How to register with works for unemployment in Texas TWC

Week three of my claim and I ran into the exact same wall with WorkInTexas.com. What I found out after a lot of trial and error: completing your registration there basically means filling out your profile fully enough that the system stops flagging it as incomplete — that includes your work history, your skills, your contact info, and uploading some version of a resume even if it's just a basic one. For trades like HVAC you just describe your certifications and years of experience. TWC links your UBS account to WorkInTexas.com using the same login credentials, so once you're registered over there it should sync up. The key thing is that your work search activities every week also get logged there, and the number of activities required depends on your county — TWC mails you a letter spelling out your specific number, so check that letter and use it as your target.

My adjudication just cleared two days ago and when I finally got a TWC agent on the phone through Claimyr, she walked me through exactly what a complete WorkInTexas.com profile needs to include. Claimyr holds the call queue for you and connects you when an agent picks up — I used it because I'd been trying to reach TWC for days about whether my registration was flagged. The agent said the profile needs work history, at least one resume on file, and your job preferences filled out. She also confirmed my work search log was showing up on their end correctly. Worth checking claimyr.com if you need to actually talk to someone — there's a walkthrough video at https://youtu.be/V-IMvH88P1U that shows how it works.

The resume requirement threw me completely when I first registered. I work in landscaping — I've never had a resume in my life. What I ended up doing was just typing up a plain text document listing my job titles, the years I worked each one, and what I did. Uploaded it as a Word doc and the system accepted it. It doesn't have to be formatted like something you'd send to a corporate office, it just has to be there.

Something that confused me early on: WorkInTexas.com is where you log your work search activities, but you still report your earnings and request payments through UBS at https://apps.twc.texas.gov/UBS/security/logon.do — those are two separate things happening in two separate places. I mixed them up for about a week and thought logging a job application on WorkInTexas counted as my payment request. It doesn't. Payment requests happen in UBS on the schedule TWC gives you, and work search activities are recorded on WorkInTexas.com separately.

My job search requirement letter said three activities per week for my county. I called my local Workforce Solutions office to ask what actually counts as an activity and they were pretty helpful — a job application, a resume submission, attending a job fair, contacting an employer directly about openings, or even a formal networking contact all count. The key is you have to keep a log because TWC can ask to see it at any time.

Registering on WorkInTexas.com when you've been in a trade for years feels weirdly bureaucratic — I get it. But the registration isn't really about finding a job through the site, it's more about TWC having a record that you're actively looking. Think of it less as a job board you're supposed to use and more as a documentation system TWC requires to stay eligible. Once you get your profile marked as complete and understand your weekly activity requirement, it kind of fades into the background.

Day one of my second payment request week and I noticed my WorkInTexas.com profile still showed as incomplete even after I uploaded a resume. Turned out there was a separate section called 'Job Preferences' that I'd skipped entirely. Once I filled that out — desired job titles, locations willing to work, full time vs. part time — the incomplete flag went away. That section is easy to miss because it's not in the main profile area.

There's a question about work search activities that comes up during payment requests in UBS — it asks whether you completed your required activities for each week. If you haven't done them, you're supposed to answer honestly. Lying on that is considered fraud and TWC takes it seriously, like, criminal-charge-level seriously. The penalty if they catch it is repaying everything plus a 15 percent fine on top, and TWC does actually refer cases for prosecution. So just do the activities and log them accurately.

My situation was a little different — I'd actually worked a couple of gig shifts while my claim was pending. I didn't know until I talked to someone at TWC that you're supposed to report gross earnings for the week the work was done, rounded down to whole dollars, even if the app doesn't pay out until the following week. The reporting is based on when you did the work, not when the money hits your account.

Fifth week of my claim and I want to flag something about the work search activities for anyone reading this later: the number on your letter is a minimum, not a suggestion. I had a week where I only completed two activities because I thought three was just a guideline and TWC told me in writing that I had a deficiency that week. It didn't disqualify me but it added an adjudication issue I had to respond to in writing. Just do the number on your letter, every week, no exceptions.

Just got off the phone with TWC about my own WorkInTexas registration — used Claimyr again because the hold times are brutal — and the agent mentioned that if your WorkInTexas.com profile has been inactive for more than a few weeks, it can trigger a flag on your UBS account. I hadn't logged in or updated anything in about three weeks and there was a note on my account. The fix was just logging back in and completing a job search activity, but I didn't know the inactivity itself could cause an issue.

Something I want to make sure people understand about the waiting week: TWC holds your first payable week. They don't just pay it after a couple payments — the waiting week gets released only after you've been paid two times your weekly benefit amount AND you either return to full-time work or use all your benefits. If you go back to work before exhausting benefits, you can request the waiting week through UBS or Tele-Serv, but you have to actually ask for it. It doesn't get paid automatically.

My county has a five-activity-per-week requirement. Dallas County. What I do to stay on top of it is batch some activities on the weekends — I'll apply to three or four positions on Sunday and then do one or two more mid-week. WorkInTexas.com lets you log all of them and each one has its own entry with date, employer, position, and how you applied. The system accepts entries from any day of the week as long as they fall within the correct payment week, Sunday to Saturday.

My claim had a weird issue where my WorkInTexas.com registration kept showing as pending in UBS even though I'd finished everything on the WorkInTexas side. I called the Tele-Center and they said there's sometimes a sync delay between the two systems that can take a couple of business days to update. If your WorkInTexas registration looks complete on that site but UBS is still flagging it, give it 48 hours before worrying. TWC updates its systems overnight so same-day checks won't reflect changes you made that morning.

Received my work search audit notice last month — TWC does pull these randomly. They asked for my log for a six-week period. I had a spreadsheet with employer name, position, date, and contact method for every single activity. They reviewed it and cleared me in about a week. The people who get in trouble are the ones who claimed activities on their payment requests but can't produce a log when asked. Keep the receipts.

Just starting week seven of my claim. One thing about WorkInTexas.com that nobody mentioned to me initially: you can find your required work search activity count inside your UBS account as well, under your claim details. I was searching for my letter for a week thinking that was the only place it existed. The letter is definitely the official document, but UBS also displays it.

The base period calculation is something I wish I'd understood before I filed. For a claim filed in the last quarter of 2026, your base period earnings are from the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters — so roughly July 2025 through June 2026. Your weekly benefit amount comes from your highest earning quarter in that period, divided by 25. So if your earnings were uneven across quarters, the quarter where you made the most money is the one that matters most.

Used claimyr.com last week to reach TWC about a question on my own account — wanted to confirm that my WorkInTexas.com registration had cleared on their end. The agent pulled up my file and confirmed everything was linked properly and my work search activities were showing. Total call took maybe twelve minutes once I got through. Way better than the two hours I'd spent on hold the week before.

Final week before I go back to work and I wanted to circle back to something from earlier in this thread: if you're in a skilled trade and struggling to find five relevant postings a week, remember that direct outreach to contractors counts. So does attending a union hall meeting if your trade has one, or contacting a staffing agency that places tradespeople. WorkInTexas.com doesn't require that every activity be a formal online application — the broader category is 'work search activities' and there are several types that qualify.