Free government phone in Texas: the state application

Why Texas has its own application

The FCC lets a state keep its own eligibility process instead of the National Verifier when the state already has one. USAC lists Texas and Oregon as the two opt-out states. In Texas the Public Utility Commission has a Lifeline administrator that checks applications and recertifications; the Texas Lifeline application site, read here on an archived copy captured on September 30, 2026 because the live site refuses automated reading, carries the form and the certifications every applicant signs.

For you, three things follow. The National Verifier website is not the place to apply; a company serving your address, or the state site, starts the application. Recertification letters come from the Texas process too, not from USAC. And the National Verifier’s table of automatic database checks does not apply in Texas, so keep a copy of your benefit letter or income proof at hand, as listed on the documents page.

The test on the Texas form

The first certification on the form reads, in substance, that you or someone in your household gets a benefit from the listed government programs or that annual household income is 135% or less of the federal poverty guidelines. These are the federal criteria of 47 CFR 54.409: SNAP, Medicaid, SSI, Federal Public Housing Assistance and the Veterans and Survivors Pension, and on Tribal lands four more Tribal programs. The income limits are the ones that apply in the 48 states:

A family of five in El Paso earning $50,718 a year qualifies on income, with $1,500 to spare. The same family earning $53,718 does not, unless one member receives Medicaid or SNAP, in which case income no longer matters.

The Texas promises that matter later

Two certifications on the Texas form cause most lost benefits. The first is the address: if you move, you agree to give your company the new address within 30 days, because Lifeline is tied to a household at an address and the one-per-household check runs on it. The second is recertification: the form states that you must answer by the deadline or be removed from the program. Free plans also have to be used at least once every 30 days, as the non-usage page explains.

Texas in numbers

For June 2026, companies claimed federal support for 267,627 Texas subscribers in the USAC disbursement data, rank 7 among states and territories, and 0 claims at the Tribal rate. The USAC company list names 74 companies in Texas: 11 for mobile service and 63 for home phone or internet, most of the home service companies, many of them rural telephone companies and cooperatives by their names, listed for one ZIP code or none. That is why the ZIP code matters more in Texas than anywhere else: in a rural county the only Lifeline home phone may come from the local cooperative, while in Houston or Dallas a dozen mobile companies are listed.