The Appeal Clock
Texas Family Appeal Deadlines
These deadlines come from the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure and the Texas Family Code, so they apply the same way in every Texas county. They are strict, and they start running the moment an order is signed.
| Deadline | What is due | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| 3 working days | De novo hearing request | From receiving notice of the substance of an associate judge's report. The request must specify the issues. Tex. Fam. Code § 201.015 — in Title IV-D cases § 201.1042 runs instead from when the associate judge signs. |
| 20 days | Accelerated notice of appeal | Parental termination and CPS final orders only. Post-trial motions do NOT extend this one. |
| 20 days | Request findings of fact | Bench trials only. Without findings, the appellate court implies every finding needed to support the judgment. Extends the appeal deadline to 90 days. |
| 30 days | Notice of appeal | Filed in the trial court, not the court of appeals. A second party may file within the same period or 14 days after the first notice, whichever is later. |
| 30 days | Motion for new trial | Also a motion to modify the judgment or to reinstate. Any of these extends the appeal deadline to 90 days. |
| 30 days | Notice of past due findings | Runs from your original request. Failing to file this waives any complaint that the judge never issued findings. |
| 45 days | Late notice of appeal | The 15-day grace period. Requires two filings — the notice of appeal in the trial court and a motion in the appellate court — plus a reasonable explanation. |
| 75 days | Motion for new trial overruled automatically | If no written order has been signed by then, the motion is overruled by operation of law. |
| 90 days | Extended notice of appeal | Available only if a qualifying motion or findings request was timely filed by any party. |
| 15 days after the opinion | Motion for rehearing or en banc reconsideration | In accelerated appeals the court may shorten this deadline or deny the right to file at all. |
| 45 days after the opinion | Petition for review, Supreme Court of Texas | Or 45 days after the last rehearing ruling. Review is wholly discretionary — the Court is not an error-correcting court. |
One thing you can rely on anywhere in Texas: no court of appeals may lengthen or shorten the deadline to perfect a civil appeal. The appellate rules forbid it, so a local rule or a local practice cannot buy you more time than the table above allows. What does vary by court is the practice after your appeal is filed — the docketing statement, mediation referral, and oral-argument mechanics all differ, so we confirm those against the specific court hearing your case.
Two Different Paths
De novo request or appeal?
These are not the same remedy, they run on different clocks, and they go to different judges. Which one applies depends on who signed your order.
Path One
De novo hearing before the referring district judge
Available when an associate judge made the ruling. The referring district judge rehears the matter rather than reviewing it for error. Under Tex. Fam. Code § 201.015 the request is due within three working days of receiving notice of the substance of the associate judge's report; in Title IV-D cases § 201.1042 runs that window from the date the judge signs the order.
Two details decide whether it works. The request must specify the issues you want reheard — anything you leave out is not before the district judge. And the associate judge's order stays in full force and remains enforceable in the meantime, so the ruling you are challenging still binds you while you wait for the hearing.
Stays in the trial court. Hearing set within 30 days. Shortest deadline on this page.
Path Two
Appeal to the court of appeals
Review of a final order by Houston's First or Fourteenth Court of Appeals. The appellate court does not rehear the case — it reviews the existing record for error under the abuse of discretion standard. The notice of appeal is generally due 30 days after the order is signed, or 90 days if a qualifying post-trial motion or request for findings is timely filed.
Choosing not to ask for a de novo hearing does not forfeit your appeal. Under Tex. Fam. Code § 201.016 the controlling date is generally when the referring court signs — though for agreed orders, default orders, and certain final orders the associate judge's signature date controls instead.
Leaves the trial court. Decided on the record already made.
Scope of Review
What an appeal can and can't change
An appeal is not a second trial. For property division, custody, and support, the standard of review is abuse of discretion — the question is not whether a different judge might have ruled differently, but whether the trial court acted outside the bounds of its discretion.
Insufficiency of the evidence is a factor within that abuse of discretion analysis, not an independent ground you can raise on its own. Standing alone, "the judge got the facts wrong" is close to unwinnable — which is why the findings-of-fact request in the first 20 days matters so much.
