Understanding Texas's business and commerce code update

Learn about the new Texas laws affecting businesses sending marketing text messages.

What’s changing?

The Texas Business and Commerce Code, which previously applied only to voice telephone calls, was recently amended to apply to text messages. The expansion of the law’s application to text messages means that you may need to register your business with the Texas Secretary of State if you are sending marketing messages to Texas residents or are located in Texas and sending marketing texts. These changes went into effect on September 1, 2025.

It is important that you review the law to determine if it applies to your business. Links to the text of the law and the September 1, 2025 amendments can be found below:

• The text of the current relevant law: Texas Business and Commerce Code § 302.001, et seq.
• The amendments to the law going into effect on September 1, 2025, including the revised definition of “telephone solicitation” to include text messages: S.B. 140

Are there exemptions?

The law exempts certain companies from the registration requirement. These exemptions include, but are not limited to:

• Certain publicly traded companies and their subsidiaries
• Certain financial institutions
• Educational institutions
• 501(c)(3) nonprofits
• Businesses marketing the sale of food
• Retail sellers with brick and mortar locations if it has operated under the same name for the last two years and a majority of sales occur at retail locations
• Businesses contacting their current or former customers if that business has operated under the same business name for the last two years

You’ll need to check the specific language of the law to determine if any of these exemptions apply to your business.

How do I register?

Registering with the Texas Secretary of State is detailed and requires specific information. You will need to fill out the registration form and submit it.

The application fee is $200 and your registration will need to be renewed after one year. In addition, Texas law requires that businesses post a $10,000 security deposit in the form of a bond executed by a corporate security, an irrevocable letter of credit, or certain certificates of deposit. Additional information regarding the form of any security can be found in Section 302.107 of the law.

Your Texas registration is only valid when Texas’s Secretary of State issues the registration certificate, not when the application is submitted. 

How Klaviyo helps you stay compliant in Texas

Klaviyo is introducing new, optional, safeguards to help brands comply with Texas SMS regulations while maintaining sending flexibility and customer trust.

Pause SMS Sends to Texas Recipients [In Beta] 

While you complete your Texas registration, you can now pause all promotional texts to phone numbers with Texas area codes, giving you more control over your SMS sending and compliance.

This includes:

• SMS and RCS Campaign Sends
• Promotional SMS and RCS Flow Messages
• Conversational SMS/RCS 
  • SMS/RCS Automations 
  • SMS/RCS in Klaviyo Helpdesk 
  • SMS/RCS Customer Agent Messages

These messages will be automatically skipped when this setting is enabled. You can toggle this feature ‘on’ or ‘off’ anytime under ‘Sender Preferences’. This toggle is defaulted to ‘off’ in settings.

Important:

• This safeguard only applies to promotional messages.
• Transactional messages (e.g., order confirmations, shipping updates) and compliance keyword responses (e.g., STOP, HELP, YES) will continue to send as normal
• Texas recipients can still subscribe to your SMS program even when this setting is enabled.
• Skipped sends to Texas Recipients result in the SMS-specific skip reason titled ‘Unable to Send SMS’. 
• Since Klaviyo can not guarantee non-promotional messaging in Helpdesk and seeks to protect brands as best possible, outbound messages will be skipped when the Texas block toggle is enabled and recipients with a Texas area code will not receive messaging. 

While this safeguard greatly reduces the likelihood of sending marketing texts to Texas recipients, it is not a complete guarantee. Because the feature relies on phone number area codes, there may be instances where a recipient with a non-Texas area code who is physically located in Texas still receives a marketing message even if the feature is enabled.

That said, enabling this setting is a significant risk mitigation step and one of the most effective ways to reduce your brand’s risk during registration without disabling your SMS programs entirely.

Additional Safeguards for Texas SMS Compliance

To further support compliance with Texas-specific marketing rules, Klaviyo enforces state-level quiet hours for promotional SMS sends in flows. 

Under Texas regulations, generally marketing texts cannot be sent:

• Monday–Saturday: between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.
• Sunday: outside the hours of 12:00 p.m. (noon) and 9:00 p.m.

Klaviyo’s state level quiet hours functionality automatically prevents promotional flow messages from sending during these restricted hours to phone numbers with Texas area codes, helping your brand remain compliant without manual scheduling adjustments. This feature is defaulted 'on' for all new Klaviyo users.

Cutting through the noise: Recent legal developments and Klaviyo’s position

There’s been confusion following recent reports about how the new Texas SMS law (SB 140) will be enforced. This stems from a lawsuit and settlement between the Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) and the State of Texas, after which some legal interpretations suggested that the law may not apply to consent-based marketing.

While this interpretation is encouraging, it currently has limited legal effect. The Texas Attorney General’s view that SB 140 does not apply to consent-based marketing is advisory, not binding. An exception for consent-based marketing can only be confirmed by a court or the Texas legislature amending the law. Until that happens, there remains uncertainty about whether registration is required for all marketing messages sent to or from Texas.

Because that uncertainty carries significant risk, Klaviyo continues to recommend registration as the most reliable path to compliance. If a court later disagrees with the Attorney General’s interpretation, businesses that send unregistered marketing texts could face severe penalties—up to $5,000 per message.

• Even a small campaign (for example, 1,000 texts to Texas recipients) could result in up to $5 million in potential liability.
• The EIA settlement does not prevent private lawsuits; it only limits government enforcement.

If your business is comfortable relying on the Attorney General’s interpretation, you can follow the steps outlined in the EIA’s public communications to cancel or request a refund for your registration—this option is not limited to EIA members.

Klaviyo continues to recommend a compliance-first approach: register with the Texas Secretary of State if you send marketing texts to Texas residents and do not have an exemption. 

Klaviyo is actively monitoring these developments and will update this article as new guidance or court rulings emerge.

Next steps

Given these changes, it's crucial for you to assess whether your business needs to register in Texas. Please review your text messaging marketing practices to determine if the new Texas rules apply to your business.

If you think these rules might affect you, we recommend:

• Consulting qualified legal counsel to understand what you need to do to comply before September 1, 2025.
• If appropriate, registering with the Texas Secretary of State as soon as possible to meet the new requirements.
• Using Klaviyo’s Texas sending pause feature to temporarily stop marketing sends to Texas area codes while you complete registration.
• Relying on Klaviyo’s state level quiet hours solution in flows to prevent promotional texts from sending during restricted hours in Texas.

You can also contact the Texas Secretary of State with questions or for additional information.