Texas SB 140 made marketing text messages legally identical to telemarketing calls. It took effect September 1, 2025, and it did three things that matter: it pulled texts into the state's telemarketer registration regime (annual filing, a $10,000 security deposit, $200 per business location), it wired violations into the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act so consumers can sue you directly, and it removed the procedural hurdles that used to stand between an annoyed recipient and a lawsuit.
Then, in November 2025, a settlement narrowed it. Texas agreed that genuinely consent-based marketing texts do not trigger the Chapter 302 registration and bonding requirement. Most articles you will find were written in August 2025 and never got updated, so they describe a version of the law that is no longer accurate. This one covers where things actually stand, and what it means specifically if you text property owners.
This is not legal advice. It is a plain-English summary so you know which questions to bring to counsel. SB 140 is being actively litigated and interpretations are still moving. Talk to a TCPA or telecom attorney before running outbound into Texas.
Key takeaways
- SB 140 redefined telephone solicitation to include texts, images, and graphic messages. Effective September 1, 2025.
- Unless exempt, text marketers must register with the Texas Secretary of State, post a $10,000 bond, and pay $200 per location.
- The November 2025 settlement exempts genuinely consent-based SMS from that registration requirement. It does not exempt cold outreach.
- Chapters 304 (No-Call, caller ID) and 305 (consent for mobile marketing) remain fully in force either way.
- Penalties stack: up to $5,000 per violation for the Attorney General, up to $1,500 per violation privately under the DTPA, and treble damages for willful conduct.
- Texas is roughly 9% of the US population, so any national list already contains Texas numbers.
What Texas SB 140 actually changed
Before SB 140, Texas regulated telemarketing through four chapters of the Business and Commerce Code, and only two narrow subsections touched text messages at all. SB 140 amended the definitions of telephone solicitation and telephone call to include "transmission of a text or graphic message or of an image."
That is a small edit with a large blast radius. By changing the definition rather than adding a new section, the legislature made every existing provision apply to texting at once: registration duties, disclosure duties, No-Call obligations, caller ID rules, and the enforcement machinery behind all of them.
| Chapter | What it governs | Applies to texts now? |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter 301 | Core telemarketing duties: caller identification, permitted hours, autodialer rules | Yes |
| Chapter 302 | Seller registration with the Secretary of State, $10,000 security, $200 per location | Yes, unless exempt |
| Chapter 304 | Texas No-Call list and caller ID rules | Yes, and unaffected by the settlement |
| Chapter 305 | Consent requirement for marketing transmissions to mobile phones | Yes, and unaffected by the settlement |
The second change is the one plaintiffs' firms noticed. SB 140 made violations actionable under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Previously a consumer had to file a complaint with the Attorney General and wait for a second violation of the No-Call rules before doing anything. Now they can go straight to court. The statute also states explicitly that having recovered once does not limit recovery in a future proceeding.
What the November 2025 settlement changed
Shortly after the law took effect, a group of plaintiffs challenged its application to text messaging. The case settled in November 2025, and Texas agreed to a meaningful narrowing: consent-based marketing texts that would otherwise trigger the law are exempt from Chapter 302's registration, bonding, and quarterly reporting requirements. The Attorney General confirmed the position publicly.
If you run a real opt-in SMS program, that removes the $10,000 bond and the paperwork. It is a genuine win and it is why the August 2025 panic articles now overstate the burden.
Read the carve-out carefully. It covers programs that are genuinely consent-based and not a pretext for cold outreach. Bolting a consent checkbox onto a skip-traced list does not convert cold texting into an opt-in program, and it is precisely the fact pattern the language anticipates.
Everything else survived. Chapter 304 still applies, which means you still scrub the Texas No-Call list and still respect the 60-day window after a number is added. Chapter 305 still requires consent for marketing transmissions to mobile numbers. The DTPA linkage is intact. Caller ID spoofing or concealment is still prohibited.
The penalties, stacked
The reason SB 140 changed behavior is not any single number. It is that four different exposures now attach to the same message.
| Exposure | Amount | Who brings it |
|---|---|---|
| Failure to register (Ch. 302) | Class A misdemeanor, plus civil penalties | State of Texas |
| Attorney General enforcement | Up to $5,000 per violation | Texas Attorney General |
| Private DTPA claim | Up to $1,500 per violation, trebled if willful | Any recipient |
| Federal TCPA claim | $500 to $1,500 per message | Any recipient, often as a class |
Run the arithmetic on a modest campaign. Ten thousand cold texts into Texas, at a combined state and federal exposure that can exceed $2,000 per message in a willful case, is not a compliance problem. It is an extinction-level number for a wholesaling business. This is the same math we walk through in our guide to whether cold texting is illegal under the TCPA, except Texas adds a second meter running alongside the federal one.
