SB2007

When someone registers or renews a vehicle registration, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles must offer the option to indicate armed-forces membership. If the person indicates membership, DMV must include that status in its registration records for the vehicle and with any released information relating to those records, including a vehicle report. The text concerns membership in the armed forces, not a new designation for all former service members, and it does not make this disclosure mandatory to register a vehicle. Final law, new Transportation Code 502.013.

This is a registration-record change, not a specialty-license-plate benefit, fee exemption or new military civil-law protection. It does not prescribe a service-document verification process or an opt-out/removal procedure in its text. It also does not repeal the separate motor-vehicle privacy statutes: those statutes restrict personal-information disclosure and specify exceptions. The new provision should not be described as opening every registration record to unrestricted public access, nor as keeping the volunteered status solely inside DMV. Final law; Existing disclosure restriction; Permitted-disclosure framework.

All five operative versions are identical, and the amendment index lists no amendments. No committee or floor change altered the voluntary choice or the requirement to carry the reported status into released vehicle-record information. Introduced; Senate committee; Senate-passed; House committee; Final law; Version index; Amendment index.

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

Service members who choose disclosure can have that status carried in vehicle records seen by record recipients. The practical tradeoff is that the volunteered information travels with the specified releases; the act does not guarantee a discount, stop a repossession or resolve anyone’s eligibility for separate military protections. DMV must modify its systems. No implemented form, actual release or individual outcome is verified here. Final law.

The April 12 fiscal note estimates a one-time $357,700 technology cost in fiscal year 2026 from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Fund No. 10, with no additional cost projected for 2027–30. Its $0 General Revenue-related impact is therefore not a zero-cost estimate across all state funds. It anticipates no significant local-government fiscal implication. The act itself makes no appropriation; the amount is an implementation forecast, not an individual registration fee. Fiscal note.