SSA Hearing Offices in Texas

Your complete SSA hearing office Texas directory — locations, phone numbers, current wait times, and approval rates for all seven offices in the state.

When Your SSDI Case Reaches a Social Security Hearing Office in Texas

If your Texas disability claim has already been denied — most likely twice, at the initial and reconsideration stages — your next step is a hearing in front of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) at one of the state’s seven SSA hearing offices. Each office is also referred to as an SSA OHO (Office of Hearing Operations). Texas hearings work a little differently than in most states, mostly because of sheer size. The state stretches nearly 900 miles from the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, and all seven hearing offices fall under SSA’s Dallas-based Region 6, which also covers Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. In practice, that means the judges and procedures you’ll run into trace back to Dallas rather than Washington — and it’s part of why offices on opposite ends of the state can end up handling a hearing very differently.

What is a Hearing?

A hearing is one specific step in a longer appeals process, and it’s worth knowing where it falls:
  1. Initial application — reviewed by Texas’s state disability determination agency.
  2. Reconsideration — a second review if the initial application is denied, which is the outcome for most first-time applicants.
  3. Hearing before an ALJ — the stage covered on this page, and typically the first point where you can present your case in person and add new evidence.
  4. Appeals Council review — available if the ALJ’s decision is unfavorable.
  5. Federal court — the final option if the Appeals Council declines to change the decision.
Most Texas claimants who reach a hearing have already been denied twice on paper, which is part of why the hearing stage tends to see meaningfully better outcomes than the earlier steps.

Why is an SSDI Hearing Important?

A social security disability hearing in Texas is often the point where a case actually turns around:

In-Person Reviews

Judges can consider new medical evidence, hear directly from you and any expert witnesses, and apply a level of judgment the earlier paperwork-only reviews don't allow.

Mitigates Texas Challenges

Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the country, which means a lot of claimants arrive at their hearing with real gaps in their medical record simply because they couldn't afford ongoing treatment. This is something a judge has to be walked through, not left to assume.

SSA Hearing Offices in Texas at a Glance

7
Hearing Offices
statewide
~7.1 mo
Avg Wait to Hearing
request → hearing date
~260 days
Avg Time to Decision
~8.6 months
~57%
Statewide Approval Rate
awards issued
19,358
Decisions Issued
most recent period
16,776
Cases Pending
statewide
Office Performance Range — Confirmed Extremes

Wait Time Request to hearing date

~7.1 mo avg
5 mo 6 mo 7 mo 8 mo 9 mo
6 mo Houston North
8 mo Dallas North

Processing Time Request to final decision

~260 days avg
200 230 260 290 320
226 days Houston North
291 days Dallas North

Approval Rate Cases decided in claimant's favor

~57% avg
50% 55% 60% 65% 70%
52.7% San Antonio
65.3% Dallas North
Caseload Snapshot
19,358 decided
16,776 pending
Decided
Pending
Office Spotlights

Houston North

Best Performance
Wait to hearing 6 months
Days to decision 226 days

Dallas North

Longest Wait · Highest Approval
Wait to hearing 8 months
Days to decision 291 days
Approval rate 65.3%

San Antonio

Lowest Approval Rate
Approval rate 52.7%
How to Read the Ranges
  • Best-performing office
  • Slowest / highest office
  • Statewide average
  • Confirmed performance spread

Find Your Disability Hearing Office in Texas

Texas SSA Hearing Offices
Below, you’ll find every SSA hearing office location in Texas with current contact information, the field offices and cities each one serves, and the latest available wait time and approval rate data. Use it to find your assigned SSA hearing office in Texas with the phone number and address. If you’re not sure which office covers your claim, check the “areas served” list below for your city or county, or call the office directly. Every SSA hearing office phone number below reaches the office itself, not a national queue.

