. Texas Payday Law – Wage Claim
3
Justia. Texas Labor Code Chapter 61 Payment of Wages
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
5
Texas Workforce Commission. Wage Claim and Appeal Process in Texas
6
Texas Workforce Commission. Texas Payday Wage Claim Appeals
7
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
8
Worker.gov. Filing a Complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption
10
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 27.031 – Jurisdiction
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 216 – Penalties
12
Texas Workforce Commission. Advanced FLSA Issues – Texas Guidebook for Employers
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A: Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
14
State of Texas. Texas Labor Code Section 61.019 – Failure to Pay Wages; Criminal Penalty