Texas’ new right-to-repair law takes effect Sept. 1, requiring makers of many digital electronic products to provide owners and independent repair businesses with parts, tools and documentation. But the law draws a line that matters to Appliance News readers: home appliances with embedded digital electronics are excluded.
House Bill 2963, signed into law after the 2025 legislative session, creates repair-access requirements for covered digital electronic equipment sold or used in Texas. For an owner or independent servicer working on a refrigerator, washer, range, dishwasher or another home appliance with electronic controls, however, the new Texas law does not create the same statutory right to manufacturer repair resources.
Texas Requires Repair Access for Covered Electronics
HB 2963 applies to manufacturers of covered digital electronic equipment and requires them to make documentation, parts and tools available to product owners and independent repair providers on fair and reasonable terms when those resources are also made available to authorized repair providers.
The law defines digital electronic equipment around products that depend, wholly or partly, on digital electronics embedded in or attached to the product to function. It also includes provisions governing diagnostic, maintenance and repair information and access to tools needed to restore covered equipment to working condition.
Texas is joining a growing group of states with digital right-to-repair requirements, adding another compliance regime for electronics manufacturers that sell products nationally. The Texas statute takes effect Sept. 1, 2026.
Home Appliances Are Expressly Excluded
The important limitation for the appliance industry appears in the law’s exclusions. HB 2963 excludes “a home appliance that has a digital electronic product embedded within it or attached to it.”
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That language means the presence of digital controls does not turn an appliance into covered digital electronic equipment under the Texas law. A connected refrigerator, electronically controlled washer or range with a digital display may depend heavily on software and electronic components, but the home appliance exclusion keeps it outside HB 2963’s repair-access mandate.
The exclusion is consequential because modern appliances increasingly rely on control boards, sensors, firmware, diagnostic modes and network-connected features. Independent appliance servicers can encounter the same repair-access questions that right-to-repair laws address in other electronics — access to service documentation, diagnostic software, replacement boards and other manufacturer-controlled resources — without receiving a new right to those resources under the Texas statute.
What the Exclusion Means for Owners and Servicers
For Texas appliance owners, HB 2963 does not require an appliance manufacturer to provide a consumer or independent technician with the parts, tools or documentation needed to repair an excluded home appliance simply because comparable resources are available to an authorized service network.
For independent service companies, the Sept. 1 effective date therefore does not create a broad new entitlement to appliance service manuals, proprietary diagnostics, firmware tools or manufacturer parts programs. Existing manufacturer policies, contractual arrangements and other applicable laws remain important to what an independent shop can obtain.
The law also contains other product exclusions, illustrating why “right to repair” is increasingly a category-specific concept rather than one uniform rule. Manufacturers and repair businesses have to determine not only whether a state has enacted a repair law, but whether the particular product falls within that statute.
State Laws Create Different Boundaries
Texas arrives in a national repair-policy landscape that already varies significantly by state. A Wiley analysis of state right-to-repair laws describes an expanding patchwork in which coverage, exemptions, compliance dates and manufacturer obligations differ across jurisdictions.
Minnesota provides a useful contrast for appliance readers. Its Digital Fair Repair Act generally requires manufacturers of covered digital electronic equipment to make parts, documentation and tools available to owners and independent repair providers, but it also contains numerous exclusions and product-specific boundaries. Other states, including California, Colorado, New York and Oregon, have enacted their own versions with differing scopes and limitations.
That variation makes the product definition as important as the headline obligation. A repair business operating across state lines cannot assume that a device covered in one jurisdiction receives the same repair rights in another, and a broad digital-electronics law may still leave major appliance categories outside its reach.
Appliance Repair Access Remains a Separate Policy Question
Appliance News has been tracking that divide as states expand repair legislation. In our earlier review of right-to-repair laws and home appliances, the central problem was already clear: whether a repair law helps an appliance owner depends heavily on the statutory definition of the covered product and the exemptions lawmakers choose.
Texas reinforces that point. HB 2963 expands repair rights for many digital products beginning Sept. 1, but it does not establish a comparable repair-access mandate for home appliances merely because they contain embedded electronics. For Texas appliance owners and independent servicers, the broader debate over access to parts, documentation and diagnostic tools therefore continues outside this new law.