Each listing also includes two important hearing timeframes, unique to each Texas OHO :

  • Wait time answers “how long until I actually sit in front of a judge?” — it’s the time from requesting a hearing to the hearing itself.
  • Processing time answers “how long until my case is fully done?” — it’s the full time from requesting a hearing through evidence review, the hearing, and the judge’s written decision. It’s always longer than wait time because it includes everything wait time covers, plus the time it takes to write and issue the decision afterward.
  1. Dallas (Downtown) Hearing Office
  • Address: Harwood Center, Suite 2300, 1999 Bryan Street, Dallas, TX 75201
  • Phone: (866) 563-3885
  • Fax: (833) 648-0165
  • eFax: (877) 904-5484
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Corsicana, Dallas (Fair Park), Dallas (Oak Cliff), Georgetown, San Marcos, South Austin, Temple, Waco
  • Wait time (to hearing): 7 months | Processing time (to decision): 285 days (~9.5 months) | Approval rate: 60.2%
  1. Dallas (North) Hearing Office
  • Address: Building 9, Suite 500, 12790 Merit Drive, Dallas, TX 75251
  • Phone: (866) 331-7135
  • Fax: (833) 631-1014
  • eFax: (877) 904-5524
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Durant, OK; and in Texas — Dallas (North), Denton, Greenville, Longview, McKinney, Mid-Cities, Palestine, Paris, Pleasant Grove, Mount Pleasant, Sherman, Tyler, Waxahachie
  • Wait time (to hearing): 8 months | Processing time (to decision): 291 days (~9.7 months) | Approval rate: 65.3%
  1. Fort Worth Hearing Office
  • Address: Federal Office Building, Room 9A27, 819 Taylor Street, Fort Worth, TX 76102
  • Phone: (866) 613-2744
  • Fax: (833) 985-2267
  • eFax: (877) 904-5540
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Abilene, Big Spring, Brownwood, Cleburne, Fort Worth, Fort Worth (South), Lubbock, Odessa, Plainview, San Angelo
  • Wait time (to hearing): 7.5 months | Processing time (to decision): 249 days (~8.3 months) | Approval rate: 54.7%
  1. Rio Grande Valley Hearing Office (Harlingen)
  • Address: Suite 200, 2009 West Jefferson Avenue, Harlingen, TX 78550
  • Phone: (877) 452-6985
  • Fax: (833) 702-0719
  • eFax: (877) 435-0329
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Brownsville, Harlingen, McAllen, Mission
  • Wait time (to hearing): 7.5 months | Processing time (to decision): 278 days (~9.3 months) | Approval rate: 58.9%
  1. Houston (North) Hearing Office
  • Address: 4015 Aldine Bender Road, Houston, TX 77032
  • Phone: (877) 850-7829
  • Fax: (833) 631-1018
  • eFax: (877) 486-2938
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Beaumont, Brenham, Bryan, Conroe, Houston (Downtown), Houston (Northeast), Houston (Southeast), Lufkin, Port Arthur
  • Wait time (to hearing): 6 months | Processing time (to decision): 226 days (~7.5 months) | Approval rate: 56.8%
  1. Houston (West) Hearing Office
  • Address: 9700 Richmond Avenue, Suite 200, Houston, TX 77042
  • Phone: (866) 779-5456
  • Fax: (833) 648-0167
  • eFax: (877) 847-1603
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Angleton, Galveston, Houston (Northwest), Houston (Southwest), Pasadena, Victoria
  • Wait time (to hearing): 7 months | Processing time (to decision): 252 days (~8.4 months) | Approval rate: 56.0%
  1. San Antonio Hearing Office
  • Address: 10222 San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78216
  • Phone: (855) 829-8915
  • Fax: (833) 694-0067
  • eFax: (877) 864-5402
  • Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Areas served: Austin, Alice, Corpus Christi, Eagle Pass, El Paso (Downtown), Kerrville, Laredo, San Antonio (Central), San Antonio (Downtown), San Antonio (Northwest), San Antonio (South), Seguin
  • Wait time (to hearing): 7 months | Processing time (to decision): 242 days (~8.1 months) | Approval rate: 52.7%

Note on El Paso: claimants in El Paso are served by the San Antonio hearing office despite the significant distance between the two cities — a good example of why it pays to confirm your assigned office rather than assume it’s the nearest one geographically.

