Cotulla runs all four of its visit types, contact, regular, restricted and video, on the same Saturday and Sunday schedule of 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM, with no weekday slots. Connect with your loved one in minutes.
Connect with your loved one in minutes
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) publishes Cotulla’s schedule as Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM, for every visit type the unit offers. Two things decide whether your trip works: being on his Visitors List first, and checking the locator the same week, because Cotulla holds people in Transient status and men move through fast.
Cotulla is one of the units that runs every in-person type plus video, and all four sit on the same weekend hours.
| Type | Days and hours |
|---|---|
| Contact | Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM |
| Regular | Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM |
| Restricted | Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM |
| Video/Tablet | Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM |
Contact means the same room. TDCJ’s rules allow embracing and kissing once at the start and once at the end, and holding hands with hands on top of the table. It is limited to immediate family, though unit administration can approve others when immediate family cannot come.
Regular is the one families misread most. TDCJ’s own rulebook says general visits “are also referred to as non-contact and regular visits,” and describes them as held in a room where visitors and inmates are separated by a glass wall or partition. If the schedule says regular, expect glass.
Restricted appears as a column on TDCJ’s published schedule, but TDCJ does not define the term anywhere in its April 2025 visitation rules. The closest published rule covers inmates in security detention, who get one general visit a week at Level 1, two a month at Level 2, and one a month at Level 3. Call the unit if you were told your visit is restricted, because we could not confirm what the label means at Cotulla.
The list is built by the inmate, not by you. He submits Form RO-1, which holds up to 10 names, and there is no public version for a visitor to download. Changes are allowed once every six months.
Once you are approved, visits are booked through TDCJ’s online visitation portal, one to seven days ahead.
$35 in coins only, plus one card for the vending machines. No bills. No phones, cameras, smartwatches or tobacco past the perimeter, and Texas Penal Code section 38.11 makes bringing prohibited items onto prison property a felony.
Dress conservatively. No all-white clothing, and shorts or skirts no more than three inches above mid-knee.
On the first full weekend of each month, visitors can have photographs taken with their loved one free of charge, two per visit.
Cotulla sits on Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Laredo, so many families arrive from a long way off. TDCJ allows the warden to approve an extended visit of up to four hours for anyone traveling more than 250 miles one way, if time and space allow. It is discretionary, not automatic, and it is requested through the warden’s office ahead of time.
Session length, how many visitors the visitation room holds, the arrival cutoff, parking, and whether lockers are available are not published for this unit. The 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM window is the unit’s operating span, not a guarantee of how long you sit together. Those are worth asking about on the same call that confirms the schedule.
6 of 6 questions
Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM, for contact, regular, restricted and video visits alike. Cotulla has no weekday visiting, and neither does any other unit in TDCJ's current directory apart from Bill Clements, where those days cover video visits only.
VisitationA contact visit is in the same room, with embracing and kissing allowed once at the start and once at the end. A regular visit is behind a glass wall or partition with no contact possible. TDCJ's rules state plainly that general visits 'are also referred to as non-contact and regular visits,' so regular does not mean standard, it means separated.
VisitationNo. You have to be on his Visitors List before you travel, and the visit is booked through TDCJ's portal one to seven days ahead. The list is submitted by the inmate on Form RO-1 and holds up to 10 names.
VisitationTDCJ's statewide rule is one visit per week, generally two adults for two hours. Cotulla does not publish its own session length or visitor capacity, so confirm on the phone before a long drive. Whatever time your visit starts, it ends at 5:30 PM.
VisitationArriving more than 15 minutes past your scheduled time may cost you the visit entirely. Unit staff will try to fit you in if time and space allow, but they are not required to, and all visits end at 5:30 PM regardless of when they began.
VisitationYou most likely called (830) 965-4444, the number published for the Briscoe-Cotulla Complex, which rings the Dolph Briscoe Unit in Dilley about 40 miles away. The two prisons share a senior warden and are audited together. Cotulla's own line is (830) 879-3077.
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All information on this page comes directly from official government and facility sources. How we verify information › Last verified August 26, 2026.