Texas Guide · Updated 2026
Texas Ban-the-Box: There Is No Statewide Law
If you have read that Texas passed a ban-the-box law in 2025, you have read something that is not true. Texas employers may still ask about criminal history on the application statewide. What can catch you is local: Austin has its own ordinance, and it has been in force since 2016.
HB 2466 was never enacted
HB 2466 (89th Legislature, 2025) died in committee without a vote. It is not law, and no part of it took effect. We verified this against the official bill history at capitol.texas.gov rather than relying on secondary reporting — a number of HR and legal blogs reported the bill as passed, and that reporting is wrong.
The practical consequence: Texas still permits criminal-history questions on job applications statewide. If you removed that question from your application in 2025 because of HB 2466, you did so voluntarily. That is a defensible choice on its own merits, but it was not required — and it is worth knowing which it was.
Austin is the real rule, and it predates all of this
Austin's Fair Chance Hiring Ordinance (Austin City Code ch. 4-15, added by Ord. No. 20160324-019) has been effective since April 4, 2016. It reaches employers with 15 or more employees whose primary work location is in Austin, and it requires:
- No criminal-history question on the application — § 4-15-4(B).
- No inquiry or consideration until a conditional offer has been made — § 4-15-4(C).
- An individualized assessment, plus written notice before adverse action — § 4-15-4(E)–(F).
- A civil penalty of up to $500 per violation — § 4-15-8, enforced by the City of Austin Office of Civil Rights.
Whether Austin's ordinance survives is unresolved
The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act (HB 2127, 2023) was intended to preempt local employment ordinances, and its status is genuinely unsettled. State v. City of Houston, No. 03-23-00531-CV (Tex. App.—Austin, July 18, 2025) reversed the judgment that had struck HB 2127, and a petition for review is pending in the Texas Supreme Court (filed June 29, 2026).
Until that resolves, treat the Austin ordinance as operative if you hire in Austin. Do not plan around it disappearing.
Federal rules apply everywhere in Texas regardless
No state ban-the-box law does not mean no rules. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act still governs how you run a background check — standalone disclosure, written authorization, and the two-step pre-adverse/adverse-action sequence with a copy of the report and the summary of rights. EEOC disparate-impact guidance still governs how you use what the check returns.
Texas separately limits negligent-hiring liability based solely on an applicant's criminal record (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 142), which removes one common reason employers give for blanket exclusions.
What to actually do
Hiring anywhere in Texas outside Austin: you may ask on the application. Whether you should is a policy question — delaying the question widens your candidate pool and reduces disparate-impact exposure — but it is your call, not a legal requirement.
Hiring in Austin with 15 or more employees: take the question off the application, wait for a conditional offer, run an individualized assessment, and give written notice before any adverse action.
Either way: keep the FCRA sequence clean, apply criteria consistently across candidates, and document why a conviction is job-related when it drives a decision.
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