What SB 140 actually does
For decades, Texas regulated telemarketing the same way most states did: rules about voice calls, the No-Call list, caller-ID, and bonding requirements for telephone solicitors. The state's existing telemarketing chapters — Chapters 301 through 306 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code — were written in a world of cold-call voice marketing.
The problem, by the mid-2020s, was obvious: telemarketers had moved to text messages, and Texas courts had ruled the existing law didn't cover them. In a widely-cited 2024 case, a Texas court held that a company sending unsolicited marketing texts didn't qualify as a "telephone solicitor" under the existing statute, because the statute didn't define "call" to include text or multimedia messages. The result was a regulatory gap large enough to drive a truck through.
Senate Bill 140 closes that gap. Signed by Governor Greg Abbott on June 20, 2025, and effective September 1, 2025, SB 140 amends the existing telemarketing statutes in three structurally important ways:
- It redefines "telephone solicitation" to include text messages, multimedia messages (MMS), and similar electronic communications — not just voice calls.
- It creates a private right of action by hooking violations into the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), allowing individual consumers to sue for damages.
- It explicitly permits successive recoveries, meaning a single consumer who receives multiple unlawful texts can recover for each one separately rather than being limited to one bite at the apple.
The combined effect is to bring SMS and MMS marketing under the same compliance regime that has applied to voice telemarketers for years — including the requirement to register with the Texas Secretary of State and post a $10,000 bond — while simultaneously giving every Texas consumer who receives an unlawful text the ability to file a private lawsuit.
Important update — November 2025
Shortly after SB 140 took effect, litigation challenged how Chapter 302 applied to text messaging. In November 2025, Texas settled that litigation in a way that has meaningful implications for legitimate marketers: businesses running genuine opt-in SMS programs are now effectively exempt from Chapter 302's telemarketing registration, bonding, and quarterly-reporting requirements. The private right of action under the DTPA remains fully in force. We cover the settlement in detail below.
Who SB 140 applies to
SB 140 applies to any business, anywhere, that sends marketing communications — voice calls, text messages, multimedia messages, or similar electronic messages — to Texas consumers, or that sends such communications from Texas. The geographic reach is intentionally broad: a company located in Florida sending promotional texts to a phone number with a Texas area code is subject to the law, regardless of whether the company has any physical presence in Texas.
The law's scope hits four categories of business especially hard:
- Direct-to-consumer brands sending promotional SMS at scale — retail, food and beverage, fitness, beauty, subscription services.
- Healthcare and insurance marketers using text to acquire new patients or policyholders.
- Lead-generation companies who buy lists and send acquisition texts on behalf of clients.
- Out-of-state telemarketers who treated Texas as a high-volume market because of its size and the perception that enforcement was lax.
The November 2025 settlement carved out genuine opt-in marketers from some of the most burdensome requirements, but every covered business should review whether its specific consent mechanisms qualify for the carve-out.
What the law requires
Registration with the Texas Secretary of State
Under the version of the law as enacted, businesses sending marketing texts to Texas residents must register with the Texas Secretary of State. Registration includes:
- A $200 annual registration fee.
- A $10,000 bond or other security, payable to the State of Texas, to ensure compliance with the law.
- Disclosure of the names and addresses of the individuals operating the telemarketing program.
- Quarterly reporting on telemarketing activity.
As of the November 2025 settlement, businesses running genuine, documented opt-in SMS programs are effectively exempt from these registration and bonding requirements — but only for messages sent to consumers who have actually opted in. Cold lists, purchased lists, and any messages sent without prior consent remain fully subject to registration.
Time-of-day restrictions
SB 140 imposes strict time limits on when marketing messages may be sent to Texas numbers:
- Monday through Saturday: 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM Central time.
- Sunday: 12:00 noon to 9:00 PM Central time.
These restrictions apply to all marketing communications regardless of consent — the opt-in carve-out from the November 2025 settlement does not waive time-of-day rules.
The Texas No-Call list
Numbers on the Texas No-Call list cannot be marketed to via SMS any more than they could be called by voice. Texas's no-call enforcement was already aggressive; SB 140 raises penalties further for solicitations to no-call numbers.
Caller-ID and identification requirements
Marketing texts must include identifying information so the recipient can determine who sent them. Spoofed numbers and untraceable short codes raise enforcement risk significantly.
Penalties: civil, DTPA, and private actions
The penalty structure under SB 140 is what makes the law genuinely consequential. There are three independent layers of exposure.
