Texas Senate Bill 140 (SB 140) and Text Messaging Compliance

As of September 1, 2025, the state of Texas implemented Senate Bill 140 (SB 140), which expands the Texas Mini-TCPA to include certain text message solicitations.

Since the law went into effect, additional clarification has been issued by the Texas Attorney General that significantly affects how SB 140 applies to opt-in text messaging.

At VipeCloud, we are committed to providing infrastructure and safeguards to help customers operate responsibly. However, each business remains responsible for its own legal compliance.

This article explains:

SB 140 expands Texas telecommunications law to cover text message solicitations, not just phone calls.

When the law was introduced, it was widely understood to require sellers who sent marketing texts to or from Texas to:

This led many businesses to believe they needed to complete formal registration before sending any marketing texts involving Texas recipients.

Since SB 140 took effect, the Texas Attorney General has issued clarification confirming that:

Opt-in text messages fall outside SB 140’s registration requirements.

As a result, if your text messages are opt-in, you do not need to:

This clarification applies only to registration and bonding requirements.

Opt-in standards themselves have not changed and must still be followed.

SB 140 enforces mandatory quiet hours for text messaging in Texas:

Texas spans Central and Mountain Time. These windows apply in both time zones.

To protect both our users and the platform, VipeCloud enforces the following safeguards.

By default, the following text types will not send during restricted hours:

To protect users, quiet hours are enforced system-wide by default but this can be turned off.

If you are confident you are not messaging users in Texas, you may override quiet hours in your account settings.

How to override:

Important: You remain responsible for ensuring compliance with state and federal law.

By default, VipeCloud blocks messages to Texas contacts until you explicitly allow them.

A contact may be treated as a Texas contact based on:

This safeguard exists regardless of whether your messages are opt-in.

If your messages are opt-in and compliant, you can enable texting to Texas contacts directly in your account.

Steps:

Once enabled:

SB 140 applies based on who you are texting, not where your business is located.

Being based in Texas does not automatically require registration or bonding if your text messages are opt-in.

To help prevent accidental non-compliant messaging, VipeCloud applies safeguards to Texas-based accounts by default. If your messaging is compliant, you can enable texting in your account settings.

You can do this by visiting your Text Settings page and turning on the option to allow texting when compliant with Texas regulations.

While opt-in text messages are outside SB 140’s registration and bonding requirements, the opt-in requirement itself has not changed.

To rely on the opt-in clarification:

In most cases, this means you are texting existing or prior customers who opted in through a form, agreement, checkout process, or similar interaction.

The following scenarios do not qualify as opt-in:

You should maintain documentation of consent in case your texting practices are ever challenged.