Texas Unemployment Calculator: Up to $619/Week, 26 Weeks

Start with four quarters of covered wages

TWC's current claimant guidance divides the highest base-period quarter by 25 and rounds to the nearest dollar. For claims beginning October 4, 2026, TWC publishes a weekly range of $76–$619; claims that began October 5, 2025 through October 3, 2026 keep the earlier $75–$605 range. Your benefit year starts on the Sunday of the week you applied, so a claim filed Thursday, October 1, 2026 still belongs to the earlier row.

Enter the effective claim date and all four quarters in the base period on the TWC wage statement. Zero means no covered wages in a quarter. An empty box means you do not know the wages yet. Do not substitute take-home pay or just multiply a current weekly wage if your earlier employment was irregular.

The monetary screen also requires wages in at least two quarters and total base-period wages of at least 37 times the weekly amount. Passing this arithmetic does not decide separation, work search, availability or repeat-claim eligibility.

Worked example: a claim filed October 14, 2026

A claim filed on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 has a benefit year that begins on Sunday, October 11, so it uses the October 4, 2026 row and the base period from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. Say the TWC wage statement lists $7,500, $9,000, $10,500, $8,000 for those quarters, oldest first. Each line below is the figure the worksheet above returns for those entries and that date.

Here the 27% limit binds: $9,450 pays 22.5 weekly amounts of $420, so the 23rd payment is a half payment and nothing is left for weeks 24 to 26. Raising the other three quarters would lengthen the claim without changing the weekly amount; only a larger highest quarter raises it.

The total balance can run out before 26 full payments

The maximum benefit balance is the smaller of 26 times the weekly amount or 27% of all base-period wages. The 26-week statutory ceiling is not a promise that every claimant receives 26 full weekly checks.

Suppose the four quarters contain $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 and $4,000. The highest-quarter calculation is $4,000 ÷ 25 = $160. Total wages of $10,000 exceed the $5,920 monetary threshold. The balance is the smaller of $4,160 or $2,700, so it is $2,700.

Ten modeled full-benefit weeks use $1,600. Seventeen requested weeks are still limited to the $2,700 balance; the last payment can be smaller. A displayed maximum week limit and the amount remaining on your claim answer different questions.

If only the $4,000 quarter had wages and the other three were zero, the two-quarter condition would fail. A high quarter alone cannot support an approval result.

Read the TWC determination before budgeting

TWC sends a Statement of Wages and Potential Benefit Amounts. Compare the employers, quarters and wages with your records and follow the notice's correction instructions when something is missing. Combined-state, military and federal employment can require additional review.

This model covers the full weekly rate before current-week earnings, pension deductions, offsets or disqualifications. Partial unemployment has a separate earnings calculation. The optional withholding field only subtracts the percentage you enter; it is not a calculation of your federal or state tax liability. Leave it blank when the election is unknown.

Waiting-week treatment and payment processing can affect the first deposit. Neither the modeled total nor the week ceiling predicts a payment date.

Texas sources and scope

• TWC eligibility and benefit amounts: current claimant formula, wage tests, balance calculation and the dated minimum and maximum table, including the October 4, 2026 row ($76 and $619), retrieved October 6, 2026.
• Texas Labor Code Chapter 207: benefit rules and eligibility conditions.
• TWC claim and appeal guidance: partial benefits and claim process.

Use the agency's actual determination to resolve rounding or other differences with this estimate. Read the calculation scope or compare Florida and North Carolina.

Which Texas schedule applies to your claim date

The worksheet reads the effective claim date and picks the matching TWC row. Dates from 2025-10-05 to 2026-10-03 use the $75 floor and $605 ceiling. Dates from 2026-10-04 to 2027-10-02 use the $76 floor and $619 ceiling. A blank claim date uses the current local date, which today falls in the October 4, 2026 row.

Changing rows can change more than the top figure. At the new $619 ceiling the wage test asks for $22,903 in base-period wages (37 × $619), and the largest possible balance is $16,094 (26 × $619). A $16,000 highest quarter divides to $640, so it is limited to $619 on a claim beginning October 4, 2026 or later, but to $605 on a claim that began before that date (provided the wage test is met). Under §207.002(e), the maximum in force on a claim's effective date stays with that claim until a new benefit year is established.

Why the range changes each October: Texas Labor Code §207.002(b)–(d) sets the maximum weekly amount at 47.6% and the minimum at 7.6% of the average weekly wage in covered employment, computed by October 1 from the preceding year's average, with yearly increases capped at $14 for the maximum and $1 for the minimum. The October 4, 2026 row follows that pattern: up $14 to $619 and up $1 to $76.

The October 2, 2027 end date is a calendar estimate of when the next row should start, not a date TWC has printed. After it, the form switches to the official-award worksheet: enter the weekly award, maximum account and authorized weeks from your determination. A later rate is never copied from an earlier row.