Texas

Texas Recording Laws (2026): One-Party Consent Rules

By Recording Law Editorial TeamPublished June 5, 202612 min read

Texas is a one-party consent state under Tex. Penal Code § 16.02. If you are a party to a wire, oral, or electronic communication, you may record it without telling anyone else. Recording a conversation you are not part of is a second-degree felony, and a victim of illegal recording can sue for at least $10,000 per occurrence plus punitive damages under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 123.004.

Texas recording law at a glance

Question	Answer
Consent rule	One-party: a participant may record without disclosure
Main statute	Tex. Penal Code § 16.02
When recording is illegal	Non-participant interception without any party's consent
Criminal penalty	Second-degree felony: 2 to 20 years TDCJ, fine up to $10,000
Civil penalty	$10,000 per occurrence (floor), plus actual damages, punitives, attorney fees
Hidden cameras / intimate areas	State-jail felony under Tex. Penal Code § 21.15; sex-offender registration required (post-9/1/2025)
Recording police in public	Yes, clearly established First Amendment right (Fifth Circuit, 2017)

For a deeper treatment of any row, see the in-depth guides below.

Recording in-person conversations in Texas

landlord with a clipboard standing in a doorway speaking with a tenant, threshold of an apartment visible behind, daylight

Tex. Penal Code § 16.02(b) makes it a crime to intentionally intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication. The one-party carve-out lives in § 16.02(c)(4), which is structured as an affirmative defense rather than an element of the offense. Subsections (c)(4)(A) and (B) provide that interception is not a crime if the actor is a party to the communication, or if a party has given prior consent, unless the recording is done in furtherance of a criminal or tortious act.

"Oral communication" under Texas law means an in-person utterance by a person who exhibits an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception, in circumstances that justify that expectation. A private conversation in a closed office meets that test; a normal-volume exchange at a busy coffee shop generally does not.

You can lawfully record in-person conversations in Texas when you are a participant, when the conversation takes place in public without a reasonable expectation of privacy, or when you have consent from at least one party (which can be yourself). You cannot record conversations you are not part of, and you cannot use a participant's presence as a pretext for capturing conversations while you are absent from the premises.

Recording phone calls in Texas

Yes. Texas one-party consent under § 16.02(c)(4)(A) permits a participant to record any call, landline, cell, VoIP, or the audio leg of a video call, without a beep tone or oral disclosure. There is no general notice requirement on private parties under Texas law. You cannot install a recording device on someone else's phone or in a room you do not occupy; that is third-party interception and a second-degree felony.

Interstate calls. Federal law sets a one-party consent floor at 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d) but does not preempt stricter state laws. When a Texas caller reaches someone in a two-party state, courts generally apply the law with the stronger privacy interest, usually the stricter state. If any participant is in California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, or Washington, disclose and get consent before recording.

For full interstate call guidance, see Texas Phone Call Recording Laws.

Hidden cameras, doorbells, and nanny cams

therapist in three-quarter view seated on a chair with a small notebook resting on her lap taking notes, a client seated

Plain video recording in public places is generally lawful in Texas without consent. The wiretap statute does not reach silent video, and Texas has no general right-of-publicity statute barring photography in public.

Video crosses into criminal territory under Tex. Penal Code § 21.15 (Invasive Visual Recording) when someone photographs or records a person's intimate areas without consent and with intent to invade privacy or gratify sexual desire.

What H.B. 1465 (eff. Sept. 1, 2025) changed. The 89th Legislature broadened the location element from "bathroom or changing room" to any "place in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy," defined as a location where a reasonable person would believe they could undress without concern about being recorded. Bathrooms, bedrooms, and changing rooms are listed examples but the definition is not limited to them. H.B. 1465 also amended Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 62.001(5) to add § 21.15 convictions to the list of reportable offenses triggering mandatory sex-offender registration. The base offense remains a state-jail felony (180 days to 2 years; fine up to $10,000).

A nanny cam or Ring doorbell on your own property recording common areas is generally lawful. A hidden camera capturing a guest bedroom, bathroom, or other private area is a § 21.15 violation regardless of whose home it is. If the camera also captures audio, that audio falls under § 16.02's one-party rule; a camera set to record household conversations with no participant present is third-party interception.

