How Much Are Repossession Fees in Texas?

Repossession fees in Texas typically add $1,000 to $2,000 or more to what you already owe on your auto loan. That total covers towing, daily storage at a licensed facility, the repossession agency’s recovery fee, any skip tracing the lender had to pay for, and the costs of preparing and auctioning the vehicle. Some of these charges are capped by state regulators; others only have to be “reasonable.”

Towing and Daily Storage Caps

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) sets the maximum rates a towing company and a vehicle storage facility can charge. These caps are adjusted every two years based on the Consumer Price Index, and local governments can set lower rates, so the actual charge in your area may be below the statewide ceiling.

The current towing maximums depend on vehicle weight:

10,000 pounds or less: up to $272
10,001 to 24,999 pounds: up to $380
25,000 pounds or more: up to $489 per unit, with a $978 total maximum¹

Storage charges start the moment the car hits the lot. A storage facility can charge up to $22.85 per day for a vehicle 25 feet or shorter, and up to $39.99 per day for anything longer. A partial day counts as a full day, with one exception: if the car sits on the lot across two calendar days but within a 12-hour window, you only pay for one day.¹

Two one-time charges may appear on your bill from the storage facility. A notification fee of up to $50 covers mailing the required notices to you and any lienholder, but the facility cannot charge it if you reclaim the car within 24 hours or before the notice goes out. An impoundment fee of up to $22.85 can be added when the facility inventories personal property, removes and stores loose items, or pulls your registration information from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.²

The Repossession Agency’s Fee

Those tow and storage numbers only cover the storage facility side. Your lender also pays a repossession agency to locate and physically take the car, and that bill is passed on to you. Agencies typically charge lenders a base fee of $300 to $600, depending on how hard the recovery is. If the lender had to hunt for the vehicle, a skip tracing fee for the databases and investigative work used to track it down can add another $150 to $300.

Lenders often tack on their own internal administrative fee for handling the file. Texas law requires these charges to be reasonable, but the statute sets no hard dollar cap the way TDLR does for tow and storage. One limit does apply: the repossession agency cannot enter your property unlawfully, and no one acting for the lender can commit a breach of the peace during the recovery.³

Costs of Preparing and Selling the Car

Once the lender has the vehicle, it prepares it for a public auction or private sale. Texas law lets the lender deduct every reasonable cost of retaking, holding, and preparing the car from the sale proceeds before applying anything to your loan balance.⁴

Sale-related costs commonly include transporting the car from the storage lot to the auction house (often $100 to $200), detailing or basic mechanical work to make it presentable ($150 to $400), and the auction house’s own entry fees and commissions. Every dollar spent here comes off the top of the sale price, which widens the gap between what the car brings in and what you owe.

The sale itself has to be “commercially reasonable” under the Uniform Commercial Code standard Texas follows, meaning it happens through a recognized market, at a price consistent with that market, or in a way that matches standard practice among dealers in that type of vehicle.⁵ If the lender later sues you for the shortfall and the sale was not conducted properly, that failure can be a defense.

Stopping the Fees From Growing

The fastest way to cap the fees is to get the vehicle back before auction. Texas gives you two possible paths.

Redemption

You can redeem the vehicle at any time before the lender sells it or signs a contract to sell it. Redemption means paying the entire remaining loan balance, not just the missed payments, plus the reasonable expenses the lender has already run up, including repossession, storage, and attorney’s fees.⁶ Once you pay, the loan is satisfied and you own the car outright. The catch is obvious: redeeming requires the full payoff in one lump sum.

Reinstatement

Reinstatement is cheaper. Instead of paying off the loan, you bring it current by covering all past-due payments, late fees, and repossession costs in one payment, then resume regular monthly payments. Texas does not guarantee a statutory right to reinstate, but many loan contracts include one and some lenders will agree to it anyway. If reinstatement is available, the lender’s quote is usually good only for a short window, often around 15 days. Call as soon as the car is taken and ask for the exact reinstatement amount and the deadline.

Getting Your Personal Belongings

Items left inside the car, such as clothing, tools, electronics, or child safety seats, are not part of the collateral. Texas law requires that you be given the chance to retrieve them.⁷ Contact the repossession agency or storage facility quickly; waiting can mean more storage charges, and unclaimed items can eventually be disposed of.

What You Still Owe After the Sale

Add up your loan balance and all the repossession and sale costs, subtract what the car brought at auction, and whatever is left is your deficiency balance. If you owed $10,000 on the loan with $2,000 in costs, and the car sold for $8,000, you still owe $4,000. The lender can go to court for a judgment on that amount.⁴

Texas protects your paycheck from that judgment. The Texas Constitution prohibits wage garnishment for consumer debts like an auto loan deficiency. The only debts that allow wage garnishment here are court-ordered child support, spousal maintenance, unpaid income taxes, and defaulted student loans. A lender holding a deficiency judgment can still try to collect by placing liens on non-exempt property or levying certain bank accounts, but it cannot take your wages.

If the car sells for more than you owe, the lender has to return the surplus to you. If the deficiency is one of several debts you cannot handle, bankruptcy can discharge it as unsecured debt, and filing triggers an automatic stay that halts collection while the case is pending.⁸

Before the sale, the lender has to send you a written notification describing the collateral, telling you whether a deficiency is possible, and giving you a phone number to call for the exact redemption amount.⁹ If that notice never arrives or does not meet the legal requirements, that is another defense to a deficiency claim. Save every piece of correspondence from your lender.

Disputing an Overcharge

If a towing company or storage facility billed you above the TDLR maximums, you can file a complaint directly with TDLR. The agency accepts online complaints against tow companies, tow operators, vehicle storage facilities, and their employees.² For agency fees or lender administrative charges you believe are unreasonable, the challenge usually happens through the deficiency lawsuit itself, where you can contest specific line items as unreasonable or the sale as commercially unreasonable.

1
Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. VSF Fees and Other Charges
2
Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Consumer Information about Towing
3
State of Texas. Texas Finance Code 353.408 – Prohibition on Certain Acts of Repossession
4
State of Texas. Texas Business and Commerce Code 9.615 – Application of Proceeds of Disposition; Liability for Deficiency and Right to Surplus
5
Legal Information Institute. UCC 9-627 – Determination of Whether Conduct Was Commercially Reasonable
6
State of Texas. Texas Business and Commerce Code 9.623 – Right to Redeem Collateral
7
State of Texas. Texas Finance Code 348.407 – Retention or Disposition of Nonattached Personal Property
8
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Happens If My Car Is Repossessed?
9
State of Texas. Texas Business and Commerce Code 9.614 – Contents and Form of Notification Before Disposition of Collateral: Consumer-Goods Transaction