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Credit report errors in Texas: what the law says

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What the statute says

Small claims limit

$20,000 in justice court (Texas's small-claims forum), Tex. Gov't Code §27.031(a)(1): the justice court has original jurisdiction of "civil matters in which exclusive jurisdiction is not in the district or county court and in which the amount in controversy is not more than $20,000, exclusive of interest" — BUT a…

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chapter 20 claim cannot be filed there, because §20.13 provides that "An action brought under this chapter shall be filed in a district court."

Two forum rules collide and the letter must not promise small claims for the Texas claim. (1) Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.13 mandates a DISTRICT court in Travis County, the county of violation, or the consumer's county of residence for any "action brought under this chapter." District court means formal pleading, discovery, and — given §20.08(c) — fee exposure if the consumer loses.

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(2) The federal FCRA claim may be brought "in any other court of competent jurisdiction" (15 U.S.C. §1681p, federal baseline), and a Texas justice court is one for claims within $20,000 under Gov't Code §27.031(a)(1); note §27.031(b)(3) excludes "a suit to recover damages for slander or defamation of character," so a defamation-styled credit claim is also out. The justice-court small-claims procedure (Tex. R. Civ. P. 500–507, not read for this file) caps the amount at the same $20,000. Practical guidance: a Texas consumer who wants a cheap forum files the FEDERAL claim in justice court and leaves chapter 20 out; a consumer who wants the Texas damages floor and DTPA trebling goes to district court with counsel and accepts the two-way fee risk. The DTPA route via §20.12 is a suit "under this chapter" by definition (§20.12 makes the chapter 20 violation the DTPA act), so it is safest to assume §20.13's district-court mandate reaches it too.

Code section

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 20, enacted by H.B. 1971, 75th Leg., R.S. (1997), Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1396, §33(a). The enrolled bill reads: "SECTION 33. (a) Title 2, Business & Commerce Code, is amended by adding Chapter 20 to read as follows: CHAPTER 20.

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REGULATION OF CONSUMER CREDIT REPORTING AGENCIES" and "(b) Subsection (a) of this section takes effect October 1, 1997." (the rest of H.B. 1971, a usury and lending bill captioned "Relating to usury and the regulation of lenders and credit reporting agencies; providing penalties," took effect September 1, 1997 under its §51). The code annotation on every original section matches: "Added by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1396, Sec. 33(a), eff. Oct. 1, 1997." H.B. 1971 repealed only usury chapters of Title 79 (§48) and repealed no prior Texas credit-reporting law; no predecessor statute is cited anywhere in the chapter's annotations. THAT DATE IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACT ON THIS PAGE: every Texas-specific rule in chapter 20 post-dates September 30, 1996, the cut-off in the FCRA grandfather clauses at 15 U.S.C. §1681t(b)(1)(B) and (E), so no Texas dispute-timing or report-content rule is grandfathered (see federal_preemption_analysis). Later amendments visible in the official text: Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 851 (§20.06) and ch. 1326 (security alert/freeze subchapter B, §§20.11–20.13, eff. Sept. 1, 2003); Acts 2007, 80th Leg., ch. 1143 (S.B. 222, freeze mechanics, eff. Sept. 1, 2007); Acts 2013, 83rd Leg., ch. 64 (S.B. 60, child security freeze Subchapter E, eff. Jan. 1, 2014); Acts 2019, 86th Leg., ch. 340 (S.B. 1037, the §20.05(a)(5) surprise-medical-bill exclusion, eff. May 31, 2019); Acts 2023, 88th Leg., ch. 769 (H.B. 4611, conforming cross-references in §20.038, eff. April 1, 2025). No 89th Legislature (2025) amendment appears in the text; the one 2025 bill that would have amended §20.05 (S.B. 584, 89R) died with a last action of "05/27/2025 H Placed on General State Calendar." Texas has no 2026 regular session. A separate 1997 bill with the same subject, S.B. 27 (75R, Harris), never passed (last action "05/21/1997 H Committee report sent to Calendars") and must not be cited as the source of chapter 20.

Statutory damages

Against a consumer reporting agency only, Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.09. Willful, §20.09(a): "A consumer reporting agency that wilfully violates this chapter is liable to the consumer against whom the violation occurs for the greater of three times the amount of actual damages to the consumer or $1,000, reasonable…

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attorney fees, and court or arbitration costs." Negligent, §20.09(b): "A consumer reporting agency that negligently violates this chapter is liable to the consumer against whom the violation occurs for the greater of the amount of actual damages to the consumer or $500, reasonable attorney fees, and court or arbitration costs." BUT the negligence floor is defeasible by cure, same subsection: "A consumer reporting agency is not considered to have negligently violated this chapter if, not later than the 30th day after the date on which the agency receives notice of a dispute from the consumer under Section 20.06 that clearly explains the nature and substance of the dispute, the agency completes the reinvestigation and sends the consumer and, at the request of the consumer, each person who received the consumer information written notification of the results of the reinvestigation in accordance with Section 20.06(f)." Read the two clocks together: a bureau that finishes within 30 calendar days of a clearly-explained dispute is immune from the $500 negligence floor even though §20.06(a) nominally allows it 30 business days. Post-judgment escalator, §20.09(c): "In addition to liability imposed under Subsection (a), a consumer reporting agency that does not correct a consumer's file and consumer report before the 10th day after the date on which a judgment is entered against the agency because of inaccurate information contained in a consumer's file is also liable for $1,000 a day until the inaccuracy is corrected." — it attaches to a willful-violation judgment ("In addition to liability imposed under Subsection (a)"), and only after a judgment exists, so it has no place in a pre-suit letter except as a description of exposure. These are per-consumer, per-violation figures with no per-tradeline multiplier in the text; do not print a computed total. What Texas adds relative to federal: a $500 minimum for NEGLIGENT violations (the FCRA's §1681o gives actual damages only for negligence) and a treble-or-$1,000 willful measure that can exceed the federal §1681n range of $100–$1,000 when actual damages are large. Two further money routes with their own conditions: (i) the DTPA tie-in, §20.12 ("A violation of this chapter is a false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice under Subchapter E, Chapter 17."), under which §17.50(b)(1) allows economic damages, mental-anguish damages if the conduct was "knowingly," and up to three times economic damages if knowing (three times economic plus mental anguish if intentional), with §17.50(h) letting a tie-in claimant recover "any actual damages" — subject to the 60-day pre-suit notice of §17.505(a), the 30-day tender defense of §17.506(d), the DTPA 'consumer' definition question flagged in open_questions, and §20.0385(c) which removes security-freeze violations from the DTPA route; (ii) against third-party debt collectors only, Tex. Fin. Code §392.403(e) ("not less than $100 for each violation") for a §392.202 dispute-handling violation, with the bona fide error defense of §392.401. Neither Texas route supplies punitive damages by that name; federal §1681n(a)(2) punitive damages remain available only under the FCRA.

