Debt Collection Laws in Texas: Contact Rules, Disputes, and Deadlines

Debt collection laws in Texas give you some of the strongest consumer protections in the country. The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Texas Debt Collection Act work together to control what collectors can say, when they can call, and what property they can touch. Texas also shields most paychecks from garnishment, protects your homestead regardless of value, and — unusually — refuses to let a payment on an old debt restart the clock on a lawsuit.

Which Laws Apply to Which Collectors

Two statutes do most of the work. The federal FDCPA applies to third-party debt collectors: companies that buy old debts or are hired to collect someone else’s.¹ It does not cover the original creditor who issued your loan or credit card.

The Texas Debt Collection Act fills that gap. The TDCA applies to original creditors collecting their own debts as well as to third-party collectors.² Your credit card company calling about a late balance is subject to the TDCA even though the FDCPA does not reach them. When both laws cover the same collector, the stricter rule controls; the FDCPA preserves state laws that give consumers more protection.³

When and How Collectors Can Contact You

Collectors can reach out by phone, mail, email, or text, but each channel has limits. Phone calls are allowed only between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. in your local time zone, unless you tell the collector a different window works. Every first contact must disclose that the caller is a debt collector attempting to collect a debt and that any information you give will be used for that purpose.¹

The Seven-Call Rule

Federal Regulation F sets a hard presumption about call volume. A collector is presumed to be harassing you if they call more than seven times in any seven consecutive days about the same debt, or if they call within seven days after actually reaching you by phone about that debt.⁴ The limit runs per debt, so a collector handling two separate accounts could make seven calls per week on each. Multiple student loans grouped under one account number count as a single debt.

Email and Text Opt-Outs

Collectors who contact you electronically have to include a clear, free way to opt out of future emails or texts. They cannot charge a fee for opting out or require anything beyond your contact details and your opt-out preference. Once you opt out of a channel, they must stop using it.

Shutting Down All Contact

You can stop collector communication entirely by sending a written request telling them to stop contacting you. After they receive that letter, they can only reach out to confirm they got the request or to notify you of a specific legal action, such as filing a lawsuit.¹ A stop-contact letter does not erase the debt. It just ends the calls and mail. The creditor can still sue.

Who Else They Can Talk To

Collectors can discuss your debt with your spouse, your attorney, or a co-signer. They cannot discuss debt details with anyone else. If they call an employer, neighbor, or family member, the only thing they are permitted to do is ask for your address or phone number. They cannot reveal that you owe money.¹

What Collectors Are Not Allowed to Do

Both laws ban a long list of behavior that falls into three categories: threats, deception, and harassment.

Threats

A collector cannot threaten to have you arrested for not paying a consumer debt. Unpaid credit cards and medical bills are civil matters, not criminal ones, and arrest threats are illegal no matter how they are phrased.⁵ Collectors also cannot threaten legal action they do not actually intend to take, such as warning about a lawsuit they have no plans to file.¹ The TDCA specifically prohibits threatening to sell your debt to another party while falsely claiming the sale would eliminate your defenses.

Deception

Collectors cannot lie about what you owe, claim to be an attorney or government representative when they are not, or send documents designed to look like official court filings.⁶ They cannot falsely accuse you of fraud or misrepresent the legal status of the debt. Under the TDCA, any deceptive practice meant to pressure you into paying — including overstating what the collector can legally do — is a violation.⁵

Harassment

Profane or abusive language is prohibited. So are repeated calls placed with the intent to annoy or intimidate. Any conduct meant to cause emotional distress through sheer volume or aggression violates both the TDCA and the FDCPA.²

Your Right to Dispute the Debt

Within five days of first contacting you, a debt collector must send a written validation notice identifying the creditor, the amount, and how the balance was calculated.⁷

You then have 30 days from receiving that notice to dispute the debt in writing. If you do, the collector has to stop all collection activity until they send you verification of the debt or a copy of a court judgment.⁸ If they cannot produce verification, they cannot keep trying to collect. This is where most people let a valuable right expire. If anything about the amount or the creditor looks wrong, get a written dispute out inside the 30-day window.

What Collectors Cannot Take From You

Texas protects wages from garnishment for consumer debts more broadly than almost any other state. Your paycheck cannot be garnished for credit card balances, medical bills, or personal loans.⁹ The only exceptions are child support, spousal maintenance, federal tax debts, and federally backed student loans.¹⁰

Even after a creditor wins a court judgment, Texas shields a wide range of property from seizure:

Your homestead: your home and up to 10 acres in an urban area, or up to 100 acres for a single adult (200 for a family) in a rural area, are protected from forced sale. There is no cap on the home’s value, so a $2 million house on 8 urban acres is as protected as a modest one.¹¹
Personal property up to $50,000 in aggregate value for a single adult or $100,000 for a family. That covers home furnishings, clothing, food, tools and equipment used in your trade, and one motor vehicle per licensed family member.
Qualified retirement plans, IRAs, and similar accounts, generally protected from creditor claims under both Texas and federal law.

Federal Benefits in Your Bank Account

Social Security, VA benefits, Railroad Retirement, civil service retirement, and SSI payments get an extra layer of protection once deposited. When a creditor serves a garnishment order on your bank, the bank has to review the last two months of deposits and protect any amount attributable to federal benefit payments during that window.¹² Those protected funds have to remain available to you even while the rest of the account is frozen.

