These are the new Texas laws going into effect on Sept. 1

DALLAS — Sept. 1 doesn’t just mark Labor Day and the unofficial end of summer. In Texas, it also means a spate of new laws are going into effect, including numerous pieces of legislation involving everything from education to lab-grown meat.

The laws stem from bills that were passed by the Texas Legislature this year and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Here’s an overview of some of the key laws that go into effect on Sept. 1, 2025 – while this isn’t an exhaustive list of every single piece of legislation passed this year, we tried to highlight as many as possible:

Several key laws were passed related to schools this year:

• House Bill 1481: Cell phone ban
  • Requires all school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to adopt policies prohibiting students from using personal communication devices (cell phones, personal iPads, Apple Watches, etc.) while on school property during the school day. Previously, such policies were optional for districts.
  • Due to the new cellphone policy, students will not be permitted to access their schedules on their phones during the school day. Students must bring a printed copy of their schedule or write it down to carry with them throughout the day. 
• Senate Bill 10: Ten Commandments
  • Requires public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting with the 2025-2026 school year. It has to be displayed where it can be seen on a 16″ x 20″ poster. While a court ruling halted the new law for some districts (following a lawsuit by parents), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton instructed other districts to still comply with the law.
• Senate Bill 11: Allows time for prayer and reading religious texts
  • Requires school boards to vote on allowing designated prayer time. The bill allows schools to designate time during the school day for prayer and Bible reading.
• Senate Bill 12: DEI ban in schools
  • Extends the state’s ban on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives to more than 1,200 K-12 public school districts across Texas. SB 12 bans teaching gender identity and sexual orientation while requiring parents to opt their children into sex education.
• Senate Bill 13: Allows parents to restrict library materials from their student
  • Gives Texas parents and school boards, not school librarians, the final say over what materials are allowed in their schools’ libraries by creating a framework for them to remove books based on complaints they receive. Only the approval of 50 parents’ or 10% of parents in the district, whichever is less, would be needed to create the oversight councils.
• Senate Bill 314: Bans certain food additives in school lunch
  • Bans certain additives in free or reduced school lunches and the breakfast program. There are seven additives listed: brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, azodicarbonamide, butylated hydroxyanisole, red dye 3 and titanium dioxide. Lawmakers say the chemicals are linked to severe harm and shouldn’t be served to children because there is healthier food and ingredients available.
• Senate Bill 965: Right to prayer for public school employee while on duty
  • Codifies into law the right of a public school employee to engage in religious speech or prayer while on duty. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Joseph Kennedy, a high school football coach from Washington State, who knelt and prayed on the field after games. The high court ruled that the First Amendment protected the coach’s prayer. State lawmakers said that the decision paved the way for the acceptability of religious practices in public school settings.
• House Bill 27: Requires students to take financial literacy courses
  • Requires all Texas public high school students to complete a one-half credit course in personal financial literacy.
• House Bill 2: $8.5 billion in public education funding
  • Gives schools additional money for teacher and staff salaries, educator preparation, special education, safety requirements and early childhood learning

Senate Bill 261, sponsored by numerous Republicans, places a ban on the sale of cell-cultured protein for human consumption – a.k.a. lab-grown meat. As the Texas Tribune reported, only one restaurant in Texas – the Austin sushi restaurant Otoko – has offered cell-cultured protein, a cultivated salmon. But Texas lawmakers wanted to pass the bill over concerns that lab-grown meat could disrupt the livestock and farming industry.

Senate Bill 4 pertains to property taxes, increasing the homestead exemption on school district taxes from $100,000 to $140,000. A homestead exemption is the amount a homeowner can exempt from taxes, in this case to pay for public schools. Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, a longtime advocate for reducing property taxes, told WFAA that most Texans will see a reduction in their ISD property tax bill of $363.

House Bill 229 will define a man and a woman based on reproductive organs. As the Texas Tribune reported, the law, which will apply those definitions across state statutes, will “bolster an already existing block from state agencies on changes to gender markers on state documents.”

In addition to defining a man and a woman, the law also pertains to how vital statistics are collection by the government. The law says “a governmental entity that collects vital statistics information that identifies the sex of an individual for the purpose of complying with antidiscrimination laws or for the purpose of gathering public health, crime, economic, or other data shall identify each individual as either male or female.”

Senate Bill 1313 makes it a Class B misdemeanor for cigarette, e-cigarette or tobacco product retailers to use any signs, logos or design marks that are primarily marketed toward minors.

Senate Bill 1316 prohibits the advertising of e-cigarettes within 1,000 feet of churches and schools.

House Bill 5084 allows fireworks sales from five days before the Lunar New Year until midnight on Lunar New Year in counties where fireworks sales have been approved by county commissioners.

House Bill 346 gives veterans a five-year exemption from franchise taxes for their businesses. This bill replaces the current five-year exemption that would have ended on Jan. 1, 2026.

House Bill 3749, known as “Jenifer’s Law,” pertains to IV therapy at med spa facilities. The law will now require that a physician may only supervise and delegate the duties of elective intravenous (IV) therapy to registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses or physician assistants, according to KCEN. The Waco station covered the law’s passage in the wake of a Fairfield woman, Jenifer Cleveland, dying while getting an IV procedure at a med spa in 2023. 

Senate Bill 835, known as “Trey’s Law,” bans nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in child sex abuse cases. The legislation is named for Trey Carlock, a young man from Highland Park whose sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, has advocated for its passing for years. Phillips says her brother was abused from age 7 to 17 by Pete Newman, a former camp counselor at Kanakuk, a Christian summer camp in Missouri that is popular among Texas families.

House Bill 2017, known as “Grayson’s Law,” raises the minimum sentencing from two years to 10 years for intoxication manslaughter suspects who are in the country illegally. The bill is named in honor of 29-year-old Grayson Davis of Smithville. He died when police say a drunk driver going the wrong way hit his car head-on. The alleged drunk driver was in the country illegally.

House Bill 1443 makes the possession or promotion of child-like sex dolls a criminal offense, with charges ranging from a Class A misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.

Senate Bill 20 creates a new state felony charge for the possession or promotion of obscene visual material depicting a child to include cartoon or animation images or imagery that was created using artificial intelligence (AI).

House Bill 1902 specifically criminalizes the act of “jugging” in which suspects stalk and rob people after they withdraw money from an ATM or bank. The law makes the offense up to a first-degree felony. The Texas Bankers Association praised the law after working to raise awareness of the rise of jugging incidents.

House Bill 2306 eliminates parole for a human trafficking defendant when the victim is a child or a disabled person. Senate Bill 1212 increases the penalty for any human trafficking charge to a first-degree felony. 

“I thank all the survivors of human trafficking for stepping up and telling their stories, sharing their insight, and talking about what needs to be done to help their lives,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at a bill signing ceremony.

Several new laws are related to elections, according to the Secretary of State’s office, including:

House Bill 677: Prohibits a county elections administrator from holding another office or position appointed by an elected officials.

House Bill 5115: Increases the penalty for election fraud from a Class A misdemeanor to a second-degree felony and expands definition of election fraud to include “certain actions such as counting votes the person knows are invalid, altering a report to include votes the person knows are invalid, refusing to count votes the person knows are valid or altering a report to exclude votes the person knows are valid.”

Senate Bill 1637 makes it so that a peace officer can not be subjected to a deadly conduct crime if they point their weapon at someone “in the lawful discharge of the officer’s official duties.”

House Bill 1871 increases the potential penalty for attempting to kill a police officer, introducing the possibility of the death penalty by making it a capital offense. The law also restricts how inmates for these crimes can be released to mandatory supervision.