§ 30.024.Fee Shifting

The newest section in Subtitle B, effective December 4, 2025, and it follows the structure of the 2021 abortion fee-shifting provision.

Notwithstanding any other law, a person — including an entity, attorney, or law firm — who seeks declaratory or injunctive relief to prevent Texas, a political subdivision, a governmental entity, a public official, or any other person in Texas from bringing an action to enforce a law that regulates access to certain spaces based on an individual's sex, in any state or federal court, or who represents a litigant seeking such relief, is jointly and severally liable for the prevailing party's costs and reasonable attorney's fees.

The liability expressly includes the cost of collecting. It covers the costs and reasonable attorney's fees the prevailing party incurs in the party's efforts to recover costs and fees — the fees of the fee fight are themselves recoverable.

Subsection (b) tracks the earlier provision: a party prevails if a court dismisses any such claim, regardless of the reason for the dismissal, or enters judgment in its favour.

Subsection (c) is a limit the 2021 section does not contain. A prevailing party may recover only to the extent those costs and fees were incurred while defending claims or causes of action on which the party prevailed. Fees attributable to claims the party lost are not recoverable.

Note what the section reaches: relief against bringing an action to enforce the law, rather than against enforcement generally, which reflects that such laws are commonly enforced through private suits rather than by officials.