First, statutory civil penalties. The Texas Attorney General may enforce the law and seek civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation. Each unlawful text is a separate violation. A single marketing campaign sending 100,000 unauthorized texts to Texas numbers theoretically exposes the sender to half a billion dollars in penalties — though as a practical matter, AG enforcement tends to focus on the most egregious actors.
Second, the Texas DTPA private right of action. SB 140 explicitly classifies violations of Chapters 302, 304, and 305 as "false, misleading, or deceptive" practices under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. This is the critical change. The DTPA gives individual consumers the right to sue for damages, and Texas's DTPA is one of the most plaintiff-friendly in the country. Recoverable damages include:
- Actual damages (typically minimal for a single text but can include emotional distress).
- Treble damages if the violation is knowing or intentional.
- Attorney's fees and costs, which dramatically improve the economics for plaintiff-side firms.
Third, successive recoveries. SB 140 explicitly provides that recovery in one private action does not bar recovery in subsequent actions arising from later violations. A consumer who receives ten unlawful marketing texts from the same company can theoretically pursue ten separate recoveries rather than being limited to one consolidated action.
The plaintiff math
Even under conservative assumptions — $500 in DTPA damages per text, no trebling, attorney's fees recovered — a single non-compliant marketer texting 10,000 Texas consumers two messages each faces $10 million in theoretical liability across the class. This is why SB 140 changed the risk calculus for SMS marketing in Texas almost immediately upon taking effect.
Timeline: how SB 140 happened
Texas court ruling. A Texas state court holds that an SMS marketer did not qualify as a "telephone solicitor" under Chapter 302 because the statute didn't define "call" to include text messages. The decision exposes a major gap in Texas telemarketing law.
S.B. 315 vetoed. An earlier version of the SMS-expansion legislation, S.B. 315, passes the legislature but is vetoed by Governor Abbott for reasons left publicly unclear.
SB 140 passes the Texas Legislature. The 89th Legislature passes the SB 315 successor, this time with broader bipartisan support and stronger private-right-of-action language.
Governor Abbott signs SB 140. The bill becomes law, with an effective date of September 1, 2025.
U.S. Supreme Court's McLaughlin decision. In McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., the Supreme Court opens new avenues for challenging FCC TCPA interpretations, increasing the practical importance of state-level mini-TCPAs like SB 140.
SB 140 takes effect. Marketing texts to Texas numbers are now subject to the same registration, bonding, and time-of-day rules as voice telemarketing.
First wave of private litigation. Plaintiff-side attorneys begin filing DTPA actions against marketers whose texts continued post-September 1. Multiple putative class actions filed.
Texas settlement on opt-in programs. Texas resolves litigation challenging Chapter 302's application to genuine opt-in SMS programs. The settlement effectively exempts opt-in marketers from the registration and bonding requirements — though private DTPA actions remain available for any messages sent without proper consent.
Enforcement period. Texas Attorney General and private plaintiffs continue active enforcement. Several class actions are in active discovery.
The November 2025 settlement, in detail
Within weeks of SB 140 taking effect, several industry groups and individual marketers challenged the application of Chapter 302's registration and bonding requirements to legitimate opt-in SMS programs. Their argument was straightforward: a consumer who affirmatively opts in to receive marketing messages from a specific brand is not the target of "telephone solicitation" in the consumer-protection sense the statute was designed to address.
Texas resolved the litigation in November 2025 with a settlement that produced a narrower interpretation of Chapter 302's reach. Under the post-settlement framework:
- Genuine opt-in programs are exempt from Chapter 302's registration, bonding, and quarterly-reporting requirements.
- The opt-in must be real — documented, specific to the sender, and capable of being produced if challenged. Pre-checked boxes, buried consent in long terms-of-service documents, and consent transferred from unrelated relationships do not qualify.
- Cold lists, purchased lists, and any messages sent without prior consent remain fully subject to Chapter 302's requirements.
- Time-of-day restrictions still apply regardless of opt-in status.
- The private right of action under the DTPA remains in force — the settlement narrowed registration obligations but did not eliminate consumer remedies.
The practical effect for businesses: a well-run opt-in SMS program with documented consent is significantly less burdensome to operate post-November 2025 than it appeared in the immediate aftermath of SB 140's effective date. The practical effect for plaintiffs: there's still a meaningful private-litigation market, focused on businesses whose consent practices don't meet the documentation standard.
Which side of this are you on?
SB 140 affects two very different audiences with very different concerns. If you're a Texas consumer who has received text messages you don't believe you consented to, you may have legal options. If you're a business sending marketing communications to Texas, you have compliance obligations. The two paths below cover what each audience needs to know.