The Bank Account Loophole

Here is the catch that surprises most Texans. While your paycheck is protected from garnishment, that protection evaporates once the money lands in your bank account. Deposited wages are no longer treated as current wages under Texas law, and a judgment creditor can garnish your bank account to reach them.⁹

To reach the account, a judgment creditor has to go back to court for a writ of garnishment and serve it on the bank. You will get notice and the chance to claim exemptions for any protected funds in the account, such as federal benefit deposits.

A creditor with a judgment can also place a lien on non-exempt property. Because Texas exemptions are so generous, many consumer debtors end up effectively judgment-proof: the creditor wins in court but cannot find anything to seize. Judgments in Texas still last 10 years and can be renewed, so they do not go away quietly.

The Four-Year Deadline to Sue

Texas gives creditors four years to file a lawsuit on most consumer debts, including credit card balances, medical bills, and personal loans.¹³ The clock runs from the date the cause of action accrued, generally the last date of default or last account activity. Once four years pass, the debt is time-barred, and a creditor who sues can be defeated by raising the expired limitations period as a defense.

Texas offers a protection here that most states do not. Under Section 392.307 of the Texas Finance Code, the statute of limitations cannot be revived by making a payment, signing a promise to pay, or acknowledging the debt in any way.¹⁴ In many other states, a single small payment resets the entire clock. In Texas, the four-year window is final. Debt buyers are also prohibited from suing on time-barred debts, period.

A time-barred debt does not vanish. Collectors can still contact you about it through non-legal means — calls, letters, settlement offers. Negative information can remain on your credit report for up to seven years from the original delinquency, even if the lawsuit window closed years earlier.¹⁵ If a collector threatens to sue on a debt you believe is time-barred, do not ignore the threat. Respond in writing and raise the limitations defense if they do file.

If You Get Sued, Answer in 14 Days

This is the part people skip and then regret. If a creditor files a lawsuit, you will be served with court papers. In Texas justice court, where most smaller debt cases land, you have 14 days from the date of service to file a written answer.¹⁶ If that deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, you have until the next business day.

Missing that deadline is the most damaging mistake you can make. If you do not answer, the creditor can ask the court for a default judgment, which gives them everything they asked for without you ever presenting your side.¹⁶ Once they hold a judgment, they can pursue bank garnishments and property liens they could not touch before. Even if the debt is wrong, the amount is inflated, or the statute of limitations has run, none of those defenses matter if you never show up to raise them.

Your answer does not have to be elaborate. At minimum, deny the claims you dispute and assert any affirmative defenses you have, such as the debt being time-barred or the amount being wrong. Filing fees vary by court but are generally modest. Texas Law Help and local legal aid organizations can walk you through the process if you cannot afford an attorney.

Reporting and Suing a Collector Who Breaks the Rules

If a collector violates the law, you can report them to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Trade Commission, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.¹⁷ The Attorney General accepts complaints through its consumer complaint portal.¹⁸

You can also sue. Remedies depend on which law was violated:

Under the TDCA, you can recover actual damages caused by the violation plus injunctive relief to stop ongoing illegal conduct. If you win a claim involving threats, harassment, or misrepresentation of a disputed debt, you are entitled to a minimum of $100 per violation, with no statutory cap above that floor.¹⁹
Under the FDCPA, you can recover actual damages plus up to $1,000 in statutory damages per lawsuit. That $1,000 limit applies per case, not per violation, so multiple infractions by the same collector still cap at $1,000 in statutory damages. The court must also award reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs to a successful plaintiff.¹

Because the FDCPA shifts attorney’s fees to the collector when you win, many consumer attorneys take these cases on contingency, meaning no upfront cost to you. If a collector has used threats, lied about what you owe, or ignored your written request to stop calling, document every incident with dates, times, and screenshots. That record strengthens both a complaint and a lawsuit.

1
Federal Trade Commission. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
2
Office of the Attorney General. Your Debt Collection Rights
3
Federal Trade Commission. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act – Section: Relation to State Laws
4
eCFR. Part 1006 Debt Collection Practices (Regulation F)
5
State of Texas. Texas Finance Code 392.301 – Threats or Coercion
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Is an Unfair, Deceptive or Abusive Practice by a Debt Collector
7
eCFR. 12 CFR 1006.34 – Notice for Validation of Debts
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1692g – Validation of Debts
9
Texas Law Help. Garnishment in Debt Collection
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 30 – Wage Garnishment Protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA)
11
State of Texas. Texas Property Code 41.002 – Definition of Homestead
12
eCFR. Part 212 – Garnishment of Accounts Containing Federal Benefit Payments
13
Texas State Law Library. What Is the Statute of Limitations on Debt
14
Texas State Law Library. Guides – Time-Barred Debts
15
Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Credit Reports
16
Texas Law Help. How to Answer a Debt Collection Case in Justice Court
17
Federal Trade Commission. Debt Collection FAQs – Section: Where Do I Report a Debt Collector for Doing Something Illegal
18
Office of the Attorney General. File a Consumer Complaint
19
State of Texas. Texas Finance Code 392.403 – Civil Remedies