HB1403

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1403 prohibits the Health and Human Services Commission, Department of Family and Protective Services and child-placing agencies that contract with DFPS from requiring an agency foster home to disclose the specific types of firearms in the home or report changes in those types. It concerns this defined foster-care setting, not a general rule for all homes or every weapons inquiry. Final law

If one of those entities has or obtains firearm-type information, it may use the information only to determine whether firearms are present. The information is confidential and not subject to disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act. The law distinguishes identifying firearm types from determining whether the home has firearms at all; it does not prohibit every yes-or-no presence inquiry.

A child-placing agency that violates the use restriction in subsection (e-7) is liable to the state for a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per violation, recoverable in an action brought by the attorney general. This is a maximum civil penalty for that specified violation—not an automatic $5,000 payment to a foster parent, a new criminal offense, or a penalty expressly attached here to every other subsection.

The act does not repeal existing authority to adopt firearm and ammunition safety/storage standards. That authority remains in Human Resources Code 42.042(e-1), alongside the existing protection for lawful possession. Limits on information about firearm types should not be confused with permission to disregard storage requirements. Human Resources Code 42, including 42.002 and 42.042