Bookmark this page as your Texas OHO locator, so you can easily find your SSI or SSDI hearing office in Texas. We’ll keep the wait time and approval rate figures current as SSA updates its public reporting.

What Happens at a Texas Disability Hearing?

The federal hearing process is the same everywhere in the country, but a few things play out differently in Texas because of how the state is built:

1

Request received and docketed

The hearing office logs your request and assigns it to an ALJ's docket.

2

Case file review and development

Staff review your file, may request updated records, and can order a consultative exam. This step tends to carry extra weight in Texas — with the nation's highest uninsured rate, it's common for claimants' records to have coverage gaps that need explaining rather than just filling.

3

Hearing notice

You'll receive notice of the date, time, and format, typically at least 75 days out.

4

Choosing a format

Because Texas is the second-largest state by land area and some claimants live hours from their assigned office (a Panhandle resident assigned to Fort Worth, for example, or a Rio Grande Valley claimant near Brownsville), phone and video hearings are used heavily here — not just as a fallback, but as the practical default for a lot of claimants.

5

The hearing itself

Expect the judge, you, your representative (if you have one), and often a vocational expert and/or medical expert. Along the border and in South and Central Texas, interpreters are a routine part of hearings given the large Spanish-speaking population served by offices like Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio.

6

Testimony and questions

The ALJ asks about your medical conditions, symptoms, daily activities, and work history. Given Texas's labor-heavy economy — oil and gas, construction, trucking, warehousing, agriculture — vocational testimony in Texas hearings often centers on physically demanding past work and what, if anything, someone with your specific limitations could still perform.

7

Post-hearing record

The judge may leave the record open briefly for additional evidence before closing it.

8

Decision

After the hearing, the judge still needs to write and issue a decision — this is the gap between an office's wait time (to the hearing) and its processing time (to the final decision); see the stats above for both, by office.

Good to know: hearings are non-adversarial. There's no government attorney arguing against you — the ALJ's job is to weigh the medical and vocational evidence and apply Social Security's rules.

How to Win a Social Security Disability Hearing in Texas

Approval rates across Texas hearing offices currently range from roughly 53% to 65%, which means preparation genuinely moves the needle. In Texas specifically, a few things stand out:

  • Close the coverage gaps, don’t just accept them. With 16.7% of Texans uninsured, treatment gaps in medical records are common and judges know it. Federally Qualified Health Centers, county indigent health programs, and sliding-scale clinics can help build a documented treatment history even without insurance, and a representative can help frame existing gaps honestly rather than letting them look like your condition improved.
  • A statement from your treating provider. A detailed medical source statement addressing your specific functional limitations — how long you can sit, stand, lift, concentrate — carries real weight, especially where the rest of the record is thin.
  • Consistency between your testimony and the record. Judges compare what you say at the hearing to what’s documented in your file and any function reports you’ve submitted.
  • Vocational preparation geared to Texas work. Because so many Texas claimants come out of physically demanding fields — oilfield work, construction, trucking, agriculture, warehouse and manufacturing jobs — cases often hinge on whether any less physically demanding work exists that fits your age, education, and limitations. Knowing how the vocational expert’s testimony works, and being ready to respond to it, matters more here than in states with a more office-based workforce.
  • Language access, if you need it. If English isn’t your first language, especially in the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, or El Paso area, make sure an interpreter is requested and confirmed well before your hearing date — miscommunication at the hearing can affect how your testimony is understood.
  • Legal representation. Claimants who appear with an experienced disability representative tend to be better prepared for exactly these issues, from documenting care despite insurance gaps to cross-examining the vocational expert.
  • Showing up ready. Bring photo ID, a list of current medications, and be prepared to clearly describe a typical day, including your worst days, not just your best ones.

