# The Texas Mineral Owner's Guide | Berlin Royalties > A free plain-English guide for Texas mineral owners: deductions, payment deadlines, forced pooling, severance and income tax, whether you can lose your minerals, and ten questions for any buyer. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/texas/ Publisher: Berlin Royalties, a veteran-owned oil and gas mineral and royalty buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, buying for its own account since 2014. Call or text 918-984-1645. License: free to quote and cite with attribution to Berlin Royalties and a link to the source URL. Mineral Owner's Guide · Texas ## The Texas mineral owner's guide. Texas has no state income tax, which makes it the cleanest state in the country for an out of state mineral seller. It also has almost no compulsory pooling, which makes it one of the hardest places to be an unleased owner surrounded by production. [What Are Mine Worth?](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) [Ask a Landman, Free](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) This is the whole guide, on one page, free, with nothing gated. It covers what you own, the Texas law that decides what lands in your bank account, whether your minerals can be taken from you, what happens if a well is drilled and you are not leased, what you owe when you sell, and the questions worth asking any buyer including us. ## 1. What you actually own Almost every confusing thing in oil and gas comes from the fact that the mineral estate is not one thing. It is a bundle of five rights that can be split apart and sold separately: - The right to **develop**, including surface access - The right to **lease**, called the executive right - The right to receive **bonus** - The right to receive **delay rentals** - The right to receive **royalty** A **mineral interest** is all five. A **non-participating royalty interest** is only the fifth, with no say in leasing and no share of bonus. An **overriding royalty interest** is carved out of a particular lease and dies when that lease dies. A **working interest** takes revenue net of costs and, unlike all of the above, can lose you money. Which one you hold changes the value, the tax treatment, and who has to sign what. Start here: [NPRIs](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/non-participating-royalty-interest/), [overriding royalties](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/overriding-royalty-interest/), and the [glossary](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/glossary/). ## 2. Can money be taken out of your Texas check? Texas is an at the well state, but *Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd. v. Puig*, No. 24-1033 (Tex. Apr. 10, 2026) is the current word on cost free royalty language. Whether deductions are lawful turns on your exact clause. Under *Van Dyke v. The Navigator Group*, 668 S.W.3d 353 (Tex. 2023), a double fraction in an old deed may mean you own eight times what you were told. Your first move if the deductions look wrong is a written demand by certified mail, keeping the receipt, because the certification is what starts the clock. Our [free letter templates](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/letter-templates/) have the wording and the [statement decoder](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-statement-decoder/) explains every line on the stub. ## 3. When Texas has to pay you First payment is due **120 days** after the month of first sale. Ongoing is 60 days for oil and 90 days for gas if the lease is silent. Interest runs at the **NY Fed discount rate plus 2 points**, and none accrues while a bona fide title dispute exists. The statutes are **Tex. Nat. Res. Code §§ 91.402 and 91.403**. | **Minimum payment rule** | Under $100 may be held until reached or 12 months, whichever comes first. You can demand monthly payment in writing. || **Time limit to sue over an underpayment** | 4 years, and there is no discovery rule | A stopped check very often is not a stopped well. The usual causes are a balance under the minimum threshold, a title change putting the interest in suspense, an unprobated death in the chain, an address the payor could not deliver to, or a change of payor after an acquisition. That money does not disappear; it sits in suspense and eventually goes to state unclaimed property. See [unclaimed royalties](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/unclaimed-royalties/). ## 4. Can you lose your Texas minerals? No dormant mineral act. Texas minerals do not lapse for nonuse. ## 5. If they drill and you are not leased Technically yes, under the Mineral Interest Pooling Act, but it is narrow and rarely granted. In practice Texas is a voluntary pooling state, which means an unleased Texas owner surrounded by production has far less leverage than an Oklahoma owner in the same position. The reason any of this exists is the [rule of capture](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/rule-of-capture/): a well on the tract next to yours can legally drain oil and gas from under your land, and you cannot sue anyone for it. Pooling is what converts being drained into having a share. The expensive mistake is almost never the pooling itself. It is missing the election deadline, which turns a real choice into a default nobody picked. ## 6. What Texas takes **Severance tax.** 4.6 percent on oil and 7.5 percent on gas, with exemptions for high cost gas and various incentives. HB 3159 added a restimulated well exemption. **When you sell.