A method of depth map coding for a three-dimensional video coding system incorporating consistent texture merging candidate is disclosed. According to the first embodiment, the current depth block will only inherit the motion information of the collocated texture block if one reference depth picture has the same POC (picture order count) and ViewId (view identifier) as the reference texture picture of the collocated texture block. In another embodiment, the encoder assigns the same total number of reference pictures for both the depth component and the collocated texture component for each reference list. Furthermore, the POC (picture order count) and the ViewId (view identifier) for both the depth image unit and the texture image unit are assigned to be the same for each reference list and for each reference picture.