HB47

HB47 expands support for sexual-assault survivors, including payment for prescribed follow-up care, broader access to early lease termination and consideration of survivors when criminal trials are delayed. It also changes medical training, reporting and rideshare-driver screening. Signed June 20, 2025, the law generally took effect September 1, 2025, with later dates for physician and physician-assistant license renewals. Final law; official history.

Thirty days of related follow-up care: the law expands the existing forensic-examination payment program to include prescribed continuing medical care related to the assault and provided during the 30 days after the examination, including medication and medical testing. It adds corresponding rights and notices in adult and juvenile justice proceedings. Reimbursement follows the existing attorney-general application and payment framework; it is not an unlimited cash benefit or blanket coverage of unrelated care. Existing medical-fee guidelines, medical-necessity rules, the $25,000 payment ceiling and offsets for costs recovered from another source remain. The Chapter 56A changes apply only when the offense is first reported or medical care is first sought on or after September 1, 2025; earlier cases remain under the former law. Final law, Sections 2–6, 8 and 22; payment provisions, Articles 56A.304–.305.

Court delays and housing: sexual-assault victims of any age gain the protection previously limited to victims younger than 17 or cases involving family violence: when the prosecutor requests it, the court considering a defendant’s request to postpone a case must consider the effect on the victim. This does not give a victim a veto over a delay. For specified sexual offenses, a qualifying tenant—or a parent/guardian living with the victim—can use the existing early-lease-termination process even if the offense happened away from the rental property. The preceding-six-month requirement, qualifying documentation, written 30-day notice and moving-out requirements remain. HB47 does not remove the separate location requirement in the stalking provision or automatically erase all overdue rent. Final law, Sections 1–2 and 20; Article 29.14; Property Code Section 92.0161.

Medical training and information: emergency-department facilities must extend the existing one-hour basic sexual-assault-response training requirement to contractors who handle admission, patient-related administration or direct care, not just employees. Emergency-room physicians must complete at least two hours of specified continuing education rather than treating that education as optional; emergency-room physician assistants receive a matching requirement. Topics include trauma-informed care, referrals, preventive medicines, survivors’ rights, evidence collection and evidence handling. These renewal requirements apply to applications filed on or after September 1, 2026; the two medical boards had June 1, 2026 rulemaking deadlines. The law allows the boards to count this education toward existing requirements. Final law, Sections 10, 17–18 and 24–26.

Sexual-assault nurse-examiner certification changes from two years to three, with the transition applying to renewal applications filed on or after September 1, 2025. State survivor-information forms must include statewide legal-aid contacts. The law removes two specific requirements to communicate compensation information orally, while keeping the written forms and other care requirements. That is a reduction in a particular oral-notice duty, not the elimination of survivor information. Final law, Sections 9, 11–14, 21 and 23.

Reporting and rideshares: counties must forward the sexual-assault response teams’ existing biennial reports to the statewide survivors’ task force by February 1 of each even-numbered year after receiving them. Failure to comply with the reporting requirements may affect eligibility for state grants; the law does not mandate automatic loss of every grant. Rideshare companies must check the Texas sex-offender website in addition to the existing national check and cannot permit a driver listed in either registry to log in. Separately, the employment restriction for registrants with specified judicial findings involving victims younger than 14 now expressly includes paid rideshare service. Those two provisions have different scopes. Final law, Sections 7, 15–16 and 19.