Investigation deadline

30 days

Three different Texas clocks appear in chapter 20 and must not be conflated. (1) §20.06(a): reinvestigate and record status by the 30th BUSINESS day after receipt. (2) §20.06(b): notify each furnisher by the 5th business day after receipt (federal §1681i(a)(2)(A) is also 5 business days).

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(3) §20.09(b): the negligence-damages safe harbour is measured in CALENDAR days — "not later than the 30th day after the date on which the agency receives notice of a dispute from the consumer under Section 20.06 that clearly explains the nature and substance of the dispute" — and requires both completion of the reinvestigation AND written results to the consumer (and, on request, to prior recipients). A bureau that beats the 30-calendar-day safe harbour escapes the $500 negligence floor; one that uses its full 30 business days under §20.06(a) does not. Results notice: §20.06(f), by the 5th business day after completion (federal §1681i(a)(6)(A) is also 5 business days). Preemption status of all three timing rules: exposed under §1681t(b)(1)(B), which reaches "the time by which a consumer reporting agency must take any action, including the provision of notification to a consumer or other person, in any procedure related to the disputed accuracy of information in a consumer's file," with a grandfather only for "any State law in effect on September 30, 1996"; chapter 20 was not. No Texas court decision squarely holding §20.06 preempted or not preempted was located; Gore v. Trans Union (Tex. App.—Dallas 2024) adjudicated §20.06 and §20.07 claims on the merits without any timing-preemption discussion (the court paraphrased §20.06 as requiring reinvestigation "within thirty days of the consumer's request", dropping the word 'business'), which shows Texas courts will entertain the claim but decides nothing about preemption.

BUSINESS days, not calendar days — Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.06(a): "not later than the 30th business day after the date on which the agency receives the notice." That is roughly six calendar weeks, LONGER than the federal 30-calendar-day period of 15 U.S.C.

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§1681i(a)(1)(A), so the Texas figure is not a consumer improvement and should never be presented as one. Chapter 20 took effect October 1, 1997, after the September 30, 1996 grandfather date in §1681t(b)(1)(B), so a bureau has a strong argument that the Texas timing rule is preempted outright; in practice the argument is moot for the consumer because the federal deadline is shorter. Letter use: demand completion within the federal 30 days (45 for an annual-free-report dispute, 15 U.S.C. §1681j(a)(3)) and, if Texas is mentioned at all, mention it only for the live-representative option and the §20.09(b) 30-calendar-day cure safe harbour.

When it can be extended

No Texas overlay — federal 15 U.S.C. §1681i(a)(1)(B) governs: the 30-day period "may be extended for not more than 15 additional days if the consumer reporting agency receives information from the consumer during that 30-day period that is relevant to the reinvestigation," and §1681i(a)(1)(C) bars that extension where, during the 30 days, the information is found inaccurate or incomplete or cannot be verified.

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The 45-day period for a dispute raised after the consumer receives a free annual report comes from a different section, 15 U.S.C. §1681j(a)(3) ('shall be completed not later than 45 days after the date on which the request is received'), not from §1681i(a)(1)(C). Chapter 20 contains no extension mechanism at all; its 30-business-day base period already exceeds federal 30 + 15 calendar days in most months.

What the bureau must do

Texas imposes a parallel reinvestigation duty on consumer reporting agencies, Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.06(a): the agency "shall reinvestigate the disputed information free of charge and record the current status of the disputed information not later than the 30th business day after the date on which the agency…

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receives the notice," and "shall provide the consumer with the option of notifying the agency of a dispute concerning the consumer's file by speaking directly to a representative of the agency during normal business hours." Downstream duties: notify each furnisher within 5 business days (§20.06(b)); delete unverifiable or inaccurate items, revise the file, and send the revised report to the consumer and to everyone who pulled the report in the preceding six months (§20.06(d)); no reinsertion without the furnisher's written or electronic certification (§20.06(e)); written results within 5 business days of completion with six enumerated contents (§20.06(f)). BUT the Texas 30-business-day clock is LONGER than the federal 30-calendar-day clock of 15 U.S.C. §1681i(a)(1)(A) and, because chapter 20 took effect October 1, 1997, it is not saved by the September 30, 1996 grandfather in §1681t(b)(1)(B); a bureau that misses Texas's deadline has already missed the federal one. The Texas duty that genuinely adds something is the live-representative option in §20.06(a), which has no federal counterpart.

Verbatim, Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.06(a): "If the completeness or accuracy of information contained in a consumer's file is disputed by the consumer and the consumer notifies the consumer reporting agency of the dispute, the agency shall reinvestigate the disputed information free of charge and record the current status of the disputed information not later than the 30th business day after the date on which the agency receives the notice.

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The consumer reporting agency shall provide the consumer with the option of notifying the agency of a dispute concerning the consumer's file by speaking directly to a representative of the agency during normal business hours."

§20.06(b): "(b) Not later than the fifth business day after the date on which a consumer reporting agency receives notice of a dispute from a consumer in accordance with Subsection (a), the agency shall provide notice of the dispute to each person who provided any information related to the dispute."

§20.06(d): "(d) If disputed information is found to be inaccurate or cannot be verified after a reinvestigation under Subsection (a), the consumer reporting agency, unless otherwise directed by the consumer, shall promptly delete the information from the consumer's file, revise the consumer file, and provide the revised consumer report to the consumer and to each person who requested the consumer report within the preceding six months. The consumer reporting agency may not report the inaccurate or unverified information in subsequent reports."

§20.06(e): "(e) Information deleted under Subsection (d) may not be reinserted in the consumer's file unless the person who furnishes the information to the consumer reporting agency reinvestigates and states in writing or by electronic record to the agency that the information is complete and accurate."

§20.06(f) (first sentence): "A consumer reporting agency shall provide written notice of the results of a reinvestigation or reinsertion made under this section not later than the fifth business day after the date on which the reinvestigation or reinsertion has been completed."

