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

HB4377

Read bill highlights ↓

Official caption: Relating to the retention of certain genetic material and genetic information by the Department of Family and Protective Services.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Villalobos, Capriglione, Leo Wilson. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

Report an error ↗

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.

HB4377 requires the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) and laboratories it uses to promptly destroy genetic material and delete genetic information obtained for paternity testing once the purpose for taking the sample has been accomplished.
There is an important exception: DFPS must retain the test results, which are confidential under Human Resources Code Section 40.005.
The governor signed the bill June 20, 2025, and it took effect September 1, 2025.
The act addresses DFPS-related paternity testing, not every medical genetic test or every DNA sample held by any state agency.

Read the full explanation ↓

What does it do?

HB4377 requires the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) and laboratories it uses to promptly destroy genetic material and delete genetic information obtained for paternity testing once the purpose for taking the sample has been accomplished. The law defines genetic material as blood or another specimen containing DNA, and genetic information as information about an individual’s or family’s genetic characteristics derived from genetic analysis.

There is an important exception: DFPS must retain the test results, which are confidential under Human Resources Code Section 40.005. Destroying the sample therefore does not mean erasing every record of the paternity determination. The confidentiality framework governs permitted use and disclosure; it is not an absolute prohibition on every legally authorized disclosure.

The governor signed the bill June 20, 2025, and it took effect September 1, 2025. Its transition provision required laboratories used by DFPS to carry out the required destruction and deletion by January 1, 2026. That deadline applies as required by the new section; it does not override the retained-results exception or the provision tying destruction to completion of the sample’s purpose. The continuing prompt-destruction rule covers both DFPS and its testing laboratories.

The act addresses DFPS-related paternity testing, not every medical genetic test or every DNA sample held by any state agency.

What changed along the way?

The introduced bill directed DFPS to destroy the material and information and applied the January deadline to the department. The House committee substitute expressly brought testing laboratories into the requirements, defined genetic tests and laboratories, and added the exception requiring both the department and laboratories to retain confidential test results.

The amendment index lists one amendment, offered by Villalobos and adopted on House second reading. Amendment 1 removed laboratories from the mandatory result-retention sentence and removed DFPS from the separate January 1 cleanup deadline. Both edits appear in the engrossed and final law. The ongoing destruction/deletion duty still names both DFPS and laboratories; the amendment did not remove DFPS from that duty.

The engrossed, Senate committee and enrolled operative texts match. The text index and history show no further substantive amendment.

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?

People whose samples are used in DFPS paternity testing gain a limit on continued retention of genetic material and information once the testing purpose is complete. DFPS retains the confidential result needed for its records. DFPS and its laboratories must manage sample destruction, information deletion and the retained-result distinction; the act does not establish a compensation payment to tested individuals.

The latest fiscal note, on the engrossed bill, anticipated no significant state fiscal impact, assuming DFPS could absorb costs within existing resources, and no local-government fiscal implication.

That differs from the House committee fiscal note, which estimated a $5,694,581 cost to general-revenue-related funds through August 2027, concentrated in fiscal 2026. That earlier estimate assumed accelerated digitization of 5,280 boxes of agency records and technology to remove genetic information under the earlier department deadline. It is not the estimate for the final wording, and it is not an appropriation. The older note also contains an inconsistent technology-cost phrase ending in “million”; the figure reported here is its explicit general-revenue table total, not that malformed phrase.

Review boundary: This explains the enacted requirements and their amendment history. It does not establish whether a particular laboratory met the January 2026 deadline or determine the retention status of an individual’s records.

Official sources

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