If you have someone locked up in Texas, two questions come up fast: what can they buy, and what can you send. The answer depends on where they are held. A state prison run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice works one way, a county jail works another, and the federal system plays by its own rulebook. Here is how all three actually work, so you are not guessing or wasting money.
One thing worth saying up front. The most dependable way to stay in touch with anyone inside is the mail. A letter and a few printed photos get through when an account is short or when a facility takes no packages. Treat that as your baseline and the rest as extra.
Texas state prisons (TDCJ)
In a TDCJ unit there is no cash. Money goes onto the inmate's Inmate Trust Fund account, and they spend it at the unit commissary, the store, on snacks, hygiene items, books, and stamps.
Texas gives you a long list of ways to deposit: a money order or cashier's check mailed to the Inmate Trust Fund in Huntsville, a free monthly checking-account debit that TDCJ runs itself, plus Access Corrections, ACE Cash Express, JPay, TouchPay, and the state's own eCommDirect portal. Two Texas rules matter most. First, since 2020 only people on the inmate's approved visitor list or approved phone list are allowed to deposit money, so get on one of those lists first. Second, the free monthly checking debit is worth setting up if you send money regularly, since it skips the per-deposit fees.
Care packages and eCommDirect
Texas does not run an outside care-package vendor the way many states do. Instead, the same eCommDirect portal that takes deposits also lets approved family and friends buy commissary items directly for your person, shipped to the unit. There is a catch worth understanding: the direct-purchase limit is quarterly and shared by everyone, up to $70 for each of the first three quarters and up to $95 in October through December for the holidays. That cap is separate from what your person can spend out of their own trust account. So coordinate with other relatives, because the first person to order can use up the whole quarter's allowance.
That leads to the one warning worth repeating. Use eCommDirect or the unit commissary, because Texas units do not accept a homemade box from a private sender, and a disciplinary status can suspend commissary entirely.
Texas county jails
County jails are their own world. Each county sheriff runs its own deposit and commissary contracts, and eCommDirect does not work for them, so what is true in one county is wrong in the next.
A few real examples. Harris County in Houston runs one of the largest jails in the country, with its own deposit vendor. Dallas, Bexar in San Antonio, Tarrant in Fort Worth, and Travis in Austin each run their own systems. Across counties you will see vendors like Tiger Commissary, SmartDeposit, TouchPay, and Access Corrections, with kiosks and mailed money orders. City lockups often have no package program and allow commissary only.
The takeaway is simple: never assume a county jail uses the same vendor or rules as the state, and never try eCommDirect for a county inmate. Pull up that specific jail's page and confirm the deposit vendor, the spending cap, the cutoff, and the package policy before you send anything.
Federal custody and Texas
Texas has one of the largest federal footprints in the country, all in the Bureau's South Central Region. The big complex is FCC Beaumont, which holds low, medium, and high-security men plus a camp. Texas is also home to FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, the Bureau's main medical center for women, along with FMC Fort Worth, FPC Bryan for women, FDC Houston for people awaiting trial, and a string of institutions at Seagoville, Bastrop, Three Rivers, Big Spring, La Tuna near El Paso, and Texarkana. There are also several privately run contract facilities. If your person has a federal sentence, confirm the exact facility on the inmate locator, since they could be at any of these or anywhere else in the country.
Funding works through the federal Trust Fund. You can send money online or by app through JPay, mail a money order or cashier's check made payable to the Federal Bureau of Prisons with the inmate's full name and register number on it to the national lockbox, or use Western Union. No cash, no personal checks.
The commissary is the only store in the federal system, and the inmate shops it in person on an assigned day each week, usually tied to their register number. You fund the account; they pick from what is in stock. The shelves cover food and drink mixes, hygiene, a limited clothing selection, stationery and stamps, some over-the-counter medicine, and at some facilities approved electronics.
On the money, general population inmates can spend up to $360 per month, and that limit resets monthly. Stamps, phone credits, and over-the-counter medicine generally fall outside the cap. In November and December the limit typically rises to $410 for holiday shopping. An inmate who refuses the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program gets knocked down to roughly $25 per month.
Federal care packages are not allowed. The Bureau prohibits outside food, clothing, or hygiene packages from family or friends. The narrow exceptions are publications shipped directly from a publisher or approved retailer, religious items cleared through the chaplain, and legal materials from an attorney or court.
For messaging, the federal system uses an email tool families reach through the CorrLinks portal, reviewed by staff and not confidential. To find someone in federal custody, use the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, which searches by name or register number.
Staying connected
Across all three systems the pattern is the same. Funding an account is how someone buys what they need day to day, packages are restricted, and the rules shift by facility and by contract. In Texas, remember that you must be on the visitor or phone list to deposit, that eCommDirect both deposits money and ships commissary up to a shared quarterly cap, and that eCommDirect is for state units only, not counties. The one constant through all of it is the mail. A letter and photos reach almost anyone inside, which makes it the most reliable way to show up for your person while you sort out the rest.