Houston Warrant Roundup: How the Great Texas Warrant Roundup Works and What to Do

The Great Texas Warrant Roundup is an annual, statewide campaign in which municipal courts, justice courts, police departments, sheriff's offices, and constables focus on people with outstanding arrest warrants. The warrants involved are overwhelmingly for fine-only misdemeanors: unpaid or unresolved traffic tickets, city ordinance violations, and similar Class C offenses.

Agencies in the Houston area that have taken part include the Houston Police Department, Harris County constables, and police departments and courts in cities throughout the region. The roundup typically has two phases:

• The grace period. Courts mail notices and publicize the roundup, encouraging people with warrants to come in and resolve them voluntarily without the threat of arrest.
• The enforcement period. After the grace period, officers actively look for people with active warrants. Arrests can happen at home, at work, at a traffic stop, or anywhere else an officer finds you.

Courts present the roundup as a chance to bring defendants into compliance with court orders. It is not an amnesty program. Some courts, including the City of Houston Municipal Courts, have separately offered limited amnesty or discount programs at other times of year with their own eligibility rules, but those are different from the roundup, so check with the court.

It is held once a year, typically in the late winter or early spring. In recent years the statewide roundup has run from late February into early March, with a notice and grace period beforehand. The exact dates are set and announced each year by the participating agencies and courts, and they can differ from one jurisdiction to the next. Because the dates change, the best approach is not to wait for an announcement: if you have an old ticket you never resolved, deal with it now.

People often use these terms as if they mean the same thing. They don't. A missed court date can produce several different things:

Term	What it is
Arrest warrant	A judge's order to arrest you. In municipal and justice courts, a judge can issue one based on a sworn complaint showing probable cause (Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 45A.104, formerly Art. 45.014).
Capias pro fine	A post-judgment arrest order that can be issued when a defendant who has been convicted does not pay the fine or does not satisfy the judgment according to its terms (Art. 45A.259, formerly Art. 45.045).
Violation of Promise to Appear / Failure to Appear charge	A new criminal charge. When you sign a traffic ticket you give a written promise to appear. Under Transportation Code § 543.009, willfully violating that promise is a separate misdemeanor, regardless of what happens with the original ticket.

In other words, the warrant is the order to arrest you, and the failure to appear is a separate charge for missing court. You can have both, along with the original ticket.

Start with the court that handled the ticket:

• City of Houston Municipal Courts: the department says you can find out about warrants by contacting it. Its Scofflaw page lists 311 and (713) 837-0311. The main courthouse is the Herbert W. Gee Municipal Courthouse at 1400 Lubbock Street.
• Harris County Justice of the Peace courts: contact the precinct and place court that has your case.
• Municipal courts in other cities (for example, Jersey Village, Pasadena, or Baytown): contact that city's municipal court directly.

Have your full name, date of birth, and the ticket or case number if you can find it. If you are worried about being arrested when you appear, talk with an attorney first. An attorney can often check the status for you and explain the options before you walk into a courthouse.

Option	What to know
Appear voluntarily	Under Art. 45A.104(g), a judge must recall an arrest warrant for failure to appear if you voluntarily appear and make a good faith effort to resolve it before the warrant is executed. Appearing before you are arrested is generally the strongest position to be in.
Post a bond and get a new court date	A bond lets you resolve the warrant without paying the ticket or pleading, and gives you a new setting to contest the ticket or ask about other options. See the section on bonds below.
Pay the ticket	This clears the warrant, but paying is a plea of guilty or no contest, so you are convicted. See the next section.
Ask about payment plans, community service, or waiver	If you cannot afford the fine, Texas law requires the judge to look at your ability to pay and to consider paying over time, community service, waiver, or a combination (Art. 45A.252). Community service discharges at least $150 of fines or costs for every eight hours worked (Art. 45A.254(e)).
Other ways to avoid a conviction	Depending on the court and the circumstances, options such as deferred disposition or a driving safety course may still be possible, but both have strict eligibility rules and deadlines. See our Deferred Disposition and Driving Safety Course articles.

Every year, people try to avoid arrest by paying their old tickets. That does clear the warrant. But when you pay a traffic ticket, by mail, online, or in person, you are entering a plea of guilty or no contest, and you are convicted of that violation. A fine is not the only price:

• A moving violation conviction goes on your Texas driving record (see our Texas Driving Record article).
• Your insurance company may raise your rates because of the conviction (see our Moving Violations article).
• Several convictions in a short period can result in a license suspension.

