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On September 1, 2025, Texas amended its telephone solicitation law to include text messages and to add several new requirements, including a registration requirement with the Texas Secretary of State, plus a form of security (such as a bond) in the amount of $10,000.
Does the law apply to your business?
The amended law does not apply to all text messages, only to “telephone solicitations”:
“Telephone solicitation” means a call or other transmission, including a transmission of a text or graphic message or of an image, initiated by a seller or salesperson to induce a person to purchase, rent, claim, or receive an item.
Note that, unlike its federal counterpart, the Texas law includes, but is not limited to, telephone solicitations made using an automated dialing system. The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (47 U.S.C. § 227) (the “TCPA”) prohibits calls to emergency lines, hospitals, cell phones, FAXes, prerecorded calls using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice. Although the Federal Communications Commission took a very broad view of what constituted an “automatic telephone dialing system,” in a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that auto dialers are defined by their function to either store or produce telephone numbers from a random or sequential number generator. Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021),
The amended law also contains many exemptions for “a person who makes a telephone solicitation on the person’s own behalf,” including:
There are several other exemptions, some of which will not be as straightforward to apply. For example: “This chapter does not apply to a person soliciting the sale of food.” (Section 302.057.) Does that exemption apply to nutritional supplements? Vitamins? Chewable OTC medication?
Registration
If a company intends to “make a telephone solicitation from a location in this state or to a purchaser located in this state,” and an exemption does not apply, the company must register with the Texas Secretary of State. The registration form is 7 pages long, must be notarized, and requires a wide variety of information that are quite onerous, including
In addition, if the company is offering to sell an interest in an oil, gas, or mineral field, well, or exploration site, the registration statement must be accompanied by:
(1) any ownership interest of the seller in each field, well, or site being offered for sale;
(2) the total number of interests to be sold in each field, well, or site being offered for sale; and
(3) if, in selling an interest in any particular field, well, or site, reference is made to an investigation of the field, well, or site by the seller or anyone else:
(A) the name, business address, telephone number, and professional credentials of the person who conducted the investigation; and
(B) a copy of the report and other documents relating to the investigation prepared by the person who conducted the investigation.
With any completed registration form, the company must also submit the $200 filing fee, plus a form of security in the amount of $10,000 (such as a bond, CD, or irrevocable letter of credit). There is also an obligation to update the data in the registration form on a quarterly basis.
Penalties
A violation of any provision of the amended law is deemed an “unfair and deceptive practice” under Texas law triggering statutory damages of not less than $500 and not more than $1,500 per unlawful call or text. The law expressly permits a private right of action. Note that certain violations can also constitute a Class A misdemeanor. In addition, the Texas Attorney General is authorized to seek civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
Our Take
The private right of action raises the stakes for this amended law. As we saw with TCPA, this could become a fertile ground for plaintiff lawyers to bring actions against potential violators. Moreover, the exemptions and registration requirement may be confusing for some companies. Before your company uses text messages to contact customers about goods and services, you should carefully examine the new statute and make sure it either does not apply or you have correctly registered. Experienced counsel can help work through various aspects of the “mini TCPA. Finally, any company that determines that it does need to register should develop a process to maintain the registration so that it can be updated on a quarterly basis.
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