Three limits ride on these duties. (1) Frivolous-dispute exit, §20.06(c): the agency "may terminate a reinvestigation of information disputed by a consumer under Subsection (a) if the agency reasonably determines that the dispute is frivolous or irrelevant," with prompt notice of the reasons; the same subsection adds a consumer-favourable gloss with no exact federal twin: "The presence of contradictory information in a consumer's file does not by itself constitute reasonable grounds for determining that the dispute is frivolous or irrelevant." (2) Resellers, §20.06(g): "This section does not require a person who obtains a consumer report for resale to another person to alter or correct an inaccuracy in the consumer report if the report was not assembled or prepared by the person." (3) Residency, §20.01(2): "'Consumer' means an individual who resides in this state." A person who no longer lives in Texas has no chapter 20 rights at all. Note also that §20.06(h) extends the dispute section to check-verification businesses, which the FCRA reaches only if they are consumer reporting agencies. What Texas does NOT add: there is no state-law 15-day extension and no state rule on the 45-day annual-free-report dispute window; those come only from 15 U.S.C. §1681i(a)(1)(B)–(C).

What the furnisher must do

No Texas overlay against furnishers under chapter 20 — federal 15 U.S.C. §1681s-2(b) governs. Chapter 20 imposes duties on, and civil liability against, a "consumer reporting agency" only: §20.08(a) speaks of "an obligation of a consumer reporting agency to a consumer under this chapter," and both damages subsections of §20.09 begin "A consumer reporting agency that ...

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violates this chapter." The only chapter 20 provisions that mention the party who supplies data are procedural channels run by the bureau: §20.06(b) (bureau must notify "each person who provided any information related to the dispute" within 5 business days), §20.06(e) (no reinsertion unless "the person who furnishes the information ... reinvestigates and states in writing or by electronic record to the agency that the information is complete and accurate"), §20.07 (bureau must give furnishers a fax/automated correction channel), and §20.02(c) (a person who obtains a report using the consumer's SSN must include the SSN in future reporting) — none carries a private remedy against the furnisher. A demand letter that cites §20.09 against the bank, lender, landlord, hospital or collector that reported the tradeline is citing a statute that does not apply to them.

The one Texas statute that does reach a class of furnishers is the Texas Debt Collection Act, Tex. Fin. Code §392.202 — and it reaches only a "third-party debt collector," defined in §392.001(7) by reference to the federal FDCPA ("a debt collector, as defined by 15 U.S.C. Section 1692a(6)" with an attorney carve-out), i.e. collection agencies and debt buyers collecting defaulted debt, NOT original creditors collecting their own accounts. §392.202(a): "An individual who disputes the accuracy of an item that is in a third-party debt collector's or credit bureau's file on the individual and that relates to a debt being collected by the third-party debt collector may notify in writing the third-party debt collector of the inaccuracy. The third-party debt collector shall make a written record of the dispute. ... If the third-party debt collector reports information related to the dispute to a credit bureau, the reporting third-party debt collector shall initiate an investigation of the dispute described by Subsections (b)-(e) and shall cease collection efforts until the investigation determines the accurate amount of the debt, if any." §392.202(b): within 30 days the collector must send a written statement denying the inaccuracy, admitting it, or stating it has not had time; on admission it must correct its file within 5 business days and send corrected reports to prior recipients (§392.202(c)); if it pleads insufficient time it must immediately change the item as requested, notify prior recipients, and cease collection (§392.202(d)). Remedy: §392.403(a) injunction and actual damages, §392.403(b) attorney's fees to a successful plaintiff, and §392.403(e) "not less than $100 for each violation" for a §392.202 violation; §392.404(a) makes any violation a DTPA deceptive trade practice. Defeaters: §392.401 bona fide error ("resulted from a bona fide error that occurred notwithstanding the use of reasonable procedures adopted to avoid the error"); §392.403(c) fee award to the defendant if the suit was "brought in bad faith or for purposes of harassment"; and, critically, federal preemption — to the extent §392.202 regulates what a collector must do about information it has furnished to a bureau, it is a state law "with respect to any subject matter regulated under section 1681s-2," which §1681t(b)(1)(F) preempts with carve-outs only for one Massachusetts and one California section; Texas is not among them. A CourtListener search for opinions containing both "392.202" and "1681t" returned zero results on 2026-09-05, so this is untested in reported Texas decisions as far as I could find; the cease-collection and own-file-correction limbs of §392.202 are the parts most likely to survive because they regulate collection conduct rather than furnishing. Safest letter use: cite §392.202 to a collection agency or debt buyer for the duty to investigate and stop collecting while the dispute is open, and cite 15 U.S.C. §1681s-2(b) — not Texas law — for the duty to correct what it reported.

Your right to free reports

No Texas free-annual-report right — federal 15 U.S.C. §1681j(a) governs the annual free file disclosure, and 15 U.S.C. §1681t(b)(4) preempts any state rule on the frequency of that disclosure (Texas is not among the seven states carved out). What Texas does have: Tex. Bus. & Com.

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Code §20.04(b)(1) bars any fee for a copy of the file "(A) made not later than the 60th day after the date on which adverse action is taken against the consumer; or (B) made on the expiration of a 45-day security alert" — (A) duplicates federal §1681j(b); (B) is Texas-only and tied to the Texas security-alert device in §20.031. Otherwise §20.04(a) lets an agency charge for a file disclosure an amount that "may not exceed $8," adjustable each January 1 by CPI; the federal cap in §1681j(f) is separately indexed and is what the nationwide bureaus actually apply. §20.03(a)(1) requires the disclosure to list "the name of each person requesting credit information about the consumer during the preceding six months" — SHORTER than the federal one-year (two-year for employment) inquiry look-back in §1681g(a)(3), so the Texas provision is not a consumer improvement; cite federal law for inquiries. §20.03(d) requires every written disclosure to carry a plain-language statement of chapter 20 rights, including "the process for requesting or removing a security alert or freeze" and "information on a consumer's right to bring an action in court or arbitrate a dispute."

Governing law

Texas Business & Commerce Code, Title 2, Chapter 20, "Regulation of Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies" (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §§20.01–20.13 and Subchapter E §§20.21–20.31). The chapter has no short title of its own — the statute never calls itself an "Act" — so cite it by chapter, not by a popular name.

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Texas therefore belongs to the group of states with a full consumer-credit-reporting statute (alongside California Civ. Code §1785.1 et seq. and New York GBL Art. 25), not the security-freeze-only group. Two neighbouring Texas statutes also touch the topic and are analysed below: the Texas Debt Collection Act, Tex. Fin. Code ch. 392 (§392.202 is a dispute rule aimed at third-party debt collectors and "credit bureaus"), and the Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act, Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 17 subch. E, which §20.12 and §392.404 each incorporate by tie-in.