A traffic ticket is also not a bill or a debt. It is a citation charging you with a violation. Unless you plead guilty or no contest, or are found guilty, you are presumed not guilty and the State has the burden of proving the charge.

Houston traffic ticket defense attorney Kameron Searle explains: "The State has the same burden of proof for a traffic ticket as it does for a murder charge. Since a traffic ticket is a Class C misdemeanor, it is a criminal offense, and each element of the offense must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

Don't be tricked into paying a ticket by something you receive in the mail. The City of Houston regularly mails letters to people charged with traffic offenses that look like bills but are not. Be sure to contact a traffic ticket defense attorney before paying a traffic ticket through the mail, online, or at the court.

A common mistake to avoid: some older websites, including some law firm pages, still describe "points" and annual "surcharges" for paying tickets. That information is outdated. Texas repealed the Driver Responsibility Program, which charged those surcharges, effective September 1, 2019 (House Bill 2048). The real consequences of a conviction are the ones listed above.

If you are arrested on a Houston warrant or capias pro fine, the City of Houston Municipal Courts Department describes three ways to be released:

• Cash bond. You deposit cash with the city to guarantee that you will appear at your next setting. If you do not appear, the bond may be forfeited.
• Surety bond. A bonding company posts the bond for a fee. The city is not a party to your contract with the bonding company.
• Personal bond. You are released on your promise to appear. Whether you get one is up to the judge, who considers the type of charge, your ties to the community, and whether the arrest was for failure to appear.

Bonds can be posted at municipal court locations during business hours, and the Municipal Courts Jail Bonding Window at the Harris County Joint Processing Center, 700 N. San Jacinto Street, is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the department.

State law favors the personal bond in these courts. Under Article 45A.107, a judge may require a personal bond, but may require a cash or surety bail bond only if the defendant failed to appear and the judge determines the defendant has sufficient resources or income to give it and that it is necessary to secure the defendant's appearance.

One of the least understood consequences of an old ticket is what happens when your driver's license comes up for renewal. Under Texas Transportation Code Chapter 706 (the Failure to Appear Program, often called FTAP or OmniBase), a court can report to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) that you failed to appear for a complaint or citation, or that you failed to pay or satisfy a judgment ordering payment of a fine and costs, and DPS may deny renewal of your driver's license (§§ 706.002, 706.004). In practice, that covers the same situations that produce arrest warrants and capias pro fines.

• It is a renewal hold, not a suspension. According to the program's own FAQ, your license is not suspended, and if your license is still valid you can legally drive until its renewal date. The problem comes when it expires and you cannot renew it.
• It does not depend on a warrant being outstanding. The statute is triggered by the failure to appear or the failure to pay or satisfy a judgment. Courts that participate in the program can report it, and Houston's municipal courts list denial of license renewal among the consequences of failing to pay or appear.
• Only the court that reported it can clear it. You cannot clear the hold by paying DPS or by sending DPS proof. If you have tickets in several courts, you have to resolve each court's matter separately.
• A $10 reimbursement fee applies for each reported citation or judgment unless the court finds you indigent (§ 706.006).
• An occupational license may be possible. If you have a renewal hold and need to drive, you may be eligible for an occupational driver's license while you work to satisfy the court. Contact the court to find out.

How a Renewal Hold Gets Lifted

Under § 706.005, once the fee is paid or you are found indigent, the court must immediately tell DPS to stop denying renewal when any of the following happens: you perfect an appeal; the charge is dismissed (other than a dismissal with prejudice for lack of evidence, which is covered separately); a bond is posted to reinstate the charge for which the warrant was issued; the fine and costs on a judgment are paid or discharged; or the court approves another suitable arrangement to satisfy the fine and costs. The program says courts have discretion to require full, partial, or no payment before lifting a hold, and that payment plans and community service are common options.

In other words, you do not necessarily have to pay the ticket to get a renewal hold removed. Posting a bond and getting back into the court system can also clear it.

Warrants are not the only consequence of ignoring a ticket:

• Driver's license renewal hold. Under Transportation Code Chapter 706, the Texas Department of Public Safety may deny renewal of your driver's license for failure to appear, or for failure to pay or satisfy a fine, if the court participates in the Failure to Appear Program. A $10 reimbursement fee generally applies unless the court finds you indigent (§ 706.006).
• Vehicle registration hold. Houston's Scofflaw program, run with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, can block your vehicle registration while you have delinquent City of Houston citations. The city says it takes 5 to 7 business days after you resolve them for the flag to clear, and partial payments do not release it.
• A new criminal charge. Willfully violating a written promise to appear is itself a misdemeanor (Transportation Code § 543.009). In most cases, the promise to appear is the ticket (citation) you signed when you were pulled over.