A companion statute, Tex. Penal Code § 21.16, criminalizes disclosure of intimate visual material originally made under an expectation of confidentiality, even when the original recording was consensual.

For details, see Texas Voyeurism and Hidden Camera Laws and Texas Video Recording Laws.

Penalties for illegal recording in Texas

two business professionals shaking hands across a small meeting table, both in three-quarter view, a printed paper agenda

Criminal penalties. Unlawful interception under § 16.02(b) is a felony of the second degree. Under Tex. Penal Code § 12.33, that means 2 to 20 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice plus a fine up to $10,000. Two narrower variants drop to a state-jail felony under § 12.35 (180 days to 2 years; fine up to $10,000): illegal use of a pen register (§ 16.02(d)) and manufacture, possession, or sale of an interception device (§ 16.02(g)).

Offense	Statute	Classification	Range
Illegal interception, disclosure, or use	§ 16.02(b)	2nd-degree felony	2-20 yrs TDCJ; up to $10,000 fine
Pen-register / trap-and-trace misuse	§ 16.02(d)	State-jail felony	180 days-2 yrs; up to $10,000 fine
Manufacture, possession, sale of interception device	§ 16.02(g)	State-jail felony	180 days-2 yrs; up to $10,000 fine
Invasive visual recording	§ 21.15	State-jail felony	180 days-2 yrs; up to $10,000 fine; sex-offender registration

Civil remedies. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 123.004 provides the private cause of action. A successful plaintiff is entitled to: (1) an injunction against further interception or disclosure; (2) statutory damages of $10,000 for each occurrence, which is a floor, not a cap; (3) all actual damages in excess of that floor; (4) punitive damages in an amount the court or jury determines; and (5) reasonable attorney fees and costs. A plaintiff does not need to prove actual harm to trigger the $10,000-per-occurrence floor.

Recording the police in Texas

The Fifth Circuit held in Turner v. Lieutenant Driver, 848 F.3d 678 (5th Cir. 2017) that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The right was clearly established as of February 2017, so officers who interfere with lawful public-space recording after that date risk losing qualified immunity. Turner remains good law in the Fifth Circuit as of June 2026; there has been no en banc rehearing or Supreme Court review.

You can film traffic stops (including your own), record arrests in public, and livestream encounters with police. You cannot obstruct police operations or trespass for a better angle. Tex. Penal Code § 38.15 (Interference with Public Duties) reaches conduct that physically obstructs an officer, not recording itself.

The Texas Open Meetings Act, Tex. Gov't Code Chapter 551, requires most government meetings to be open. City councils, county commissioners courts, school boards, and the legislature may set reasonable equipment rules but cannot prohibit recording at a public meeting outright.

For more detail, see Texas Laws on Recording Police.

Special topics in Texas

Workplace recording

Texas one-party consent lets an employee record their own conversations with a supervisor or HR representative without notice, commonly used to document harassment, wage disputes, or performance reviews. However, the NLRB's decision in Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (Aug. 2, 2023) makes blanket no-recording handbook rules presumptively unlawful under Section 7 of the NLRA. An employer must show a legitimate, substantial business interest not achievable by a narrower rule. NLRB GC 25-05 (Feb. 14, 2025) did not rescind Stericycle; NLRB GC 25-07 (June 25, 2025) narrowly addresses surreptitious recording at collective-bargaining sessions and does not undo employee one-party-consent recording of supervisor conversations.

Employers may record common work areas where employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Cameras or audio recording in bathrooms, locker rooms, or changing areas violate § 21.15. Texas has no analog to California's mandatory disclosure requirement. See Texas Workplace Recording Laws.

Deepfakes and AI imagery (89th Legislature, eff. Sept. 1, 2025)

Texas enacted the most comprehensive state-level deepfake regime in the country in 2025. Tex. Penal Code § 21.165 (S.B. 441) criminalizes knowing production or distribution of "deep fake media" depicting a real person's intimate parts or sexual conduct without written consent. The base offense is a Class A misdemeanor; it elevates to a third-degree felony if the actor has a prior conviction or the depicted person is under 18. A separate subsection (b-1) adds a Class B misdemeanor threat offense for threatening to produce or distribute deepfakes to coerce, extort, harass, or intimidate, elevating to Class A on a prior conviction or minor victim.

Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Chapter 98B extends civil liability to AI-generated intimate imagery and imposes a 72-hour takedown duty on website operators after receiving a valid removal request. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Chapter 121 (H.B. 421) requires deep-fake-generator operators to verify ages, obtain written consent, and categorically refuse to generate explicit depictions of minors.

Federal overlay

18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d) (ECPA) sets a one-party consent floor that mirrors Texas law. FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (Feb. 8, 2024) classifies AI-generated voice as "artificial or prerecorded voice" under the TCPA, requiring prior express consent for such calls; this is active as of June 2026. The FCC's One-to-One Consent Rule (FCC 24-24) was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit on January 24, 2025 (mandate April 30, 2025) and is no longer in effect. The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act (signed May 19, 2025) criminalizes knowing publication of nonconsensual intimate depictions and digital-forgery deepfakes; the platform notice-and-removal compliance deadline was May 19, 2026. Texas subjects of such material have three parallel pathways: TAKE IT DOWN Act (48-hour platform removal), Ch. 98B (72-hour state takedown), and DMCA copyright removal. HIPAA governs a provider's downstream use of a recording; it does not prohibit a patient from recording their own visit. See our federal Wiretap Act and ECPA guide for the full federal framework.

Recent legal developments

September 1, 2025: H.B. 1465 broadened Tex. Penal Code § 21.15 location element from "bathroom or changing room" to any place with a reasonable expectation of privacy, and added § 21.15 convictions to the mandatory sex-offender registration list (Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 62.001(5)).
September 1, 2025: S.B. 441 amended Tex. Penal Code § 21.165 to replace "deep fake video" with "deep fake media" (covering still images), added a Class B misdemeanor threat offense, and amended Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ch. 98B to extend civil liability to AI-generated intimate imagery with a 72-hour takedown duty.
September 1, 2025: H.B. 421 added Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Chapter 121, imposing age-verification, written-consent, and minor-protection duties on operators of deep-fake-generator tools.
May 19, 2025: Federal TAKE IT DOWN Act signed; criminal provisions immediate; platform compliance deadline May 19, 2026.
April 30, 2025: FCC One-to-One Consent Rule (FCC 24-24) vacated by Eleventh Circuit mandate.
June 25, 2025: NLRB GC 25-07 addresses surreptitious recording at collective-bargaining sessions; Stericycle standard for handbook rules unaffected.

Texas recording laws in depth

a delivery driver in a uniform standing at a front door step holding a small cardboard package, captured from a low door

By type of recording

By place or relationship

More Texas laws

This article is general legal information, not legal advice. Recording laws change and apply differently to each situation. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed Texas attorney.

More Texas Laws

Sources and References

statutes.capitol.texas.gov.gov
statutes.capitol.texas.gov.gov
statutes.capitol.texas.gov.gov
statutes.capitol.texas.gov.gov
capitol.texas.gov.gov
capitol.texas.gov.gov
statutes.capitol.texas.gov.gov
ca5.uscourts.gov.gov
uscode.house.gov.gov
nlrb.gov.gov
docs.fcc.gov.gov
media.ca11.uscourts.gov.gov
congress.gov.gov
S.B. 441, Acts 2025, 89th Leg., R.S. (Enrolled Bill Text)(capitol.texas.gov).gov
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Chapter 18A (Detection, Interception, and Use of Wire, Oral, and Electronic Communications)(statutes.capitol.texas.gov).gov
Tex. Gov't Code Chapter 551 (Texas Open Meetings Act)(statutes.capitol.texas.gov).gov
Tex. Penal Code § 38.15 (Interference with Public Duties)(statutes.capitol.texas.gov).gov
45 C.F.R. Part 164 (HIPAA Privacy Rule)(ecfr.gov).gov
NLRB GC 25-07 (Surreptitious Recording of Collective-Bargaining Sessions, June 25, 2025)(nlrb.gov).gov
DOJ Justice Manual § 9-7.302 (Consensual Monitoring)(justice.gov).gov
Texas State Law Library Audio Recording Guide(guides.sll.texas.gov).gov