Findings of fact are available after a bench trial, and the consequence of not requesting them is severe: without findings, the appellate court implies every finding needed to support the judgment. The record then works against you by default.
No new evidence and no new testimony is taken on appeal. The case is decided on the record that already exists — the transcripts, exhibits, and filings from the trial court. Evidence you wish had been presented below generally cannot be added later, and there is no fresh look at who was more credible.
And there is a limit on what a win actually gets you in a property case. Under Jacobs v. Jacobs, an appellate court cannot re-divide marital property itself. Where the error materially affects the just-and-right division, the court must remand the entire community estate to the trial court to be divided again — not simply adjust the piece you appealed.
While the Appeal Is Pending
Does filing an appeal stop the order?
Usually not. Under Tex. Fam. Code § 109.002, custody and support orders remain in force during an appeal unless a court suspends them. Filing a notice of appeal does not, by itself, pause your obligations or change your possession schedule.
Some orders cannot be suspended at all. A termination brought by the State can never be superseded, no matter what is on appeal. Money portions of a decree are different — those can usually be suspended with a bond or a deposit.
But understand what a bond does and does not buy you. Where the judgment involves conservatorship or custody of a child, enforcement is not suspended with or without security unless the trial court orders it. In other words, posting a bond does nothing for the custody part of your case. The appellate court can suspend enforcement on a proper showing, but that is a separate request — not something a bond accomplishes on its own.
The tool that actually matters in a family case is a temporary order pending appeal, which can include suspending the judgment you are appealing, ordering support, protecting property, or awarding one spouse use of the residence. It carries two separate deadlines, and the first is the one that catches people.
First, the motion itself must be filed by the date your notice of appeal is due — 30 days after a signed judgment in an ordinary case, but as little as 20 days if the appeal is accelerated. File it late and the motion is barred outright. Second, the trial court's power to hold the hearing and sign the order runs only to the 60th day after a notice of appeal is filed — and that clock can be started by the other side's notice, not just yours. After day 60 the trial court can still modify and enforce an order it already signed; it just cannot sign a new one.
One common misunderstanding is worth naming here. Temporary orders generally are not appealable at all — the vehicle for challenging one is a petition for writ of mandamus, not an appeal. Any page telling you a temporary order gets an accelerated appeal is describing something else.
Where Your Case Goes
Which court will hear your appeal
Texas has fifteen courts of appeals — fourteen regional courts, each covering a defined group of counties, plus the Fifteenth Court of Appeals in Austin, which covers the whole state but hears only certain kinds of civil cases. Your appeal goes to the regional court for the county where your case was tried.
Family cases never go to the Fifteenth Court. That is worth saying plainly, because the notice of appeal now asks whether your case was brought by or against a state agency — and a termination suit filed by the Department of Family and Protective Services literally was. The statute creating the Fifteenth Court carves out proceedings brought under the Family Code, so your appeal stays in your regional court. The form asks the question; the statute supplies the answer.
Ten counties are the exception to the one-county-one-court rule, and they are our home ground: Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Waller, and Washington are served by two courts at once — Houston's First and Fourteenth Courts of Appeals. Neither side picks. The trial court clerk assigns the appeal randomly between them, except where one of the courts has already heard a related matter, which is why the notice of appeal has to disclose any prior related case.
One more thing that surprises people: the Supreme Court of Texas can transfer appeals from one court of appeals to another to balance the courts' workloads. If that happens, the court deciding your case changes, but the law does not — the new court must apply the precedent of the court your case came from.
Mandamus is routed differently, and it is widely misdescribed. Under the two courts' shared local rules the calendar decides which clerk you present the petition to — the First Court from January through June, the Fourteenth from July through December. But that intake clerk then logs petitions sequentially and alternates them between the two courts, so presenting in March does not mean the First Court will be the one to rule. The calendar controls where you file, not who decides.
| Court | Average time to disposition | Clearance rate |
|---|---|---|
| Fourteenth Court of Appeals (Houston) | 7.0 months | 96% |
| First Court of Appeals (Houston) | 8.5 months | 85% — with a growing backlog |
What that means in practice: a contested appeal with full briefing and oral argument commonly runs nine to fifteen months, and a meaningful minority take longer than eighteen — particularly in the First Court, where roughly a quarter of the pending civil cases are already more than a year old.
