Texas SB 140: Complete FAQ.

Texas Senate Bill 140 is a state law signed by Governor Greg Abbott on June 20, 2025, and effective September 1, 2025. It amends Chapters 301 through 306 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code to expand the definition of "telephone solicitation" to include text messages and multimedia messages — bringing SMS marketing under the same compliance regime that had previously applied only to voice telemarketing. The law also creates a private right of action under the Texas DTPA and explicitly permits successive recoveries.

September 1, 2025. The bill was signed into law June 20, 2025.

The Texas Legislature passed SB 140 during the 89th Regular Session in 2025. Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law on June 20, 2025. A predecessor bill, SB 315, had passed the previous session but was vetoed for reasons left publicly unclear; SB 140 was the successful successor.

Texas's existing telemarketing law was written for voice calls and did not clearly cover text messaging. A 2024 Texas court ruling held that an SMS marketer did not qualify as a "telephone solicitor" under the statute because "call" was not defined to include text messages. SB 140 closes that gap.

Yes, if you send marketing communications to Texas residents or to Texas phone numbers. The law's geographic reach is intentionally broad to capture out-of-state marketers who target Texas consumers.

The settlement effectively exempts businesses running genuine, documented opt-in SMS programs from Chapter 302's registration, bonding, and quarterly-reporting requirements. To qualify, opt-in must be specific to your brand, documented with proof of consent, clear about what consumers signed up for, and respected promptly on opt-out. The exemption does not eliminate time-of-day restrictions or the private right of action for unauthorized messages.

Your opt-in needs to be specific to your brand by name, demonstrably documented (timestamp, source, language presented), specific to marketing rather than transactional messages, clear and unambiguous (no pre-checked boxes or buried consent), and honored when consumers opt out. If your opt-in mechanism is unclear or your records are incomplete, you likely don't qualify even if your customers nominally consented.

Not for messages that genuinely qualify for the carve-out. But if any portion of your sending falls outside the carve-out (cold lists, purchased data, ambiguous consent), those messages remain subject to the registration and bonding requirements. Document the legal analysis supporting your conclusion and revisit it as your program changes.

A $200 annual fee, a $10,000 bond or other security, disclosure of operators and products marketed, and quarterly reporting on solicitation activity. Surety bonds for this purpose are available from licensed Texas surety providers at annual premiums typically from $100 to $1,000 depending on credit.

SB 140 covers messages "intended to induce a purchase, rental, claim, or receipt of an item." Transactional messages like order confirmations, shipping updates, two-factor authentication codes, and appointment reminders generally don't fall within this definition. However, marketing content embedded in transactional messages can convert them into covered solicitations, and consent for transactional doesn't extend to marketing.

SB 140's definition of "telephone solicitation" includes text messages, multimedia messages (MMS), images, and similar electronic communications used to solicit a sale. RCS and newer messaging protocols used for marketing purposes are likely covered as well, though the statute's language predates universal RCS rollout.

Most compliant programs apply Texas-specific rules to any phone number with a Texas area code and to any consumer identified as a Texas resident. The cost of applying SB 140 rules is low; the cost of accidental violation is not. Time-zone your sends to Central time and scrub against the Texas No-Call list for any Texas-tagged record.

Theoretically, $5,000 per unlawful message in AG enforcement plus DTPA damages including trebling and attorney's fees in private actions, with each message a separate violation and successive recoveries allowed. A non-compliant campaign reaching 100,000 Texas consumers two messages each generates a theoretical liability that can exceed nine figures. Practical settlements run lower but can still reach seven and eight figures for systemic violators.

Document each message (screenshots showing sender, content, and timestamp), reply STOP if you haven't already, and consider filing an SB 140-based DTPA claim. Texas consumers who receive unauthorized marketing texts have the right to recover damages, treble damages for knowing violations, and attorney's fees. Our consumer page walks through the documentation and submission process.

The Texas DTPA allows recovery of actual damages, treble damages for knowing or intentional violations, attorney's fees, and costs. Single-text actual damages tend to be modest, but the law's successive-recovery provision, combined with fee-shifting, can produce meaningful recoveries across multiple messages.

The burden is generally on the sender to produce specific, documented opt-in. If you don't remember opting in, that's worth investigating — many consumers discover that what was presented as opt-in didn't meet the legal standard, or that consent was transferred from an unrelated relationship without meeting SB 140's requirements.

Yes. Marketing texts to Texas numbers may only be sent between 9 AM and 9 PM Central time Monday through Saturday, and between noon and 9 PM Sunday. Texts arriving outside these windows are violations regardless of consent.

Being on the Texas No-Call list provides additional protection. Marketing texts to numbers on the list are violations regardless of other factors, and penalties for solicitation to no-call numbers are enhanced.

Texas DTPA cases of this kind are typically handled on contingency by plaintiff-side attorneys — meaning the attorney takes a percentage of any recovery and you pay nothing if there's no recovery. Specific terms are between you and any attorney you decide to work with.

The Texas DTPA generally has a two-year statute of limitations from the date of the violation. Acting promptly is also practical — senders that go out of business or relocate become harder to recover from over time.

The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act and SB 140 operate independently. A single violation can produce liability under both. State mini-TCPAs like SB 140 became relatively more important after the June 2025 Supreme Court decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., which created new uncertainty around federal TCPA enforcement.

The Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act is one of the country's most plaintiff-friendly consumer-protection statutes. It allows private lawsuits for unfair or deceptive acts, with recovery including trebling and attorney's fees. SB 140 classifies telemarketing violations as DTPA violations, which is the mechanism by which consumers can sue directly.

Yes. Putative class actions began appearing in Texas courts within weeks of SB 140's September 2025 effective date and continued to be filed throughout late 2025 and into 2026. Some have settled; others are in active discovery.

Florida's FTSA, Washington's CEMA, Oklahoma's TCPA-style legislation, and Maryland's analog statute are the most active. Each has its own specifics on consent, time-of-day, and enforcement. Multi-state marketing programs need jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction review.

A 2024 Texas court ruling — sometimes cited as Powers in legislative analysis — held that an SMS marketer did not qualify as a "telephone solicitor" under existing Chapter 302 because the statute did not define "call" to include text messages. This decision created the gap SB 140 was designed to close.