Attorney's fees

TWO-WAY under chapter 20, and this is the trap in the Texas statute. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.08(c): "A prevailing party in an action or arbitration proceeding brought under this section shall be compensated for the party's attorney fees and costs of the proceeding as determined by the court or arbitration." "Prevailing party" includes the bureau.

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In Gore v. Trans Union LLC, No. 05-23-00659-CV (Tex. App.—Dallas Oct. 9, 2024, mem. op.) (petition for review filed in the Supreme Court of Texas 03/31/2025 and shown as disposed 06/06/2025 on the court of appeals docket; mandate issued 07/29/2025 — I did not read the Supreme Court's disposition), the court affirmed a fee award AGAINST a pro se consumer who lost his chapter 20 claims on summary judgment: "Trans Union successfully defended against Gore's suit and secured a take-nothing judgment on all his claims. Accordingly, Trans Union is the 'prevailing party' and entitled to an award of attorney's fees under the statute." The same opinion held the FCRA does not preempt the fee clause and pointedly noted, quoting a California case, "that a consumer may avoid the risk of having to pay the defendant's attorney's fees by suing under the FCRA rather than the state statute." §20.09(a) and (b) separately award "reasonable attorney fees" to the consumer as part of the damages measure. On the DTPA route, §17.50(d) gives a prevailing consumer fees one-way, but §17.50(c) shifts fees to the defendant if the court finds the action "groundless in fact or law or brought in bad faith, or brought for the purpose of harassment." On the Fin. Code ch. 392 route, §392.403(b) gives fees to a successful plaintiff and §392.403(c) gives them to the defendant on a bad-faith or harassment finding. Letter use: describe chapter 20's fee exposure as mutual; do not tell a Texas consumer that Texas law shifts fees only in their favour.

Outer limit (discovery rule)

4 years

Who handles complaints

Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Consumer Protection Division — the only public enforcer named in chapter 20. Tex. Bus. & Com.

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Code §20.11(a): "The attorney general may file a suit against a person for: (1) injunctive relief to prevent or restrain a violation of this chapter; or (2) a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $2,000 for each violation of this chapter." §20.11(c): "Each day a violation continues or occurs is a separate violation for purposes of imposing a penalty under this section." The civil penalty is payable to the State, not to the consumer, and the Attorney General does not adjudicate individual disputes; a complaint is a data point for the Division, not a remedy. No Texas licensing agency supervises the nationwide bureaus under chapter 20 (chapter 20 contains no registration or licensing scheme). Third-party debt collectors and "credit bureaus" engaged in debt collection must post a $10,000 surety bond with the Secretary of State under Tex. Fin. Code §392.101, which is a bond, not a regulator.

Scope limits

(1) Residency — §20.01(2), consumer must reside in Texas. (2) Defendant type — bureaus only (§§20.08, 20.09); third-party debt collectors only under Fin. Code §392.202.

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(3) Content-ban exemptions — §20.05(b): the obsolescence and medical-collection bans do not apply to a report furnished "in connection with: (1) a credit transaction with a principal amount that is or may reasonably be expected to be $150,000 or more; (2) the underwriting of life insurance for a face amount that is or may reasonably be expected to be $150,000 or more; or (3) the employment of a consumer at an annual salary that is or may reasonably be expected to be $75,000 or more," and §20.05(b-1) allows the information where "needed by the person to avoid a violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1033." (4) Medical-collection exclusion conditions — §20.05(a)(5) applies only to "a collection account with a medical industry code, if the consumer was covered by a health benefit plan at the time of the event giving rise to the collection and the collection is for an outstanding balance, after copayments, deductibles, and coinsurance, owed to an emergency care provider or a facility-based provider for an out-of-network benefit claim"; ordinary medical bills, in-network bills, uninsured patients' bills and non-collection medical tradelines are outside it. (5) Effective dates — chapter 20 from Oct. 1, 1997; §20.05(a)(5) from May 31, 2019; Subchapter E from Jan. 1, 2014; no sunset clause anywhere in the chapter. (6) Freeze exemptions — §20.038 lists thirteen classes of recipients a freeze does not block (court orders, child-support agencies, existing account holders and their collectors, prescreening, monitoring services, etc.) and §20.0385 exempts check/fraud-prevention and deposit-account services from the alert/freeze duty and resellers from the freeze duty. (7) Freeze violations are carved out of the DTPA route — §20.0385(c): "Notwithstanding Section 20.12, a violation of a requirement under this chapter to place, temporarily lift, or remove a security freeze on a consumer file is not a false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice under Subchapter E, Chapter 17." (8) Venue is mandatory and in DISTRICT court — §20.13: "An action brought under this chapter shall be filed in a district court: (1) in Travis County; (2) in any county in which the violation occurred; or (3) in the county in which the victim resides, regardless of whether the alleged violator has resided, worked, or done business in the county in which the victim resides." (9) Arbitration exhaustion — §20.08(a) allows arbitration only "if agreed to by both parties" and only "after the consumer has followed all dispute procedures in Section 20.06 and has received the notice specified in Section 20.06(f)"; §20.08(d) limits a consumer to one arbitration against a given agency per 120 days. (10) DTPA route — §17.505(a) 60-day pre-suit notice stating the specific complaint and the amount of economic damages, mental-anguish damages and expenses; a jab.today demand letter can be drafted to satisfy this, and should be, because without it the suit is abated (§17.505(c)–(e)).

Defeasible rules

Cure safe harbour, §20.09(b): no negligence liability if the agency completes the reinvestigation and sends written results within 30 calendar days of a dispute "that clearly explains the nature and substance of the dispute" — so a vague dispute letter forfeits the $500 floor twice over (the clock may not start, and the bureau can call it frivolous).

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Frivolous or irrelevant, §20.06(c). Willfulness is a separate element for §20.09(a); negligence for (b). Post-judgment escalator, §20.09(c), only after judgment and only after a 10-day grace period. Arbitration bar, §20.10: an issue arbitrated under §20.08 cannot be re-litigated. Two-way fees, §20.08(c) — a losing consumer pays the bureau's fees (Gore). DTPA: 60-day notice (§17.505), 30-day tender defense (§17.506(d): a defendant who tenders the claimed economic and mental-anguish damages plus expenses within 30 days of the notice has a complete defense), groundless/bad-faith fee shift (§17.50(c)), 'knowingly'/'intentionally' findings required for mental anguish and additional damages (§17.50(b)(1)), and the §17.45(4) consumer definition ("an individual ... who seeks or acquires by purchase or lease, any goods or services") whose application to a §20.12 tie-in claim against a bureau the consumer never bought anything from is unresolved (see open_questions). Fin. Code ch. 392: bona fide error (§392.401), bad-faith fee shift (§392.403(c)), and the third-party-collector limit. Federal overlays that defeat Texas rules: §1681t(b)(1)(B), (E), (F), (J) preemption as analysed above, and §1681h(e) qualified immunity for negligence-type claims absent malice or willful intent.

