By following these steps, you’ll greatly reduce your risk under both Texas law and federal law. Compliance may require some effort (and perhaps foregoing or delaying texts to Texas until you’re ready), but it’s necessary to protect your business.
August 28, 2025
How to Stay Compliant with Texas’s New SMS Marketing Law (Effective Sept. 1, 2025)
Effective September 1, 2025, Texas has amended its Business & Commerce Code (via Senate Bill 140) to expand “telephone solicitation” to include SMS and MMS text messages. In plain terms, marketing text messages to Texas residents are now regulated just like telemarketing phone calls. This new law introduces registration requirements, contact-hour restrictions, and other rules for businesses that text Texas consumers, on top of existing U.S. federal SMS regulations. Non-compliance can lead to hefty fines and lawsuits, so it’s critical to understand these changes and take action.
Disclaimer: This information is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Maestra.io makes no guarantees regarding its accuracy or completeness. Always consult a qualified attorney to understand how these laws apply to your specific business.
What’s Changing in Texas?
Texts = Telemarketing
Texas now treats promotional texts as “telephone solicitations” under its telemarketing law. Any SMS/MMS sent with the intent to advertise or sell is covered. This means the same rules that applied to cold-callers now apply to text marketers in Texas. Notably, violating these rules is deemed a deceptive trade practice, giving consumers the right to sue and seek up to triple damages.
Who Must Comply
Any business that sends marketing texts either from Texas or to a Texas resident may be affected. This includes brands using Maestra.io to run SMS campaigns targeting Texas area codes or customers with Texas addresses. Even if you’ve been following federal text marketing laws (e.g. TCPA), you now have additional Texas-specific obligations.
Reach out to your personal Customer Success Manager if you need help with building exclusion segment condition to filter out Texans from your SMS campaigns
State Telemarketer Registration
Unless you qualify for an exemption, Texas requires sellers sending solicitation texts to register with the state as telemarketers. Registration involves:
• $200 annual filing fee and an application to the Texas Secretary of State.
• Posting a $10,000 security bond/deposit (often via a surety bond) as financial security.
• Annual renewal of the registration, plus quarterly reporting of your sales representatives’ info (e.g. names, addresses).
• Failure to register when required can incur fines up to $5,000 per violation, on top of other penalties.
Exemptions: Texas law exempts certain businesses from the registration requirement. You might not need to register if your company falls into specific categories – for example, publicly traded companies, many nonprofits, banks/credit unions, businesses selling food, businesses with a brick-and-mortar retail presence for 2+ years, or those contacting only existing customers of 2+ years. These are just examples; always review the exact exemption criteria in the law (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §§302.051–302.057) with legal counsel. If in doubt, it’s safer to register to avoid risk.
“Quiet Hours” – Time Restrictions
Texas prohibits telemarketing communications during certain hours, and these “quiet hour” rules now apply to text messages. In Texas:
• No promotional texts or calls Mon–Sat before 9:00 AM or after 9:00 PM (local time).
• No texts/calls on Sunday before 12:00 noon or after 9:00 PM.
It might be even safer not to run SMS campaigns on Sundays at all and further stretch the Quiet Hours window — i.e. set it as 10 AM to 8 PM. This might help mitigate risks of occasional late delivery of SMS messages during Quiet Hours due to the delay on a provider side. Talk to your Customer Success Manager if you need help setting it up
In practice, you should avoid sending marketing SMS at night or very early morning in the recipient’s local time. *(Note: The law has exceptions for messages sent at the *“express request” of the consumer or to someone with an existing business relationship. However, these terms aren’t clearly defined yet. They might be interpreted to cover customers who have consented to your texts (i.e. requested them), or recent purchasers, which would exempt those messages from quiet hours. But until there’s clarity, the safest approach is to honor the specified quiet hours for all unsolicited marketing texts.) Maestra’s recommendation is to schedule texts only between 9 AM and 8 PM local time, and after 12 PM on Sundays, to stay well within allowed times. Our platform’s “Quiet Hours” setting can help enforce this automatically.
Do-Not-Call Lists (DNC)
Texas maintains a state do-not-call registry for consumers who opt out of telemarketing. Now that texts count as telemarketing, you must refrain from texting numbers on the Texas DNC list (unless you have direct prior consent from the person). In other words, if a Texan number hasn’t explicitly opted into your SMS program and is on the DNC list, it’s off-limits for marketing.
