TEXAS Senate Bill 140
What the New Texas SMS Laws Mean for Ecommerce Businesses
Texas Senate Bill 140 (SB 140), which became effective on September 1, 2025, made headlines across the industry as multiple SMS platforms (e.g, here, here, and here) and law firms (too many to catalog) caused panic by telling brands that they had to rush to register with the Texas Secretary of State’s office without fully exploring the serious impacts that the law would have on their business.
Telling brands to “just register” was easy and safe, so the advice was reflexive and repeated. In our view, this advice worked an injustice to many ecommerce brands who were forced to divert hours of time trying to complete the registration process or spent thousands of dollars on outside consultants, and then had to come up with registration fees and $10,000 bonds.
Unfortunately, the advice was also often incomplete. Usually brands were not made aware of three critical drawbacks to the “just register” approach:
Disclosure of Sensitive Information
Ecommerce businesses weren’t told that registering with the state was not only burdensome, but actually required disclosure of sensitive personal information and confidential business details. Or that, once filed, this sensitive information is permanently available to the public (including competitors), because the law expressly prevents these filings from being treated as confidential.
On-Going Disclosures
Registration brings with it a variety of on-going burdens, including the duty to provide recurring quarterly updates on the registration and to provide lengthy disclosures in all future marketing SMS sent to Texas.
Delays in Processing
Brands also weren’t told that filing the registration form is not the same thing as being authorized to send messages. Rather, once a brand decides they have to register, they cannot lawfully send messages in Texas until the registration certificate is issued by the Secretary of State’s office. The Secretary of State’s office has a backlog of several months currently, so any brand that has attempted to register should not be sending any messages to Texas until their certificate is returned. (One can only wonder if the platforms that were insisting on registration forgot to mention this important detail, since it would mean a loss of revenue for them.)
EIA, together with its founding member, Postscript, carefully studied the legislation and its legislative history and came to a starkly different conclusion. Rather than falling into the hysteria trap, from the beginning EIA encouraged calm, noting that the immediate panic was overstated for businesses already adhering to best practices by obtaining consumer consent. EIA sought to educate the ecommerce community, working with TCPA lawyers like Alexis Buese – who had already demonstrated a willingness to solve the core problem through her good work fixing problems with the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act. EIA explained that the legislative history made clear that SB 140 was never intended to reach consent-based messages and laid out several additional affirmative defenses that existed in the law, which could provide brands with a defense if they ended up getting targeted by shakedown litigation.
But, EIA didn’t stop there because it knows that litigation is expensive and no one wants to be the proverbial “test case.” Rather than telling thousands of small brands to comply with unreasonably burdensome regulations, EIA stood up and took on the fight to protect the industry by filing a legal challenge against the State of Texas, asserting that extending the law to SMS messages sent with consumer consent would violate our member’s constitutional right to commercial speech. EIA asked the court to protect EIA’s members for regulatory overreach.
On Friday, September 26, 2025, the Texas Attorney General responded to EIA and Postscript’s filings by agreeing, even telling the federal court that any assertion that ecommerce brands sending SMS with prior consent have to register with the State “teeters on absurdity.” The Texas AG confirmed that EIA members are, therefore, not regulated by SB 140.
Based on the Texas AG’s position, EIA:
Does not encourage registration with the Texas Secretary of State for any EIA member sending messages with consent.
Encourages any EIA member that may have attempted to register to explore whether they may withdraw the registration application if it has not been processed.
Encourages all EIA members to continue sending SMS messages to Texas phone numbers in compliance with industry best practices and applicable federal regulations
Texas SB 140 Overview
Texas Senate Bill 140 made several key changes to existing laws concerning solicitation-related communications.
The new Texas Senate Bill 140 law went info effect on September 1st, 2025.
It amended existing Texas law to add text messaging to some definitions and chapters.
Key provisions include registration with a filing fee, $10,000 bond, additional disclosures, annual reporting, and the ability for individuals to bring legal actions for violations under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (TDTPA).
According to the Texas Attorney General’s office, EIA members who send messages to consumers with prior consent are not regulated by Texas SB 140 and are not required to register with the State.
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Alexis M. Buese
Partner, Bradley Law Firm
Phone: (813) 559-5511
Email: abuese@bradley.com
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Artin Betpera
Shareholder, Buchalter Law Firm
Phone: (949) 224-6422
Email: abetpera@buchalter.com
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