Enforcement agency

Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Consumer Protection Division. Under Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §20.11(a) the attorney general may sue a person for “injunctive relief to prevent or restrain a violation of this chapter” or for “a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $2,000 for each violation of this chapter”; §20.11(c) provides that “Each day a violation continues or occurs is a separate violation for purposes of imposing a penalty under this section.” The penalty therefore accrues day by day.

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Under §20.11(b) the attorney general may recover “reasonable expenses, court costs, investigative costs, and attorney’s fees” — but only where that suit produces an injunction against the person or a finding that the person is liable for a civil penalty. For the child security-freeze subchapter (Subchapter E), §20.31 provides: “Notwithstanding Subchapter D or any other law, the exclusive remedy for a violation of this subchapter is a suit filed by the attorney general under Section 20.11.” A violation of that subchapter therefore carries no private claim, and §20.21(1) limits the subchapter to its defined term protected consumer: “an individual who resides in this state and is younger than 16 years of age at the time a request for the placement of a security freeze is made” — which is not the same as every minor. The attorney general is also an injunctive enforcer of the Texas Debt Collection Act (Tex. Fin. Code §392.403(d)), which sits outside chapter 20. Consumer complaints to the office are filed at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/file-consumer-complaint. Chapter 20 itself gives no Texas agency a role in resolving an individual dispute, no licensing authority over credit bureaus, and no administrative complaint procedure with a decision deadline; the chapter’s silence on that is not a statement that no other Texas law gives an agency such a role. Within chapter 20 the consumer’s own remedy is the private action described in §§20.08–20.09: §20.08(a) lets an action to enforce a consumer reporting agency’s obligation to a consumer be brought in any court as provided by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. Section 1681 et seq.), as amended, or, if both parties agree to it, be submitted to binding arbitration after the consumer has followed all of the §20.06 dispute procedures and received the notice specified in §20.06(f). Chapter 20 therefore routes an individual consumer to that private action rather than to a state agency. On where a written dispute sits in that sequence: §20.06 is the dispute-and-reinvestigation procedure a consumer runs with the agency, and §20.08(a) makes completing it and receiving the §20.06(f) notice a precondition to arbitration; chapter 20 sets no equivalent precondition on filing suit in court. Federal complaint channels, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sit outside this Texas overlay.

Medical debt rules

Chapter 20 contains one narrow, conditional medical-debt reporting ban, and the party it binds is the consumer reporting agency. The chapeau of Tex. Bus. & Com.

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Code §20.05(a) reads: “Except as provided by Subsection (b), a consumer reporting agency may not furnish a consumer report containing information related to:” — so the party each prohibition in subsection (a) binds is the consumer reporting agency, and every one of those prohibitions is subject to the subsection (b) exceptions. §20.05(a)(5) reaches “a collection account with a medical industry code” only where all of the following hold: the consumer was covered by a health benefit plan at the time of the event giving rise to the collection; the collection is for an outstanding balance after copayments, deductibles, and coinsurance; and that balance is owed to an emergency care provider or a facility-based provider for an out-of-network benefit claim. In practice that describes a surprise balance bill from an out-of-network emergency or facility-based provider, for an insured patient, once it has gone to collection. It was added by S.B. 1037, Acts 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., Ch. 340, eff. May 31, 2019. Definitions, §20.05(d): “‘Emergency care provider’ means a physician, health care practitioner, facility, or other health care provider who provides emergency care.” “‘Facility-based provider’ means a physician, health care practitioner, or other health care provider who provides health care or medical services to patients of a facility.” “Facility” itself is defined only by cross-reference: it “has the meaning assigned by Section 324.001, Health and Safety Code.” That definition sits outside chapter 20, so the outer edge of “facility-based provider” is not fixed by the chapter’s own text. §20.05(a)(6) separately covers “another item or event that predates the consumer report by more than seven years” — which can include a medical collection — but it is not an absolute seven-year rule, because like the rest of subsection (a) it yields to the subsection (b) exceptions. Those exceptions, §20.05(b): an agency may furnish a report containing subsection (a) information in connection with a credit transaction with a principal amount “that is or may reasonably be expected to be” $150,000 or more; the underwriting of life insurance for a face amount that is or may reasonably be expected to be $150,000 or more; or the employment of a consumer at an annual salary that is or may reasonably be expected to be $75,000 or more. §20.05(b-1) adds a further exception where the information “is needed by the person to avoid a violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1033”; the content of that federal section is outside chapter 20, so how far this exception reaches cannot be read off the Texas text. §20.05(c) is a separate rule: an agency may not furnish medical information about a consumer in a report obtained for employment purposes or in connection with a credit, insurance, or direct marketing transaction “unless the consumer consents to the furnishing of the medical information.” What §20.05(a)(5) does not reach: in-network bills, uninsured patients, balances not yet in collection, and non-emergency care that is not facility-based. Chapter 20 states no amount-based medical-debt rule — it sets no under-$500 medical-debt threshold and no rule about paid medical collections — and no general medical-debt ban; the categories a consumer reporting agency may not furnish are the ones listed in §20.05(a). Every prohibition in §20.05 runs against consumer reporting agencies. Chapter 20 does not say what a hospital, clinic, debt buyer, or collection agency may itself do when it reports or collects a medical debt, and that silence is not a statement that no such duty exists: duties on those parties come from law outside chapter 20, including the furnisher duties of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and the debt-collection rules of the Texas Finance Code, and the chapter 20 text does not settle how far those duties reach. Federal preemption is an open question for the 2019 subdivision: 15 U.S.C. §1681t(b)(1)(E) limits state requirements with respect to subject matter regulated under 15 U.S.C. §1681c relating to information contained in consumer reports, other than state law in effect on September 30, 1996, and §20.05(a)(5) was enacted in 2019. That federal provision is not part of chapter 20 and is not set out here, and the Texas text does not settle whether §20.05(a)(5) survives it. Because the ban is both conditional and preemption-exposed, §20.05(a)(5) is best read as a statement of Texas policy supporting deletion of a qualifying surprise-bill collection rather than as a settled, standalone entitlement to deletion; the federal accuracy and reinvestigation duties are a separate basis.