Maestra by default won’t texts to customers which weren’t explicitly subscribed, although in some cases these settings might be altered to address some specific non-common situations. The safest way to proceed now — is to exclude Texans from the SMS campaigns and check the customer data thoroughly. We will add DNC data to the customer profile in Maestra very soon, so you will be able to refine your strategy according to the DNC (i.e. continue sending to those who subscribed to your brand but are in the DNC list, too)
Message Disclosures and Opt-Outs
Texas telemarketing law requires certain disclosures in your solicitation messages. When texting consumers in Texas, be transparent and include at least:
• Your identity — e.g. your brand or business name (so the recipient knows who’s contacting them).
• It’s a promotional message — e.g. a brief indication of offer or purpose (“Sale alert: …”) so it’s not misleading.
• Required info for certain offers — e.g. terms for any “free” or gift offer, odds of winning a prize if applicable, and any material conditions (these typically apply if you’re running a promotion like a sweepstake or offering gifts).
• Your business address — Texas law for telemarketing calls says the caller must provide the address they are calling from and the seller’s principal address. For SMS, including a full address in every text may not be practical, but have it available (for example, in a landing page or the first message) as required. At minimum, include your city and company name in the text if possible.
• Opt-out instruction — you must give recipients an easy way to stop messages. Include a line like “Text STOP to opt out” in your messages. This is not just Texas law but also a standard requirement under U.S. telecom rules and carrier policies. Maestra.io (like other platforms) automatically respects “STOP” replies by unsubscribing the number from further texts.
Essentially, every marketing text to Texas should clearly identify your business, state the promotional nature, and offer a “STOP” opt-out. This aligns with best practices nationwide.
Federal Law Still Applies
In addition to Texas’s new rules, remember that U.S. federal regulations for SMS marketing remain in force for all states. The key federal law is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), enforced by the FCC. Under the TCPA:
• You must obtain prior express written consent before sending promotional texts to someone. (If you’re using Maestra’s SMS features, you should already be collecting opt-in consent — this remains mandatory.)
• Unsolicited texts can incur fines of $500 per message, or up to $1,500 per message for willful violations. Regulators and consumers do pursue these, so compliance is critical.
• National Do-Not-Call Registry: If somehow you were texting people without explicit consent (not recommended!), contacting any number on the national DNC list could violate FTC regulations. However, the simple rule is: only text those who opted in, and you’ll avoid most TCPA/DNC pitfalls.
• Time-of-Day (Quiet Hours): The TCPA also prohibits telemarketing calls/texts outside of 8 AM–9 PM (recipient’s local time). Texas’s law is a bit stricter in the mornings, so stick to the narrower window as discussed.
• Opt-Out and Help: Federal rules and carrier (CTIA) guidelines require you to allow opt-outs and respond to “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE” messages immediately. You should also respond to “HELP” with information (like “Reply STOP to cancel, or contact us at [email/phone] for help”). Maestra handles the STOP logic for you automatically, and you can configure custom HELP replies.
Bottom line
The new Texas law adds extra steps if you market via SMS in Texas, but it doesn’t remove the need to follow existing laws. You should continue to follow all federal requirements (TCPA) – i.e. get consent, only send relevant messages, include opt-outs, respect general quiet hours – while layering on the Texas-specific rules discussed above.
Compliance Checklist for Maestra Customers (Texas SB 140)
To help you adapt, here’s a step-by-step checklist of what to do to comply with the Texas law (SB 140) and maintain overall SMS compliance:
1. Identify Affected Contacts
Review your subscriber list to find any contacts in Texas. Use segmentation tools (e.g. filter by phone area codes for Texas or by state address if available). This will tell you how much of your SMS audience is impacted. (Maestra Customer Success team is happy to assist here by providing lists of subscribers with Texas area codes, etc.) If you have only a few Texas contacts and prefer to pause texting them until you’re fully compliant, segment them out now.
2. Evaluate Registration Requirements
Determine if your business needs to register as a telemarketer in Texas :
• Are you located in Texas or texting Texas residents? If yes to either, continue evaluation.
• Check exemptions: Are you exclusively texting current or recent customers (with an established business relationship)? Is your business publicly traded, a nonprofit, a financial institution, or selling food? Have you operated a retail store in Texas for 2+ years with the same name? These scenarios might exempt you from registering. Consult your legal counsel to confirm.
• If not exempt: Begin the registration process ASAP. You’ll need to submit a form and $200 fee to the Texas Secretary of State, and arrange the $10,000 security bond/deposit. Once filed, approval can take time, so don’t delay. (Remember, your registration isn’t valid until Texas issues the certificate confirming it.) Upon approval, keep the certificate handy — Texas requires you to display it at your business.
• If exempt: Document why (with legal advice). Even if you don’t register, you still must follow the other rules (quiet hours, opt-outs, etc.).