Most people arrested on fine-only warrants are taken before a judge or released on a bond, rather than held for long. A few points from the statutes:

• Houston's municipal courts impose fines, not jail sentences. The department states that a Houston municipal judge can only assess a fine.
• You can still be held for unpaid fines. If a judgment is not paid, a court can order a capias pro fine. Capias pro fine literally means bring me the "body for the fine." Before it may do so for failure to satisfy a judgment according to its terms, the court must hold a hearing on whether the judgment imposes an undue hardship on you (Art. 45A.259(d)).
• Jail credit. A defendant held for failing to pay can be discharged by showing indigence, or by serving time at a rate of at least $150 for each period of between eight and 24 hours that the court specifies in the judgment (Art. 45A.262).
• A judge must consider your ability to pay when a plea is entered in open court (Art. 45A.252).

Because the outcome depends on the court and the facts, it helps to know your options before you are arrested.

Attorney Kameron Searle is an attorney-bondsman. We post bonds for clients on a case-by-case basis, and we reserve the right to decline. In general, we consider posting a bond only when:

• the client lives in Harris County;
• the client has a valid Texas driver's license;
• the client is not a commercial driver's license holder;
• the client is lawfully residing in the United States; and
• the client has only one set of tickets in warrant status.

If we cannot post a bond for you, you may still post a cash bond yourself or use a surety bond through a bonding company. Call our office to talk about your situation.

What is the Great Texas Warrant Roundup?

An annual, statewide effort in which more than 300 law enforcement agencies and courts, including agencies in Houston and Harris County, focus on people with outstanding warrants, mostly for unresolved fine-only traffic tickets and other Class C misdemeanors. It typically includes a grace period followed by an enforcement period, and it is not an amnesty program.

When is the Houston Warrant Roundup?

Once a year, typically in late winter or early spring. In recent years it has run from late February into early March. Check with the court that issued your ticket for exact dates.

How do I find out if I have a warrant in Houston?

Contact the court that handled your ticket. For City of Houston Municipal Courts, call 311 or (713) 837-0311. For a Harris County Justice of the Peace court or another city's municipal court, contact that court directly. For Justice of the Peace Courts in Harris County, Texas, you can also search Harris County Justice Courts online case search.

Can a court issue a warrant for missing my first court date without warning me?

Not for the initial court setting. Under Article 45A.104(e), the court must first give you notice by phone or regular mail with a new date within 30 days and other required information. This notice rule does not apply to later missed settings, such as a trial date.

What happens if I just pay the old ticket to clear the warrant?

Paying a traffic offense is a plea of guilty or no contest, and you are convicted. A moving violation conviction goes on your driving record and can raise your insurance rates. Depending on your case, there may be better options, such as posting a bond and getting a new court date.

Can I be arrested for an old traffic ticket in Texas?

Yes, if a judge has issued an arrest warrant or a capias pro fine. A warrant for failure to appear generally must be recalled if you voluntarily appear and make a good faith effort to resolve it before it is executed (Art. 45A.104(g)).If you post a surety or cash bond, the warrant of arrest will be removed. When you post the bond, you, your bondsman, or your attorney will sign a promise to appear for a new court date.

Will DPS renew my driver's license if I have an outstanding warrant or unpaid ticket?

Not while a hold is in place. A participating court can report a failure to appear or a failure to pay or satisfy a judgment, and DPS may deny renewal (Transportation Code Chapter 706). It is a renewal hold, not a suspension, so a valid license can be used until it expires. Only the court that reported the hold can clear it, such as after a dismissal, an appeal, a bond being posted to reinstate the charge, payment or discharge of the fine and costs, or another arrangement the court approves (§ 706.005). A $10 fee applies unless you are indigent.

What other penalties can unpaid tickets cause?

A driver's license renewal hold under the Failure to Appear Program (Transportation Code Chapter 706, with a $10 reimbursement fee unless you are indigent), a vehicle registration hold through the Scofflaw program, and a separate misdemeanor charge for violating a written promise to appear (§ 543.009).

Do I still have to pay Driver Responsibility Program surcharges for old tickets?

No. That program was repealed effective September 1, 2019 (House Bill 2048). Websites, including many attorney websites, that still describe points and annual surcharges are outdated.