Texas is set to give residents the legal right to repair their own electronics starting September 1, 2026 C.E. House Bill 2963, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2025 C.E., will require manufacturers to make repair documentation, tools, and replacement parts available on fair and reasonable terms — opening the door for independent repair shops and individual owners alike to fix covered devices without relying on manufacturer-authorized service channels.
At a glance
- Right to repair: Texas House Bill 2963 takes effect September 1, 2026 C.E., covering smartphones, laptops, tablets, desktop computers, and other consumer digital electronic equipment sold in Texas on or after that date.
- Household savings: U.S. PIRG estimates Texas families could save roughly $382 per household annually by repairing rather than replacing common electronics.
- Electronic waste: An estimated 8,700 smartphones are discarded every day in Texas — many of which could be repaired if parts, tools, and documentation were more accessible.
What the law actually requires
HB 2963 places the obligation squarely on manufacturers, not repair shops. Under the law, makers of covered digital electronic equipment must supply repair documentation, diagnostic tools, and replacement parts to device owners and independent repair providers on the same fair and reasonable terms they offer to their own authorized networks.
The covered product list is broad. It includes smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, servers, peripherals, televisions, e-readers, home entertainment systems, smartwatches, and fitness trackers. Manufacturers must make available essential components for parts prone to wear, specialized tools for diagnostics and maintenance, and comprehensive instructions for troubleshooting and repair.
Importantly, the law does not regulate repair shops themselves. Texas chose to focus entirely on manufacturer obligations. Independent repair businesses face no new licensing, certification, or registration requirements — a deliberate design choice that keeps the barrier to entry low for local technicians and small businesses.
The law does preserve protections for safety, security, and trade secrets, meaning manufacturers are not required to hand over everything. But where those protections are not at stake, the access must be real and affordable.
The money — and the waste — behind the push
The case for right-to-repair rests on two concrete problems: cost and waste.
On cost, U.S. PIRG’s Repair Saves People Big analysis found that households could save an average of $330 per year when repair is a viable option rather than forced replacement. For Texas specifically, U.S. PIRG puts that figure at around $382 per household annually. Across millions of Texas families, the aggregate savings are substantial — money that stays in local economies rather than flowing back to device manufacturers.
On waste, the scale is striking. Americans replace their cell phones every two to three years on average, and their computers every four to five years. Every day in the U.S., more than 400,000 cell phones are discarded. In Texas alone, that figure runs to an estimated 8,700 smartphones daily. Only about a third of discarded devices are recycled; the rest end up in landfills, where they can leach toxic substances. The manufacturing cycle that replaces them draws on rare earth mining and generates significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Making repair a realistic option — not just a theoretical one — interrupts that cycle. Texas’s law is one of many pollution and waste reduction wins emerging from state legislatures as the real costs of throwaway electronics become harder to ignore.
Bipartisan support — and why that matters
Right-to-repair is one of the few tech policy issues that generates genuine cross-partisan agreement. In Texas, polling shows roughly three out of four residents support requiring manufacturers to provide repair tools, parts, and information to consumers and independent shops. Nationally, Consumer Reports found that 84% of Americans support policies mandating manufacturers to provide access to repair manuals and parts — and that 81% have replaced an item due to malfunction, with 53% doing so earlier than they wanted because repair was too difficult or expensive.
That frustration crosses political lines because the underlying experience does. Whether someone is a rural rancher whose laptop is the nearest computer to an authorized service center hundreds of miles away, or an urban small-business owner who can’t afford to send devices out for weeks at a time, the practical argument for repair access resonates the same way.
Texas joins a growing list of states moving in this direction. Colorado has extended similar protections to farmers for agricultural equipment, and the broader right-to-repair movement across all 50 states continues to gain ground. iFixit’s tracking of state-level legislation shows an accelerating trend that Texas now joins.
What remains unresolved
The law’s reach has real limits. HB 2963 covers consumer digital electronic equipment — not appliances, vehicles, medical devices, or agricultural machinery, all of which carry their own repair access debates. And while the law sets a standard of “fair and reasonable” pricing for parts and documentation, enforcement mechanisms and what that phrase means in practice will take time to clarify. Manufacturers have historically found creative ways to comply narrowly with the letter of similar laws while constraining the spirit of repair access in practice — through proprietary parts pairing, software locks, or documentation that is technically available but practically unusable.
Consumer advocates and independent repair technicians will be watching closely when the law takes effect in 2026 C.E. to see whether the access it promises becomes the access Texans actually experience.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Repair.org — Texas Right to Repair
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Colorado gives farmers the right to repair their own equipment
- Right-to-repair laws: where all 50 states stand
- The Good News for Humankind archive on consumer rights
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