Relationship to fcra

Chapter 20 is a parallel state act built on top of the FCRA and cross-referencing it repeatedly: permissible purposes incorporate FCRA purposes (§20.02(a)(3)(B), (C), (F)); file copies are provided "as directed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act" (§20.03(c)); free deletion notices are "as prescribed by Section 611 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C.

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Section 1681i)" (§20.04(b)(2)); the consumer statement right is "as provided by Section 611" (§20.06(f)(5)); and suits are brought "in any court as provided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act" (§20.08(a)). §20.10 makes remedies cumulative: "An action taken under this chapter does not prohibit a consumer from taking any other action authorized by law except that a credit reporting agency may not be subject to suit with respect to any issue that was the subject of an arbitration proceeding brought under Section 20.08." Where Texas is the same as federal: obsolescence periods, permissible purposes, 5-business-day furnisher and results notices, frivolous-dispute termination, reinsertion certification, the 60-day post-adverse-action free report. Where Texas is WORSE for the consumer: 30 business days instead of 30 calendar days; six-month inquiry look-back instead of one year; fee-bearing certified-mail freezes; two-way attorney fees. Where Texas ADDS: a $500 negligence floor and treble-or-$1,000 willful measure (§20.09); a $1,000-a-day post-judgment escalator (§20.09(c)); a live-representative dispute channel (§20.06(a)); the contradictory-information gloss on frivolousness (§20.06(c)); an optional AAA arbitration track (§20.08); a DTPA tie-in with treble economic damages for knowing conduct (§20.12, §17.50); AG civil penalties (§20.11); the surprise-medical-bill collection exclusion (§20.05(a)(5)); and, against third-party collectors, the Fin. Code §392.202 dispute-and-pause duty. Every addition carries the preemption or defeasibility limits recorded in the same fields above.

Security freeze rules

Texas has its own freeze statute but it is superseded in practice by federal law, and a letter should cite federal law.

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Texas: §20.034(a): "On written request sent by certified mail that includes proper identification provided by a consumer, a consumer reporting agency shall place a security freeze on a consumer's consumer file not later than the fifth business day after the date the agency receives the request."; written confirmation and a PIN within 10 business days (§20.034(c)); removal or temporary lift within 3 business days (§20.037(a)–(b)); fees under §20.04(a) of up to $10 per placement/lift/removal and $12 per requester-specific lift, CPI-adjustable, waived only with a police report or identity-theft complaint under Penal Code §32.51 (§20.04(b)(6)); agencies must honour each other's freezes (§20.039); 13 exemptions (§20.038). Child freeze, Subchapter E: Texas-resident under 16 (§20.21(1)); placement within 30 days (§20.25(c)); fee up to $10 unless a police report is supplied or the child already has a file (§20.29); exclusive remedy an AG suit (§20.31). Federal: 15 U.S.C. §1681c-1(i) defines a security freeze as "a restriction that prohibits a consumer reporting agency from disclosing the contents of a consumer report that is subject to such security freeze to any person requesting the consumer report," requires placement free of charge within one business day for phone/online requests and three business days by mail, and removal within one hour (phone/online) or three business days (mail); §1681c-1(j) covers protected consumers (under 16, or incapacitated with a guardian) free of charge. §1681t(b)(1)(J) preempts state law on the subject matter of §1681c-1(i) and (j). Texas also has a 45-day "security alert" device (§§20.031–20.033: placed within 24 hours of a written or telephone request, renewable without limit, with a free file copy at its expiry) that overlaps the federal one-year fraud alert in §1681c-1(a). Letter use: cite §1681c-1 only; a Texas freeze violation is not a DTPA violation (§20.0385(c)) and a Texas child-freeze violation has no private remedy (§20.31).

Who is liable scope limit

The chapter's private damages remedy, §20.09, runs only against consumer reporting agencies. §20.09(a): an agency that wilfully violates the chapter is liable to the consumer against whom the violation occurs for the greater of three times actual damages or $1,000, plus reasonable attorney fees and court or arbitration costs.

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§20.09(b): an agency that negligently violates the chapter is liable for the greater of actual damages or $500, plus reasonable attorney fees and court or arbitration costs. §20.09(b) also carries a safe harbor: an agency "is not considered to have negligently violated this chapter" if, not later than the 30th day after the date it receives a §20.06 dispute notice from the consumer that clearly explains the nature and substance of the dispute, it completes the reinvestigation and sends the consumer — and, at the consumer's request, each person who received the consumer information — written notification of the results under §20.06(f). §20.09(c) applies in addition to subsection (a) liability: an agency that does not correct the consumer's file and consumer report before the 10th day after the date a judgment is entered against it because of inaccurate information in the file is liable for $1,000 a day until the inaccuracy is corrected. §20.08(a) frames the private action the same way, as "an action to enforce an obligation of a consumer reporting agency to a consumer under this chapter."

Definition, §20.01(5): "'Consumer reporting agency' means a person that regularly engages wholly or partly in the practice of assembling or evaluating consumer credit information or other information on consumers to furnish consumer reports to third parties for monetary fees, for dues, or on a cooperative nonprofit basis. The term does not include a business entity that provides only check verification or check guarantee services." Check verifiers sit outside that definition but are not outside the chapter: §20.06(h) states that the dispute-procedure section "applies to a business offering check verification or check guarantee services in this state," and §20.021(b) requires a check verifier, on request and proper identification, to disclose in writing all information pertaining to the consumer in its files. On resellers, §20.06(g) does not require a person who obtains a consumer report for resale to another person to alter or correct an inaccuracy in the report if the report was not assembled or prepared by that person.

Furnishers — original creditors, banks, landlords, hospitals, debt buyers, and collection agencies reporting a tradeline — are not the subject of §20.09, whose liability provisions run against a consumer reporting agency. Chapter 20 does reach such a person in two places, both narrow. Under §20.02(c), if a consumer furnishes the consumer's social security number to a person for use in obtaining a consumer report, that person shall include the number with all future reports of information regarding the consumer made to a consumer reporting agency, "unless the person has reason to believe that the social security number is inaccurate." Under §20.06(e), information deleted after a reinvestigation may not be reinserted in the consumer's file unless the person who furnishes the information to the agency reinvestigates and states in writing or by electronic record to the agency that the information is complete and accurate. Furnisher obligations otherwise arise outside this chapter, under the federal FCRA (15 U.S.C. §1681s-2) and Texas debt-collection law; chapter 20's text does not address them, and its silence is not a statement that no such duty exists.

