2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB1973

HB1973 requires a petitioner in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship to submit a certified copy of the child's birth certificate if it is available to that petitioner.

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Official caption: Relating to proof of the identity of a child's parents in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Cook. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB1973 requires a petitioner in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship to submit a certified copy of the child's birth certificate if it is available to that petitioner.
A certified birth certificate submitted under the new provision must be filed under seal and separately from other documents.
The Title IV-D agency—the Texas attorney general's office acting as the state's designated child-support agency—is exempt from this new submission requirement when it files the petition.
The change applies only to suits filed on or after September 1, 2025.

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What does it do?

HB1973 requires a petitioner in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship to submit a certified copy of the child’s birth certificate if it is available to that petitioner. If it is unavailable to the petitioner, the court may ask another party who has access to a certified copy to submit it while the case is pending. If no party has one available, or it does not identify both parents, the court may request alternative proof of the parents’ identities. The law does not make possession of a birth certificate an absolute prerequisite to bringing every case. Final law, Section 1.

A certified birth certificate submitted under the new provision must be filed under seal and separately from other documents. The court must seal or otherwise keep confidential the certificate or alternative proof, as applicable. The requirement is not permission to put the child’s identifying record in an ordinary public attachment. Final law.

The Title IV-D agency—the Texas attorney general’s office acting as the state’s designated child-support agency—is exempt from this new submission requirement when it files the petition. HB1973 adds that exemption alongside existing exemptions concerning specified protective-order information; it does not newly create all of those older exemptions. Family Code 102.008; Family Code 231.001.

The change applies only to suits filed on or after September 1, 2025. Earlier-filed suits remain under the prior law. The bill addresses evidence submission and confidentiality, not a new substantive test for deciding parentage or custody. Final law, Sections 2–3.

What changed along the way?

The introduced, House committee and House-passed versions required the available certificate or alternative proof and required confidentiality. The Senate committee substitute added explicit filing under seal and separate filing of the certified certificate, and adjusted the final confidentiality sentence to require sealing or other confidentiality as applicable. Those changes survived in the enrolled act. The availability conditions, agency exemption and filing-date transition were retained. Versions; Senate committee text; final law.

The amendment index lists no individual amendments, but that does not mean the House text was enacted unchanged. The official Senate packet contains the substitute adopted May 28, 2025, and the House concurred May 30. These are the Senate substitute changes, not an unlisted series of floor proposals. Senate amendment packet, pages 3–4; amendment index; history.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Children, parents and courts may benefit from better documentation of parental identity with protections for sensitive records. Petitioners and other parties may need to obtain or submit records, and clerks must handle the separate confidential filing. Availability exceptions and the agency exemption limit the new obligation; the law does not specify that every family must obtain a new copy regardless of circumstances.

The May 29, 2025 fiscal note anticipates no significant state or local fiscal impact, assuming costs can be absorbed within existing resources. It gives no dollar amount or separate two-year or five-year forecast and does not establish that individual families incur no document or legal expenses.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.