Do You Need a Lawyer for Your Texas Disability Hearing?

You’re allowed to represent yourself at an SSA hearing, but Texas raises the stakes on preparation in ways that aren’t true everywhere: the state’s uninsured rate is the highest in the nation, its hearing offices cover enormous, unevenly resourced territory, and its workforce skews toward the kind of physically demanding jobs that make vocational testimony a bigger factor than in more office-based states. An ALJ can only rule on the record in front of them — if a coverage gap goes unexplained, or the vocational testimony goes unchallenged, a winnable case can still come back denied.

This is where Disability Advocates Group comes in. Our team handles Social Security disability hearings across Texas, from Dallas–Fort Worth down to the Rio Grande Valley and out to El Paso, and we’re familiar with how the state’s seven hearing offices tend to run. We build out the medical record before your hearing, prepare you for what the ALJ and vocational expert will ask, and represent you directly at the hearing — all at no upfront cost, since disability representatives are generally paid only if your case is approved.

Get Help Preparing for Your Texas Disability Hearing

Disability Advocates Group helps Texas claimants prepare for hearings at every SSA hearing office in the state, from gathering the right medical evidence to representing you in front of the ALJ. A stronger file today means a better shot at approval on your hearing date.
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Frequently Asked Questions

What happens at an SSA hearing in Texas?
An Administrative Law Judge reviews your case file, asks you questions about your medical conditions and daily functioning, and typically hears testimony from a vocational expert about what work, if any, someone with your limitations could perform. The judge issues a written decision afterward rather than ruling on the spot.
You generally have 60 days from the date you receive your reconsideration denial to request a hearing before an ALJ. Missing this window can require showing “good cause” for the delay, so it’s best to file as soon as possible.

The hearing itself usually runs 30 to 60 minutes. The bigger time factors are the two clocks running before and after it: wait time, which is how long you wait to get a hearing date (currently averaging about 6 to 8 months in Texas, depending on the office), and processing time, which is the full span from your hearing request to a final written decision, including the judge’s write-up time afterward (currently averaging roughly 7.5 to 9.7 months in Texas).

Yes, and in Texas it’s especially common — given how far some claimants live from their assigned office, phone and video hearings are a routine option, not just a workaround. You can typically request your preferred format when your hearing is scheduled.
Bring a valid photo ID, a current list of medications and treating providers, any updated medical records not already in your file, and a copy of your hearing notice. If you’ve received care through a community health center, county program, or other low-cost clinic due to lack of insurance, bring those records too — they still count as part of your treatment history.
Each Texas hearing office has its own social security hearing office phone number and fax line, listed above — reach out to the office assigned to your case for scheduling and status questions. You can find your assigned office on hearing notices and other correspondence from Social Security, or by checking the areas-served list above, which doubles as a social security hearing office locator for the whole state.
Generally no. SSA hearing offices work by appointment and typically ask that you call ahead rather than walk in, especially since many hearings are conducted remotely. Calling first also helps you reach the right department faster.
Missing a scheduled hearing without notifying the office in advance can result in your case being dismissed. If you have a legitimate reason, contact the hearing office as soon as possible — the ALJ can reschedule if you show good cause for missing it.
Common mistakes include downplaying symptoms out of pride, giving inconsistent answers compared to your medical records, showing up without updated records, and not preparing for the vocational expert’s questions. In Texas specifically, letting an insurance-driven treatment gap go unexplained is a frequent, avoidable mistake.
Yes. If the ALJ denies your claim, you can request review by the Social Security Appeals Council, and from there, if necessary, file a civil action in federal district court. Each level has its own deadlines, so it’s important to act quickly after receiving an unfavorable decision.