Liability under the chapter is not limited to §20.09. §20.11(a) provides that "the attorney general may file a suit against a person" for injunctive relief or for "a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $2,000 for each violation of this chapter," and §20.11(c) makes each day a violation continues or occurs a separate violation for purposes of imposing a penalty under that section; that suit belongs to the attorney general, not to a consumer. §20.12 makes a violation of the chapter a false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice under Subchapter E, Chapter 17, subject to the §20.0385(c) exception, which removes violations of the requirement to place, temporarily lift, or remove a security freeze from that characterization. Whether a consumer, rather than the attorney general, can privately enforce the §20.12 characterization is governed by chapter 17, subchapter E, and the chapter 20 text does not settle it. §20.10 makes remedies cumulative but contains one carve-out that runs against the consumer: an action taken under the chapter does not prohibit a consumer from taking any other action authorized by law "except that a credit reporting agency may not be subject to suit with respect to any issue that was the subject of an arbitration proceeding brought under Section 20.08." A consumer who takes an issue through §20.08 arbitration gives up suing the agency on that same issue.

On residency, §20.01(2) defines "Consumer" as "an individual who resides in this state," so the chapter's consumer rights are written for current Texas residents, and a person who no longer resides in Texas is outside that definition. For the child security freeze in Subchapter E, §20.21(1) defines "Protected consumer" as "an individual who resides in this state and is younger than 16 years of age at the time a request for the placement of a security freeze is made" — the subchapter does not reach every minor. §20.31: "Notwithstanding Subchapter D or any other law, the exclusive remedy for a violation of this subchapter is a suit filed by the attorney general under Section 20.11." There is no private claim for a protected-consumer freeze violation.

Outside chapter 20, Texas Finance Code chapter 392 places its debt-collection duties on the "third-party debt collector" defined at §392.001(7); the "credit bureau" defined at §392.001(4) is named there only as the location of the consumer's file. Chapter 392 is a separate statute and its text is not reproduced or verified on this page.

Federal preemption analysis

Governing text, 15 U.S.C. §1681t(b): "No requirement or prohibition may be imposed under the laws of any State- (1) with respect to any subject matter regulated under-" the listed sections. Analysis of each Texas provision a letter might rely on:

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1. §20.06 dispute timing (30 business days; 5-business-day furnisher notice; 5-business-day results notice) — §1681t(b)(1)(B): "(B) section 1681i of this title, relating to the time by which a consumer reporting agency must take any action, including the provision of notification to a consumer or other person, in any procedure related to the disputed accuracy of information in a consumer's file, except that this subparagraph shall not apply to any State law in effect on September 30, 1996;" Chapter 20 took effect October 1, 1997 (H.B. 1971 §33(b)), so it was NOT "in effect on September 30, 1996" and is not grandfathered. A defendant has a strong express-preemption argument against every Texas timing rule. Practical effect is nil for the consumer because the federal clock is shorter; safest use: cite federal §1681i for deadlines and never cite §20.06(a) as the deadline.

2. §20.05 content rules (7-year / 10-year obsolescence, the (a)(5) surprise-medical-bill collection exclusion, the (c) medical-information consent rule) — §1681t(b)(1)(E): "(E) section 1681c of this title, relating to information contained in consumer reports, except that this subparagraph shall not apply to any State law in effect on September 30, 1996;" Same 1997 problem; the (a)(5) medical clause is even later (S.B. 1037, eff. May 31, 2019). The obsolescence periods mirror §1681c and so add nothing to lose; the medical exclusion is genuinely Texas-only and is squarely preemption-exposed. Additional headwind: in Cornerstone Credit Union League / CDIA v. CFPB, No. 4:25-cv-00016 (E.D. Tex.), the court on July 11, 2025 entered a consent judgment vacating the CFPB's 2025 medical-debt rule as contrary to the FCRA; a law-firm summary of that judgment (Brownstein, secondary source, not the opinion) states that "any state law purporting to prohibit a credit reporting agency from furnishing a credit report with coded medical information would be inconsistent with FCRA and therefore preempted." I did not read the judgment itself, and a consent judgment binds only the parties, but a bureau will cite it. Safest use: describe §20.05(a)(5) as Texas policy that the bureau 'should' honour, ask for deletion of a qualifying surprise-bill collection on that basis, and rest the legal demand on federal accuracy duties (§1681e(b), §1681i).

3. §20.09 damages, §20.08 fees, §20.12 DTPA tie-in, §20.11 AG penalty — none of §§1681n, 1681o, 1681p appears in the §1681t(b) list, and Gore v. Trans Union (Tex. App.—Dallas 2024) held: "We first note the FCRA expressly omits Sections 1681n(c) and 1681o(b) from those portions of the statute meant to preempt state law. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681t (outlining the FCRA provisions intended to have preemptive effect). ... We conclude the FCRA does not expressly preempt the attorney's fees provision in TBCC Section 20.08(c)." Remedies are therefore not expressly preempted as such — but a remedy is only as good as the duty it enforces, and where the underlying duty is a preempted timing or content rule, the remedy falls with it. Separate federal defence: §1681h(e) bars state "negligence" actions "with respect to the reporting of information" that are based on disclosures made under §§1681g, 1681h or 1681m "except as to false information furnished with malice or willful intent to injure such consumer"; courts are divided on whether that qualified immunity reaches statutory state claims like §20.09(b), so expect it to be pleaded against a negligence-floor demand.

4. Security freezes, Subchapters B and E — §1681t(b)(1)(J): "(J) subsections (i) and (j) of section 1681c–1 of this title relating to security freezes; or" Since the 2018 amendments, §1681c-1(i) requires free freezes placed within one business day (phone/online) or three business days (mail), and §1681c-1(j) covers protected consumers; Texas's slower, fee-bearing, certified-mail-only regime in §§20.034–20.037 and §§20.25–20.29 is both preempted on subject matter and worse for the consumer. Safest use: cite federal freeze law only.

5. Furnisher rules, Tex. Fin. Code §392.202 — §1681t(b)(1)(F): "(F) section 1681s–2 of this title, relating to the responsibilities of persons who furnish information to consumer reporting agencies, except that this paragraph shall not apply- (i) with respect to section 54A(a) of chapter 93 of the Massachusetts Annotated Laws (as in effect on September 30, 1996); or (ii) with respect to section 1785.25(a) of the California Civil Code (as in effect on September 30, 1996);" No Texas carve-out exists, and (F) has no September 30, 1996 grandfather. To the extent §392.202 tells a third-party debt collector what to do about information it has furnished to a bureau, a defendant has a real preemption argument; the cease-collection and own-file duties are more defensible as collection regulation. No reported decision either way was found. Safest use: rely on §392.202 for 'stop collecting and investigate,' and on §1681s-2(b) for 'correct what you reported.'

