Texas SB 140: What the Law Means for Businesses That Text

Texas regulates telemarketing in four chapters of the Business and Commerce Code. Chapter 301 sets calling hours. Chapter 302 requires sellers to register. Chapter 304 runs the Texas no-call list. Chapter 305 restricts certain calls to mobile numbers and creates a private claim. Lawyers call the set the Texas mini-TCPA.

SB 140 touched three of the four. The table summarizes each change from the enrolled bill text published by the Texas Legislature.

Before the bill, chapter 302 defined a telephone solicitation as a telephone call. The enrolled text now reads 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. The bill also borrows the definition of telephone call from section 304.002. That older definition already covered text or graphic messages and images sent to a mobile number.

The second change is about who can sue. New sections 304.2581 and 305.054 say a violation of those chapters is a false, misleading or deceptive act or practice under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and that a public or private right or remedy under that act may be used to enforce the chapter. Kelley Drye explains that chapter 304 claims used to require notice before suit and a complaint to the attorney general or another regulator, and that the bill lets consumers skip those steps.

The bill does not add obligations beyond that. In Kelley Drye's words from August 2025, it did not add new consent, quiet hours or no-call requirements. The duties were already in the code. What changed is that texts are plainly inside them and private plaintiffs have an easier path.

Section 302.101 says a seller may not make a telephone solicitation from a location in Texas, or to a purchaser located in Texas, unless the seller holds a registration certificate for the business location from which the solicitation is made. Each location needs its own certificate. The rule reaches sellers outside Texas who contact people inside it.

The Secretary of State's page for the registration form gives the mechanics. The filing fee is 200 dollars. The seller must post security of 10,000 dollars in favor of the state, for the benefit of anyone injured by the seller's breach of an agreement made during a telephone solicitation. A certificate is effective for one year and may be renewed. The office also says it does not decide who must register. That is the seller's responsibility.

Bass, Berry & Sims adds that registered sellers file a detailed registration statement, appoint the Secretary of State as agent for service of process and submit quarterly reports.

An industry group and two brands sued the state in 2025. Bass, Berry & Sims identifies the plaintiffs as Ecommerce Marketers Alliance, Flux Footwear and Stodge, and the defendants as the State of Texas, the attorney general and the Secretary of State, in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. The plaintiffs argued the law unconstitutionally restricted commercial speech and asked the court to clarify whether registration applied to businesses that text only people who opted in.

The case ended by agreement. According to Bass, Berry & Sims, the parties jointly moved to dismiss without prejudice and the court's order was entered on 17 November 2025. Womble Bond Dickinson, cited in our research notes, dates the settlement itself to 6 November 2025. The state's stated position was that call in chapter 302 means telephone call as defined in chapter 304, and that consent-based marketing texts are not calls or telephone solicitations on that reading.

The Secretary of State then published the position. Its Form 3400 page says any business that sends text messages with the consumer's prior consent is not required to complete the Telephone Solicitation Registration Statement, and cites the case as No. 1:25-cv-1401. Bass, Berry & Sims reports that businesses with pending applications may withdraw them if the office has not yet acted, and that the Secretary of State agreed to request a formal opinion from the attorney general. We did not find that opinion.

The guidance is narrow in two ways. It covers texts sent with prior consent, so a business has to be able to show the consent. And it is a statement of the state's own enforcement position. The dismissal was without prejudice, and Bass, Berry & Sims does not say the agreement limits private lawsuits.

The exemptions predate SB 140. Section 302.051 is headed burden of proof and section 302.052 is headed exemptions apply only to sellers. We read the headings of those two sections and not their full text.

Section 302.058 is the one most consumer brands look at. It exempts a person soliciting business from a former or current customer if the person has operated under the same business name for at least two years. Kelley Drye points out that the chapter does not define customer, and suggests that a one-way message from the business is unlikely to create a customer relationship by itself.

Section 302.053 exempts persons regulated by other law. Kelley Drye lists publicly traded companies registered with securities regulators, licensed insurance persons, supervised financial institutions, businesses regulated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and persons subject to FCC control or licensing.

• 302.053: persons regulated by other law
• 302.054: sellers of media subscriptions, certain merchandise or items from certain catalogs
• 302.055: educational and nonprofit organizations
• 302.056: certain commercial sales
• 302.057: persons soliciting food sales
• 302.058: solicitation of former or current customers by a business under the same name for two years
• 302.059: certain sales presentations and sales at established retail locations
• 302.060: certain providers of solicitation services predominantly for exempt persons
• 302.061: certain isolated telephone solicitations

Section 305.053 gives a private claim to a person who receives a communication that violates the federal TCPA, an FCC regulation under it, or subchapter A of chapter 305. The plaintiff may seek an injunction, damages or both. Damages are the greater of 500 dollars for each violation or actual damages. If the violation was committed knowingly or intentionally, the court may increase the award to no more than the greater of 1,500 dollars per violation or three times actual damages.

SB 140 placed the Deceptive Trade Practices Act on top. Kelley Drye describes the remedies available under that act as including treble damages for willful violations, mental anguish awards and attorney's fees. The firm also notes that cumulative remedies under the act are not available for the same act or practice in the same lawsuit.

The multiple-recovery language is new and unusual. Sections 302.003, 304.005 and 305.055 now say the fact that a claimant has recovered under a private action more than once may not limit recovery in a future legal proceeding in any manner. A defendant cannot point to a plaintiff's earlier cases as a reason to cap a new one.

Chapter 304 governs the Texas no-call list. Kelley Drye summarizes the mechanics: the list is updated on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October each year, and a business may not make a telemarketing call to a number that has been on the list for 60 days or more. Because chapter 304's definition of telephone call includes text messages to mobile numbers, the list matters for texts.

Chapter 301 sets the hours. Under section 301.051, a telephone solicitor may make a consumer telephone call only after 9 a.m. and before 9 p.m. on a weekday or a Saturday, and after 12 noon and before 9 p.m. on a Sunday. The section does not apply to a call made at the consumer's express request, a call about an existing debt or contract, or a call to a consumer with whom the solicitor has a prior or existing business relationship. Kelley Drye notes the chapter does not define consumer telephone call and says applying it to telemarketing texts would be reasonable.

Federal law applies at the same time. Section 305.053 itself lets a person sue in Texas over a communication that violates the federal TCPA or an FCC regulation under it, so a federal violation can also be pleaded as a Texas one.

The state's position on consent-based texts rests on a litigation stance and a web page. Both carry weight, and neither is a statute or a court ruling on the merits. A formal attorney general opinion was requested, according to Bass, Berry & Sims, and we did not find one as of 12 November 2026.

Consent itself becomes the dividing line. A business that relies on the guidance is relying on its ability to show that each person agreed to receive texts. Bass, Berry & Sims advises keeping documentation of express consent for that reason.