Every family asks this in the first hour, and every answer on the internet is a general one. It should not be, because the counties publish their own figures and they do not agree — one county promises the day after arrival, another twenty-four hours, another twelve to twenty-four, and two publish nothing at all.
What follows is what each office says, quoted. If your county is not here, the honest answer is that we have not read it, and you should ring the office rather than trust a figure borrowed from somewhere else.
The answer depends on which clock you mean
This is where most of the confusion starts. There are three clocks running, and people are usually told about the wrong one:
- The examination. How long the office needs with the person.
- The release. When a funeral home can collect. This is the one that decides when a funeral can be arranged, and it is usually the shortest.
- The report. The written autopsy findings, which an insurer, an employer or a lawyer may be waiting on. This is measured in weeks or months, not hours.
A fourth clock matters more than any of them if you are standing outside a house: the property. That is not the medical examiner’s decision at all — see who releases a death scene in Texas.
What each county publishes
Dallas County — Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences
Autopsies are generally completed the day after the decedent arrives at our facility. However, during periods of high workload, it may take an additional day or two.
The shortest published figure of the five, and the only one that puts a clock on the examination rather than the release. Dallas County also publishes a case status lookup, so a family can see when a case reads ready for release without telephoning — though the county website was not responding when we last checked it, so have the phone number as well.
Two things the county states that surprise people: there is no charge for the medical examiner’s services, and the county “does not provide financial assistance for final disposition arrangements.”
Tarrant County — Medical Examiner’s District
Bodies brought to the Medical Examiner’s Office are generally ready for release to a funeral home or crematorium within 24 hours, although rarely, a body is held longer for legal purposes.
Tarrant is not a county office in the usual sense: it is a district, one building on Feliks Gwozdz Place in Fort Worth covering Tarrant, Parker, Denton and Johnson Counties together — a combined population above three million.
It is also the only office of the five that publishes round-the-clock availability: assistance is available 24 hours a day at 817-920-5700. If you need to speak to somebody at three in the morning about a death in one of those four counties, that is the number.
Set against that, two constraints catch families out. Releases to a funeral home are weekdays only, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., with none at weekends or on holidays. And the office “does not store, embalm or cremate bodies”, so a funeral home has to be chosen before anything can move.
On the report, Tarrant publishes the longest figure of the five, and it is the one that frightens people:
Depending upon the complexity of a case and the number of postmortem tests ordered, an examination report may take up to 12 weeks or longer before being completed.
Read that as the exception rather than the rule. Texas Health and Safety Code § 671.012 requires the report to be filed no later than the thirtieth day after the autopsy was requested, unless a test cannot be completed in time and the physician certifies why. Twelve weeks is what happens when that exception applies; thirty days is the statutory default, and it is worth asking which one your case is under.
Harris County — Institute of Forensic Sciences
In most cases, a body may be examined and available for release to your selected funeral home within 24 hours of arrival to the Institute. However, some cases require more time.
Harris County has no office called a medical examiner: the Institute of Forensic Sciences houses that role alongside the county crime laboratory, at 1861 Old Spanish Trail. The number to use is not the main switchboard but the Family Assistance Coordinator, on (832) 927-5007; the Institute’s own brochure sends case questions to the Family Liaison Team on (832) 927-5006.
The Institute publishes its own limits clearly, and they are the ones families trip over: it does not issue death certificates, and on viewing the body it says “The funeral home is the setting to view your loved one’s remains and all viewing of the body should be arranged through your selected funeral director.” It also states that it “collects only the personal property found on the individual’s person at the time of their death” — everything still in the house is a police matter.
Travis County — Medical Examiner’s Office
Travis publishes three figures, which is more than any other county on this list, and they are three different clocks:
It generally takes 12 to 24 hours to complete our examination. In certain cases, however, it may take longer.
The Medical Examiner’s Office will work with the designated funeral home to complete a death certificate within 10 working days.
Depending upon the complexity of such tests or investigations, it may take up to 90 days for the autopsy report to be finalized.
Note the middle one carefully: it is the office working with the funeral home, not the funeral home alone, and it is the certificate rather than the report. And the office states that it does not provide copies of death certificates at all — those come from the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the city where the death occurred, from the justice of the peace, or from your funeral home.
The office is at 7723 Springdale Road in Austin, on (512) 854-9599.
Bexar County — Medical Examiner’s Office
No timing is published. Not for the examination, not for the release, not for the report. We looked, and we are not going to borrow a figure from Dallas or Tarrant and present it as San Antonio’s.
What the county does publish is useful anyway: the office is at 7337 Louis Pasteur Drive, inside the Bexar County Forensic Science Center on the UT Health San Antonio campus, on 210-335-4000. Lobby hours are Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, closed on county holidays — but the county states that doctors are on call 24 hours a day and that examinations are performed seven days a week, 365 days a year. It also takes cases from surrounding counties that have no medical examiner of their own.
So the honest answer for a San Antonio family is: nobody can tell you from a web page. Ring 210-335-4000 and ask about your case.
Side by side
| County | Examination | Release to a funeral home | Report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas | “generally completed the day after the decedent arrives”, plus a day or two under load | not separately published | not published |
| Tarrant (also Parker, Denton, Johnson) | not separately published | “generally ready … within 24 hours”; weekdays 7 am–3 pm only | “up to 12 weeks or longer” — but § 671.012 sets 30 days unless certified |
| Harris | “within 24 hours of arrival”, some cases longer | same figure | not published |
| Travis | “12 to 24 hours” | not separately published; certificate within 10 working days | “up to 90 days” depending on complexity |
| Bexar | not published | not published | not published |
Two patterns are worth taking from that table. The counties that publish a figure all land between “the day after” and 24 hours for the part that decides when a funeral can be arranged — so if somebody has told you weeks, they are probably talking about the report. And the office being open is not the same as the office releasing. Tarrant’s 7 am to 3 pm weekday window is the real constraint on a Friday evening death, not the 24-hour figure.
What nobody publishes, and why it matters more
None of the five publishes a timeline for the property. Not one. That is the clock a family actually waits on before anyone can go in, clear the room, or arrange a clean, and it belongs to the police rather than to the medical examiner. Dallas County says so plainly:
Only personal effects on or associated with the body are brought into the ME’s office from a death scene; other property will be left in the residence, which is secured and released to the family by the police.
So the question to ask the officer at the scene, before anything else, is who to contact about the residence and when it will be released. That conversation is not the one about the funeral home, and it is the one that decides when the rest can start.
Before you ring
Have this ready, because every office asks for it: the full name and date of birth of the person who died, the address where they were found, the case or incident number if the police gave you one, and the name of the funeral home if one has been chosen. In most counties the release cannot proceed until the next of kin names a funeral home, and Texas sets who counts as next of kin in Health and Safety Code § 711.002 — seven tiers, and the executor named in a will sits ahead of cousins and nieces.
Each city on this network has its own page with that county’s offices, numbers and published wording, with the sources. Start from your city, or read who releases a death scene in Texas for the release itself.
This is a summary of what five county offices publish about their own work, with links to each. It is not legal or medical advice, and an office’s own wording on the day beats anything here.