Source: FY2025 Texas Office of Court Administration data. These are civil-appeal averages — family cases are not broken out separately — and they are averages rather than medians, measuring only the appeal itself, not the trial beforehand or a later petition for review.
After You File
What happens once the notice is in
The clerk routes the case to one of the two Houston courts, and the record gets built in two pieces: the clerk's record, prepared by the district clerk, and the reporter's record, ordered from the individual court reporter who took down the trial.
Then comes briefing — the appellant's brief, the appellee's response, and an optional reply. A three-justice panel decides the case, with or without oral argument, and opinions issue on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
If the court orders mediation, which of the two courts you drew matters again: the Fourteenth abates the appeal for 60 days, while in the First the briefing deadlines keep running.
Court Costs
What an appeal costs
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Notice of appeal filing fee | $205 |
| Petition for writ of mandamus | $155 |
| Clerk's record | $1.00 per page |
| Reporter's record | No published per-page rate — set case by case |
| Motions in the court of appeals | $10 — motion for rehearing $15 |
| Petition for review to the Supreme Court of Texas | $155 plus $75 if granted |
| If you cannot afford the record | The county may be ordered to pay |
The reporter's record is normally the largest single cost of an appeal, and neither county publishes a per-page rate — the court reporter sets it, so the number has to be quoted from that specific reporter rather than read off a schedule. Once the request is paid, the reporter has 120 days to furnish the record, and if the fee is disputed the judge sets a reasonable amount. Expect a modest certificate or seal fee per certified document on top of the clerk's record.
Court costs are only part of the picture. Attorney's fees for an appeal depend on the size of the record and the number of issues raised. We will walk you through the likely cost of your specific appeal before you commit to it.
When the Ordinary Deadline Is Gone
If your deadline has already passed
Two narrow doors stay open after the ordinary appeal window closes. Both are harder than an appeal, and neither is a second chance to reargue the case.
A restricted appeal runs six months from the day the judgment was signed. It is available only if you did not participate in the hearing that produced the judgment — in person or through a lawyer — and did not file a post-trial motion, a findings request, or a notice of appeal. Courts also require the error to be apparent on the face of the record, which is a real limit: nothing outside the existing record can prove your point. The usual "I never received notice of the judgment" extension does not apply here.
A bill of review is not an appeal at all. It is a new lawsuit, filed in the same court that signed the judgment — only that court has jurisdiction over it. Generally it must be brought within four years, though extrinsic fraud can extend that and some statutes set a shorter period. You must show a meritorious claim or defense that you were prevented from presenting by fraud, accident, or the wrongful act of the other party, or by official mistake, and that none of it was your own fault. Texas courts grant these sparingly, because finality of judgments matters.
These are the doors for someone who learns about a default divorce months later, or who was never properly served. If that is your situation, the facts about how and when you found out matter enormously — bring them to us before you assume nothing can be done.
Texas Family Law Appeals — Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about deadlines, de novo hearings, and appealing a Texas family court order.
How long do I have to appeal a Texas family law order?
An associate judge signed my order. Why do I only have three working days?
Does filing an appeal stop the custody or support order?
Can the court of appeals just re-divide our property the way I think is fair?
Which court hears my appeal, and how long will it take?
What does a Texas family law appeal cost?
What does an appellate consultation cost?
Do you handle appeals outside Harris and Fort Bend County?
Get your deadlines calendared
Appellate consultations are a flat $350. In that consultation we calendar every deadline that applies to your order, evaluate whether error was preserved at trial, and map your realistic options — direct appeal, de novo hearing, mandamus, or one of the late-stage remedies.
Talk to Us Before the Deadline Runs
If a Texas family court has ruled against you, time is the one thing we cannot get back. Contact our team today.