How to Send Money to the Hughes Unit Inmate Trust Fund

Who TDCJ Lets Send Money

Start here, because this is the rule that rejects most failed deposits and almost nobody explains it up front.

Since September 1, 2020, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has only accepted deposits from people who are already on the incarcerated person’s Visitors List or phone list. If you are on neither, the deposit is rejected regardless of how you sent it, how much it was for, or whether the name and number on it were correct.

That has an awkward consequence worth planning around. Getting onto the Visitors List is something he starts, on Form RO-1, and at a unit like the Alfred D. Hughes Unit the list can only be changed once every six months. So the sequence matters: get on a list first, then send money. Doing it the other way round means waiting for a rejected deposit to unwind before you can try again.

Registering for the phone system is usually the faster of the two routes, because it does not depend on a warden’s approval cycle. If you are set up to receive his calls, you are eligible to deposit.

The Fee, and the 14-Day Hold

There are two ways to put money in, and they differ on cost and speed, not on where the money ends up.

Online, through eCommDirect. This is TDCJ’s own deposit service and the faster of the two. It charges a fee that varies with the amount and the payment method. TDCJ does not publish a fixed fee schedule, so the amount is shown to you before you confirm.

By mail, with a money order. No fee, slower. Send it to:

Inmate Trust Fund
PO Box 60
Huntsville, TX 77342-0060

Write his full commitment name and eight-digit TDCJ number on the money order itself, not only on the envelope. Note the city. That address is in Huntsville, not Gatesville. The trust fund is centralized for the whole state, so a money order posted to the Hughes Unit is going to the wrong place.

Two things get rejected outright either way: cash and personal checks are returned, and so is anything from a sender who is not on one of his lists.

And one timing rule that surprises people: a deposit of $500 or more is held for 14 days before it posts. If there is a date by which he needs the funds, either send under that threshold or send it two weeks early.

What the Balance Covers

The trust fund balance pays for commissary purchases, and it can fund his side of phone calls if you have set calls up on inmate debit instead of a prepaid account of your own.

TDCJ caps commissary spending at $105 per two-week period. That is the number to plan around. Sending $400 does not let him buy $400 of goods in one go; it sits in the account and draws down across cycles. For most families a smaller, regular deposit is more useful than a single large one, and it also keeps you under the 14-day hold threshold.

The balance follows the person, not the building. If he transfers off Hughes, the money goes with him and does not need to be re-sent.