6. Disclosure content, §20.03(d) statement of rights — §1681t(b)(3) preempts state law "with respect to the disclosures required to be made under subsection (c), (d), (e), or (g) of section 1681g"; the federal summary of rights in §1681g(c) occupies the field, and Texas is not in the (b)(3) carve-outs. Not letter-relevant.

7. Free-report frequency — §1681t(b)(4) preempts state law "with respect to the frequency of any disclosure under section 1681j(a)"; Texas has no such rule anyway.

Bottom line for a Texas letter: the Texas-specific propositions that survive preemption scrutiny are the damages/fee schedule of §20.09 and §20.08(c) (with its two-way fee risk), the DTPA tie-in of §20.12 (with its 60-day notice and consumer-status questions), the live-representative dispute option of §20.06(a), the AG penalty of §20.11, and the Fin. Code §392.202 collection-pause duty against third-party collectors. Every Texas deadline and every Texas content ban should be presented as Texas policy layered under a federal demand, not as the operative rule.

Statute of limitations note

outer = the CPRC §16.051 four-year residual period, which is the LONGEST arguable Texas period for a chapter 20 claim, not a repose date and not a settled holding; the two-year DTPA period (§17.565) and the two-year §16.003 period are the shorter competing candidates. Plan on 2; never promise 4.

Statute of limitations detail

Chapter 20 of the Texas Business & Commerce Code sets no limitations period for a claim brought under the chapter, so the two-year figure commonly attached to Texas credit-reporting claims is not a chapter 20 rule.

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The phrase "statute of limitations" appears once in the entire chapter, in §20.05(a)(2), and there it is a reporting-age benchmark rather than a filing deadline: a consumer reporting agency may not furnish a report containing "a suit or judgment in which the date of entry predates the consumer report by more than seven years or the governing statute of limitations, whichever is longer." §20.08(a) provides that an action to enforce a consumer reporting agency's obligation to a consumer under the chapter "may be brought in any court as provided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. Section 1681 et seq.), as amended," or, if agreed to by both parties, may be submitted to binding arbitration after the consumer has followed all dispute procedures in §20.06 and has received the notice specified in §20.06(f). That sentence identifies the forum; the text does not say whether the federal limitations period travels with the reference, and nothing else in the chapter answers it. §20.13 governs venue, not timing: an action brought under the chapter shall be filed in a district court in Travis County, in any county in which the violation occurred, or in the county in which the victim resides, "regardless of whether the alleged violator has resided, worked, or done business in the county in which the victim resides." §20.12 makes a violation of the chapter "a false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice under Subchapter E, Chapter 17" — the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act — so a violation pleaded that way may carry the DTPA's own deadline, and that deadline is fixed by chapter 17, subchapter E rather than by chapter 20. That route has a written exception: under §20.0385(c), notwithstanding §20.12, a violation of a requirement under the chapter to place, temporarily lift, or remove a security freeze "is not a false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice under Subchapter E, Chapter 17," so the DTPA path is not open for security-freeze violations. Which deadline applies therefore depends on the cause of action chosen, and the chapter 20 text does not settle it. The two-year figure is not baseless — it is the period usually quoted for the routes chapter 20 points to — but the provisions that would fix it, Business & Commerce Code §17.565 for a DTPA claim and 15 U.S.C. §1681p for a federal claim, sit outside chapter 20 and are not reproduced or verified on this page.

Chapter 20 contains NO express limitations period — no section of Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 20 mentions a time to sue — and I found no Texas decision fixing one. The integer 2 above is the CONSERVATIVE planning figure, not a sourced Texas rule; do not print "Texas gives you two years" or "four years" as a statement of law. Candidates, all from the official text: (a) Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §16.051 (residual): "Every action for which there is no express limitations period, except an action for the recovery of real property, must be brought not later than four years after the day the cause of action accrues." — the textual default for a statutory claim with no period of its own; (b) Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §16.003(a) two years, if a court characterises a credit-reporting claim as one for injury to property or personal injury; (c) for the DTPA route via §20.12, an EXPRESS two years, Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §17.565: "All actions brought under this subchapter must be commenced within two years after the date on which the false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice occurred or within two years after the consumer discovered or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered the occurrence of the false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice," extendable 180 days on proof the defendant knowingly induced delay; (d) a court could also borrow the federal §1681p period (2 years from discovery, 5-year outer limit) through §20.08(a)'s cross-reference to suits "as provided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act." The federal FCRA claim itself is governed by §1681p regardless. Fin. Code ch. 392 likewise has no express civil limitations period (§392.402(c)'s one-year limit applies only to the misdemeanor charge). Intake should therefore capture the date of the dispute and the date of the last inaccurate report and treat two years from the earlier of them as the safe horizon.

Read this before relying on the numbers above

Statutory text on this page comes from Texas Business & Commerce Code chapter 20 (Regulation of Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies), read in full at https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/BC/htm/BC.20.htm. Every Texas quotation here is taken verbatim from that text; the odd spacing around some internal cross-references is an artifact of the source page and does not change the words. Chapter 20 was checked in full for this version on September 6, 2026. As of that date the most recent amendment to the medical-debt provision was S.B. 1037, Acts 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., Ch. 340, effective May 31, 2019.

What this text does not settle. Chapter 20 contains no limitations period, so the deadline for a Texas credit-reporting claim comes from whichever cause of action is used: the Deceptive Trade Practices Act route opened by §20.12 (Business & Commerce Code chapter 17, subchapter E), or the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act referenced in §20.08(a). Neither of those texts is part of chapter 20, and the two-year figure often quoted for Texas appears nowhere in it. Whether §20.08(a)'s reference to the FCRA carries the federal limitations period with it is a question of interpretation the words do not answer, and no reported decision resolves it. Whether a consumer, as opposed to the attorney general, can privately enforce the §20.12 characterization is governed by chapter 17, subchapter E. The reach of "facility-based provider" in §20.05(a)(5) depends on the definition of "facility" in Health and Safety Code §324.001, and the §20.05(b-1) exception depends on 18 U.S.C. §1033; neither definition is reproduced in chapter 20. Whether 15 U.S.C. §1681t(b)(1)(E) preempts the 2019 medical-debt subdivision, §20.05(a)(5), is unresolved, and no reported decision resolves it. Duties of furnishers — original creditors, hospitals, debt buyers, collection agencies — arise mainly outside chapter 20, under the federal FCRA and the Texas Finance Code; the Finance Code chapter 392 material summarized on this page comes from that separate chapter and was not re-read against the chapter 20 text verified above.

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Last checked: 2026-09-07

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