Worth noting: a group of demand letters and civil claims citing the $5,000 civil penalty provision started circulating in early 2026, and at least one firm has publicly argued that the default judgments behind them are not precedent. Translation: there is now a cottage industry sending Texas demand letters, and some of it is opportunistic. That does not make the underlying exposure fake.
Does SB 140 apply to real estate investors?
Yes, and the fit is uncomfortably clean. The statute reaches messages "initiated by a seller or salesperson ... to induce a person to purchase, rent, claim, or receive" a product or service. An investor texting a homeowner to buy their house is soliciting a transaction. Nothing in SB 140 carves out real estate acquisition, and nothing distinguishes a wholesaler from an ecommerce brand.
Three exemptions get raised in investor forums, and none of them work the way people hope:
- "I only text former or current customers." That exemption is real (§ 302.058), but a homeowner pulled from county records and skip traced is neither. You have never transacted with them.
- "I have a brick-and-mortar business." The § 302.059 exemption is for companies deriving most of their revenue from sales at established physical locations. A wholesaling operation does not.
- "I text manually, so it is one-to-one." The manual-send argument targets the federal autodialer definition. SB 140 is not built on an autodialer trigger, so it does not help you here.
There is one more wrinkle worth flagging. The statute refers to solicitation of "a purchaser located in this state," and SMS gives you no reliable real-time location signal. An area code is not a residence. Numbers port, people move, and a 512 number may sit in Colorado. Conservative programs treat any Texas-associated number as in-scope rather than trying to litigate geography after the fact.
Three compliant paths for Texas
You have real options here. They are just narrower than "blast the list."
1. Exclude Texas from cold SMS
The simplest and the one most operators land on. You suppress Texas numbers from cold text campaigns and reach those owners another way: direct mail, or manually dialed calls with proper DNC scrubbing and the scripts we publish here. You lose the cheapest channel in your largest market, which hurts, but you carry no SB 140 exposure.
2. Build genuine consent first
Drive Texas owners to an opt-in: a cash-offer landing page, a valuation request, a form fill with clear disclosure. Once someone has genuinely opted in, the November 2025 settlement puts you outside the Chapter 302 registration requirement, and you have consent for Chapter 305 purposes too. Slower and more expensive per lead, and the only path that scales cleanly inside Texas.
3. Register and text carefully
File the annual registration statement with the Secretary of State, post the $10,000 security, pay the $200 per location, and run a tightly controlled program. Realistic for a funded operation, rarely worth it for someone doing three deals a month.
| Path | Upfront cost | Residual SB 140 risk | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exclude Texas from SMS | None | None from SB 140 | Most small and mid-size operators |
| Consent-first funnel | Ad spend and build time | Low, Ch. 304 and 305 still apply | Operators committed to Texas volume |
| Register as a solicitor | $10,000 bond plus $200 per location | Moderate, full compliance burden | Funded teams with counsel |
The Texas compliance checklist
If you are going to touch Texas numbers at all, these are the operational controls that matter:
- Scrub the Texas No-Call list separately from the federal DNC registry. They are different lists.
- Respect the 60-day window. Do not text a number more than 60 days after it appears on the No-Call list.
- Never conceal or spoof caller identity. Chapter 304 prohibits it and it is an easy, provable violation.
- Identify yourself in the first message. Required, and it also helps deliverability.
- Document your exemption analysis in writing before you send, not after a demand letter arrives.
- Store consent records and opt-outs for years. The party who cannot produce records loses.
- Keep your A2P 10DLC registration current. It is a separate carrier requirement, not a legal defense, but an unregistered sender has no good story to tell.
- Route by state, not nationally. Your suppression logic should be able to treat Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and Washington differently from everywhere else.
How this fits with federal law and other states
SB 140 sits on top of the TCPA, it does not replace it. Federal law still requires prior express written consent for autodialed marketing texts to cell phones and still carries $500 to $1,500 per message. Texas adds its own layer, and Florida's FTSA does the same thing in that state. Oklahoma and Washington have their own strict rules.
The federal picture is also unsettled in a way that cuts both directions. Through 2026, district courts have split on whether text messages count as "calls" for the do-not-call provisions of the TCPA, and the Seventh Circuit heard argument on the question in May 2026. Some of those rulings favor defendants. None of them touch Texas state law, which is exactly why a state-by-state routing policy beats a single national one.
Compliant seller outreach, without the legal homework
Vocalxlabs runs the AI Acquisition Manager for real estate investors. State-level routing, A2P 10DLC registration, DNC and No-Call scrubbing, opt-out handling, and send windows are built into the system, so Texas rules are a configuration rather than a research project. Start with a free 2-week pilot, cover only data costs (usually under $100), and pay no setup fee until it produces qualified sellers.