** **No Texas state income tax.** No Texas tax on your capital gain and no withholding at closing. Along with Wyoming, Texas is the simplest state in the country to sell minerals from as a nonresident. You still owe federal capital gains tax and your home state may tax the gain. See [taxes when you sell mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-capital-gains-tax/), and if you inherited the interest, understand the **stepped-up basis** before you sell anything: your basis is generally the value at the date of death, not what your grandparents paid, which frequently means far less taxable gain than owners expect. ## 7. Inherited minerals and probate in Texas Texas offers an affidavit of heirship that is widely accepted for mineral title, which makes Texas easier than most states for an unprobated estate. Independent administration is also common and fast. The single most common thing we see is an interest still sitting in the name of someone who died twenty or forty years ago. It is fixable, it is cheaper to fix than to leave, and we pay for the curative work as part of a purchase. See [inherited mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/inherited-mineral-rights/), [selling before probate is done](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-inherited-minerals-probate/), and [transferring inherited minerals](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/transfer-inherited-minerals/). ## 8. Where the Texas records are Railroad Commission for well records, and the County Clerk in each of 254 counties for land records. Texas uses abstract and survey legals rather than section, township and range in much of the state. Our [well records by state](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/well-records/) page links every state's free public search, and our [operator directory](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/operators/) covers more than 38,000 operators with contact information refreshed weekly. ## 9. How valuation actually works Producing royalties are priced off cash flow and decline. Non-producing minerals are priced off location and activity. Almost every offer you receive is built the same way: take your last twelve months of royalty income and apply a multiple. That method has one predictable failure, and it is worth understanding because it is where most owners lose money. **It assigns a value of zero to anything that has not happened yet.** A permit next door. An undrilled bench under your section. A refrac on an old wellbore. A unit being formed. None of that is in last year's income, so none of it is in the offer. Ask any buyer, including us, to show you their remaining location count and the reasoning behind it. If they will not break it out, they are pricing your check rather than your minerals. See [how mineral rights are valued](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-value/). ## 10. Ten questions to ask any buyer - Are you buying for your own account, or brokering this to someone else? - What entity will appear on the deed, and can I look it up? - Show me your valuation. What did you assume for price, decline, and remaining locations? - How many undrilled locations did you count, and at what probability? - Who pays title work, document preparation, and recording? - Is there a minimum interest size, and are you buying part of what I own or all of it? - How long is this offer open, and what happens if I say no? - Will you tell me if you think I should keep it? - Is there money sitting in suspense on this interest, and who keeps it? - Who at your company will answer the phone in six months? You are welcome to use every one of these on us. That is the point of publishing them. ### Send us what you have. We will tell you what it is. A check stub, an old deed, a division order, a pooling order, or just the county. We will identify the interest, value it with the arithmetic shown, and tell you honestly if you should keep it. Free, no obligation, and no mailing list. [Get a Free Valuation](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) [Ask a Landman](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) ## More on Texas - [Selling mineral rights in Texas](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/texas/), with the full state detail - [Royalty payment laws by state](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-payment-laws/), with statutory citations - [Division orders: what to check before you sign](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/division-order/) - [Compare your options before selling](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/compare-selling-options/) and [when not to sell](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/when-not-to-sell/) - [Got an offer letter?](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/got-an-offer/) and [before you sign](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/before-you-sign/) - [Owner's guides for the other states we buy in](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/) Last reviewed August 2026. Statutes, rates, and case law change, and where Texas law is genuinely unsettled we have said so rather than filling the gap. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this guide is general information rather than advice about your interest. For a dispute worth real money, hire a lawyer in Texas.