3. Update Messaging Schedules (Quiet Hours)
Adjust your SMS send times to comply with Texas “no-contact” hours:
• In Maestra, enable Quiet Hours on your campaigns or automated flows targeting any contacts (or at least those in Texas). We suggest configuring no sends between 8:00 PM and 9:00 AM local time Monday–Saturday, and before 12:00 PM on Sundays to be extra safe.
• Use Maestra’s time zone scheduling features so that each recipient’s local time is respected. This ensures a 9 AM text in New York doesn’t hit a Texas customer at 8 AM. If you cannot auto-detect time zones, segment by area code/time zone and schedule accordingly.
• Double-check any automated or trigger-based texts (e.g. cart reminders, welcome series) to ensure they don’t fire during off-hours for Texas recipients. It may be wise to add filters (e.g. “if subscriber state! = TX” for overnight sends, or delay Texas messages until morning).
4. Scrub Do-Not-Call Numbers
• Remove or suppress any numbers that appear on the Texas DNC registry, unless you have a record of their explicit opt-in consent. Talk to your Customer Success Manager if you need help with this.
• If a current subscriber is on the DNC list but also explicitly opted in to your texts (a possible scenario), you may choose to keep them. However, proceed with caution: their presence on the DNC indicates a general desire not to be solicited. You might consider reconfirming their consent or just honoring the DNC to avoid any doubt.
• Going forward, incorporate DNC list exclusion rule into your routine for Texas contacts. Maestra’s product team is building the integration to streamline this.
5. Review and Update Message Content
Ensure all your SMS templates and campaigns destined for Texas comply with content requirements:
• Identify yourself clearly. The first words of a text should include your brand name or a recognizable identifier (“[YourBrand]: …”) so the recipient isn’t guessing.
• Indicate it’s promotional. Make it obvious that the message contains a marketing offer, not a personal or purely informational text. For example: “Sale Alert: 20% off today…” or “Don’t miss out on our new arrivals…”.
• Include required disclosures for any special promotions. If you’re offering something “free” or running a contest/giveaway to Texas residents, include a brief note of terms or a link to terms. Texas law expects transparency about free items, odds of winning a prize, or any conditions.
• Opt-out instruction is a must. Always append a short opt-out line, e.g. “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.” This should be present at least in the initial message and periodically in follow-ups. Maestra can help you auto-append “Text STOP to opt out” to all outbound messages if you choose.
• Example compliant SMS: YourBrand: Hi [Name]! Welcome to Our Store — Texas customers get 20% off today. Reply YES to claim your deal. (Promo offer, terms apply). Reply STOP to opt out.
6. Document & Save Consent Proof
Maintain solid records for each subscriber’s opt-in:
• Who, when, and how each person gave consent to receive texts. For example, keep signup form submissions, text-in records, or checkbox agreements (with timestamp and IP, if online).
• Maestra already keeps a log of SMS opt-ins captured via our platform (e.g. via web forms or keywords). Make sure you retain these records. If you ever need to prove in court or to regulators that a Texas recipient agreed to your texts, having this data is invaluable.
• Similarly, archive your SMS content and send logs (Maestra stores message history), in case you need to demonstrate compliance (e.g. that you did include “STOP” text or sent within allowed hours).
7. Train Your Team & Partners
Educate everyone involved in your SMS marketing (in-house marketers, sales team, agencies, etc.) about these new Texas rules :
• Hold a quick training or share a summary of “do’s and don’ts” for texting Texas numbers.
• Update your internal compliance policy or marketing guidelines to reflect Texas requirements (as well as reiterating federal TCPA rules). Make it clear when team members are creating campaigns or flows in Maestra that special care is needed for Texas recipients.
• If you use third-party partners or consultants to manage campaigns, ensure they are also aware and committed to following these rules on your behalf.
8. Consult Legal Counsel if Unsure
If you have any uncertainty about how the law applies to you – for example, whether an exemption really fits your case, or how to properly display disclosures – seek advice from a legal professional knowledgeable in marketing/telecom law. This checklist is a starting point, but an attorney can provide tailored guidance. When in doubt, err on the side of caution (e.g. register even if you might be exempt , avoid borderline sending times, etc.). It’s far cheaper to adapt your practices now than to face a lawsuit or fines later.
By following the above steps, you’ll greatly reduce your risk under both Texas law and federal law. Compliance may require some effort (and perhaps foregoing or delaying texts to Texas until you’re ready), but it’s necessary to protect your business.
Remember: Starting September 1, 2025, Texas is treating marketing texts the same as telemarketing calls. Non-compliance can lead to lawsuits from consumers, civil penalties, and even damage to your brand’s reputation. Maestra.io is here to help you navigate these changes and has been updating our platform to support you.