Start the free 2-week pilotFrequently asked questions
What is Texas SB 140?
Texas SB 140 is a 2025 law that expanded the definition of telephone solicitation in the Texas Business and Commerce Code to include text messages, graphic messages, and images. Governor Abbott signed it on June 20, 2025 and it took effect September 1, 2025. The practical effect is that marketing texts sent to Texas residents are now treated like telemarketing calls, which pulls them into registration requirements, the Texas No-Call list rules, and a new private right of action under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Does SB 140 make cold texting illegal in Texas?
It does not ban cold texting outright, but it makes unconsented cold texting into Texas considerably more expensive to get wrong. Cold outreach cannot rely on the consent-based exemption confirmed in the November 2025 settlement, so a cold texting program still faces the Chapter 302 registration question, and it faces Chapter 304 No-Call and Chapter 305 consent rules regardless. Combined with federal TCPA exposure, cold texting Texas consumers without consent is one of the highest-risk things an outbound program can do.
What did the November 2025 SB 140 settlement change?
In a November 2025 settlement resolving litigation over how SB 140 applies to text messaging, Texas agreed that genuinely consent-based marketing texts are exempt from Chapter 302's registration, bonding, and quarterly reporting requirements. That is a meaningful relief for opt-in SMS programs. It is not a general exemption. Chapters 304 and 305 remain fully in force, the DTPA linkage remains, and the state's position was tied to programs that are genuinely consent-based rather than a pretext for cold outreach.
What are the penalties under Texas SB 140?
There are several stacked layers. Failure to register when required is a Class A misdemeanor and carries civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation in an action brought by the Texas Attorney General. Separately, consumers now have a direct private right of action under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, where statutory damages can reach $1,500 per violation and willful violations permit treble damages. SB 140 also confirms that recovering once does not limit recovery in a future proceeding.
Do I have to register with the Texas Secretary of State to send marketing texts?
If you send marketing texts to Texas residents and no exemption applies, yes. Registration requires an annual registration statement with the Texas Secretary of State, a $10,000 security deposit, and a $200 filing fee per business location. Exemptions include publicly traded corporations, insurance companies, supervised financial institutions, FCC-regulated companies, nonprofits, companies soliciting former or current customers, and businesses deriving most revenue from established brick-and-mortar sales. After the November 2025 settlement, genuinely consent-based SMS programs are also outside the registration requirement.
Does SB 140 apply to real estate wholesalers and investors?
Yes, if you text Texas property owners to solicit a purchase. The statute reaches text messages initiated by a seller or salesperson to induce a person to purchase, rent, claim, or receive a product or service, and nothing in it carves out real estate acquisition. An investor texting skip-traced homeowners in Texas is doing exactly what the amended definition describes. The current-or-former-customer exemption does not help you with a cold list, because a homeowner you found in county records is neither.
How do I text Texas sellers compliantly after SB 140?
The conservative approach is to either build genuine consent before texting Texas numbers, or to exclude Texas from cold SMS and reach those owners by a channel that does not trigger the statute, such as direct mail or manually dialed calls with proper DNC scrubbing. If you do text Texas, scrub the Texas No-Call list and respect the 60-day window, never spoof or conceal caller identity, register with the Secretary of State unless a documented exemption applies, honor opt-outs immediately, and keep records of every consent and suppression decision.
Is SB 140 the same as the federal TCPA?
No. The TCPA is the federal statute that governs calls and texts nationwide and carries $500 to $1,500 per message in statutory damages. SB 140 is a state mini-TCPA that sits on top of it. Complying with the TCPA does not make you compliant with SB 140, and the exposures stack: the same message can support a federal TCPA claim and a Texas DTPA claim at the same time.
Which other states have mini-TCPA laws like SB 140?
Florida's FTSA is the best known and has driven a large volume of class actions. Oklahoma and Washington also have strict telephone solicitation statutes, and several other states have their own registration or consent rules. The list changes most legislative sessions, which is why a serious outbound program treats state law as a per-state routing decision rather than a single national policy.
If you are weighing whether SMS is worth this at all, our cost-per-deal case study has the real numbers from a campaign run outside Texas, and our guide to SMS marketing for investors covers the operational side.
Sources: Texas SB 140 enrolled bill text, 89th Legislature (capitol.texas.gov); Morgan Lewis, "Texas Telephone Solicitation Law Now Covers Text Messages" (September 2025); Paul Hastings, "Marketing Texts in Texas" (August 2025); Nelson Mullins (August 2025); Troutman Pepper Locke, "Texas Attorney General Confirms Opt-In SMS Is Outside Registration Under SB 140" (November 2025); Varnum LLP, "Texas SB 140 After the November Settlement" (January 2026); Kelley Drye (July 2025); JD Supra TCPA case tracking (2026).