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Texas has found CWD and tests any deer a hunter brings in

Texas CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

Texas testing is free and voluntary at check stations and drop boxes across the state, there is no rule on which parts of a carcass may cross into Texas, and the rule that does bite is how the unused parts must be thrown away once the carcass leaves the property it was killed on.

Not required
Is a sample required
a test is offered on any deer
No state rule
Carrying a carcass in
No published restriction
Free
What the test costs
turnaround below
Yes, 2012
Found in wild deer
no zone drawn
The answer

Is CWD testing required in Texas

Voluntary, offered statewide

Texas has found the disease in wild deer, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department sets no requirement to submit a sample. A test is offered on any deer a hunter brings in.

How to submit
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department names voluntary check station, CWD test drop box, local TPWD biologist and CWD sample kit ordered from TPWD.
What it costs
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department puts the test at no charge to the hunter.
How long results take
TPWD gives two figures, about two weeks in its hunter FAQ and five weeks on the page where a hunter looks a result up.

TPWD’s drop off locationsLook up a result

TPWD offers voluntary CWD check stations for those hunters who wish to voluntarily test their harvest.
CWD FAQs for Hunters, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
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Driving a deer into Texas

What may be carried across the Texas line

This is the rule a hunter is most likely to miss, because it is written by the state being entered rather than the state the animal was taken in. Reading the regulations of the state hunted in cover to cover does not surface it. Nationally, 42 of the 50 states restrict what crosses and 27 refuse an intact carcass from anywhere at all.

No published restrictionNothing on the state line, which puts the whole question back on the state the animal was taken in.

Texas publishes no rule of its own on carcasses arriving from another state, which leaves the rules of the state the animal was taken in as the ones that apply.

Texas does not restrict which parts of a carcass may be brought into the state, but a carcass brought in from outside Texas has to be disposed of the way the statewide carcass disposal requirements say.

CWD-susceptible species harvested outside of Texas that are transported into Texas must follow carcass disposal requirements.
Statewide Carcass Disposal Restrictions, Outdoor Annual, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
What TPWD says

The Texas agency’s own words on the meat

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department publishes this:

However, as a precaution, it is strongly advised to test susceptible species harvested in known CWD areas and to not eat meat from CWD-positive animals or any sick animal, regardless of the disease.
CWD FAQs for Hunters, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

That sentence is reproduced whole and unedited because it is the agency’s statement rather than a summary of one, and 30 of the 50 states here publish one of their own. The wording differs between states.

Where the state stands

CWD in Texas: status, zones and baiting

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has confirmed the disease in Texas's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2012. TPWD says the cases so far are in relatively small areas of the Panhandle, West Texas and a few other places..

First confirmed case
2012
Baiting and feeding
No baiting or feeding ban published
Carcass waste
Unused parts of a white-tailed or mule deer taken off the property of harvest must go into a commercial trash service, back to that property, or three feet underground under three feet of earth.
The first case of CWD was discovered in 2012 in a free-ranging mule deer in West Texas and in a captive white-tailed deer in 2015.
Chronic Wasting Disease, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Texas draws no management or surveillance zone, which means its rules apply the same way in every county. Several states added a first zone within a season of a first detection, so a zone boundary is the part of a state's rules most likely to change.

A green steel dumpster stencilled DEER CARCASS mounted on a single axle trailer in a sandy pine clearing, with a hoist gantry beside it and a pile of soil behind
The disposal end of the same trip, parked in a pine flatwood with a gantry to hang a deer from. Forty one states publish a rule about what happens to the bones and the head after the meat comes off, and in most of them it reads the same way: landfill, or back on the property where the deer was taken, and nowhere else. It is the part of the law that applies whether or not anybody ever asks for a test. “Deer carcass disposal”, The Bushranger, CC BY-SA 4.0

Texas CWD questions

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CWD rules in other states

CWD rules in every stateHow the 50 states differ on sampling, cost and what crosses a state line.Venomous snakes by stateWhich species a state actually has, and where the range maps put them.Burn permits by stateWhether a permit is needed today, and who issues it.Firewood permitsWhat a cord off public land costs, and which forests still sell one.Texas tick activityThe weather driven tick index for Texas, updated daily.

Texas read September 23, 2026 from Chronic Wasting Disease, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, linked above. Carcass rules, zone boundaries and sampling requirements change between one season’s regulations and the next, and a state can add a rule mid season after a new detection, so the TPWD document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.