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Lost & found guide — Texas

Lost something in Texas? Here's what to do.

Texas is big enough that "I lost it somewhere in Texas" is a genuinely hard problem — so narrow it fast. The state's airports and transit systems run serious lost and found operations, and while Texas (unusually) has no general finder statute, its theft law still puts honest hand-ins on the right side of the line. Here's the playbook.

The first 48 hours

Narrow it down, file, report, search.

1 Pin the city and the stops. DFW layover? Austin rideshare? San Antonio Riverwalk dinner? List the day's stops in order — everything downstream depends on knowing which desks to call.
2 File with the airports and transit systems you used. All the majors take lost-item reports online — file with each one, same day.
3 Report valuables to local police. Texas has no statewide finder procedure, so found valuables typically land with the city police property room. A report with the department covering where you lost it is your best formal trail.
4 Search the found-item listings here. Keep checking over the following days.
Search found items
Where lost items actually end up

The desks worth contacting.

Dallas–Fort Worth International (DFW) one of the world's busiest airports, with a formal lost and found and online reporting; airline for cabin items, TSA for checkpoints. dfwairport.com
Dallas Love Field (DAL) separate airport, separate lost and found. dallas-lovefield.com
Houston: Bush Intercontinental (IAH) and Hobby (HOU) both run through the Houston Airport System's lost and found. fly2houston.com
Austin-Bergstrom (AUS) and San Antonio (SAT) each runs its own program; start at the official airport site. austintexas.gov/airport flysanantonio.com
Transit DART (Dallas), Houston METRO, CapMetro (Austin), and VIA (San Antonio) each run lost and found for buses and rail; file with the agency you rode. dart.org ridemetro.org capmetro.org viainfo.net
City police property rooms with no statewide finder statute, found valuables in Texas are usually processed by the local police department's property unit; call the non-emergency line for the city where you lost it.
Rideshares and rental cars use the in-app lost item flow or the rental company's online form.
The law

The Texas rule, in plain English.

Texas is the odd one out among our covered states: it has no general lost-property statute telling finders what to do with found items. What it does have is a theft law with teeth — under Texas Penal Code §31.03, keeping property you know belongs to someone else, when you have a reasonable way to identify or reach the owner (an ID in the wallet, a tagged phone), can constitute theft. So the practical rule in Texas is simple: make a reasonable effort to return it, and when in doubt, hand it to local police and get a receipt. Individual cities and agencies set their own holding and disposal policies for unclaimed property.

This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. See the statute: Tex. Penal Code §31.03.

How MyQRSearch helps

One search instead of ten phone calls.

In a state with no standard finder procedure, a shared directory matters more, not less: MyQRSearch partners — hotels, gyms, venues, schools — log the items they find into one searchable place, so "somewhere in Texas" becomes "logged, right here."

MyQRSearch doesn't have partner locations in Texas yet — early partners get founding-location placement in this directory.

Run a Texas business that finds things? From a Dallas hotel to an Austin music venue: log found items in minutes and let owners come to you.

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