§ 103.003.Limitation on Time to File

One deadline governs the whole chapter, and it runs from the document that made the person eligible.

The application must reach the comptroller no later than the third anniversary of the triggering date. The filing is with the comptroller under Subchapter B, not with a court.

For a pardon, the clock starts on the date the pardon was received.

For habeas relief, it starts on the date the application for the writ was granted.

For the dismissal route, it starts on the date the dismissal order was signed — signature, not entry, and not the date the motion was filed.

The three dates track the three routes in Section 103.001(a)(2), so a claimant who knows which route applies knows which date to count from. Each is a date on a document, which is what makes the deadline countable without a hearing.

Nothing here waits on the conviction being cleared in every record. The clock runs from the pardon, the grant, or the signature, whether or not the paperwork has caught up elsewhere.

Three years is short for someone rebuilding a life, which is part of why Section 103.002 puts a notice duty on the prison system and points the person toward groups that file these claims.

The same dates do double duty elsewhere. Section 103.054 measures its own seven-year window for tuition from the relevant date described here, so the date that starts the filing clock also starts the longer education clock.