Reference

Texas compliance penalties: what the rules actually authorize

Last updated August 2, 2026 — figures re-verified against each agency’s own published source.

Compliance marketing is full of scary numbers, and a lot of them are wrong or years out of date. This page collects the penalty amounts Texas and federal regulators actually publish for the industries we work with — med spas, dental offices, tattoo and piercing studios, and esthetician studios — with a link to the source for every figure.

Read these as ceilings, not forecasts. Every number below is a statutory or regulatory maximum. Actual assessments depend on the facts, the history, and what the agency decides — most enforcement resolves well below these figures, and many matters end in corrective action rather than a fine. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

Federal OSHA

OSHA maximums are adjusted for inflation most Januaries. These are the amounts that apply to citations issued after January 15, 2026. Texas has no state OSHA plan covering private employers, so federal OSHA applies directly to Texas businesses.

Violation	Maximum	Basis	Source
Serious	$16,550	per violation	OSHA penalties page
Other-than-serious	$16,550	per violation	OSHA penalties page
Posting requirement	$16,550	per violation	OSHA penalties page
Failure to abate	$16,550	per day past the abatement date	OSHA penalties page
Willful or repeated	$165,514	per violation	OSHA penalties page

The documents OSHA asks for first are the written Exposure Control Plan (29 CFR 1910.1030), hepatitis B vaccination offers and declinations, annual bloodborne pathogens training records, and the hazard communication program with Safety Data Sheets (29 CFR 1910.1200).

Health information — Texas HB 300 and federal HIPAA

Texas runs its own medical records privacy law alongside HIPAA, and it defines “covered entity” broadly enough to reach businesses that never bill insurance. The two regimes stack.

Texas Medical Records Privacy Act (HB 300)

Violation	Maximum	Basis	Source
Negligent violation	$5,000	per violation, per year	Tex. Health & Safety Code §181.201(b)
Knowing or intentional violation	$25,000	per violation, per year	Tex. Health & Safety Code §181.201(b)
PHI used for financial gain	$250,000	per violation	Tex. Health & Safety Code §181.201(b)
Pattern or practice of violations	$1,500,000	per year	Tex. Health & Safety Code §181.201(c)

Federal HIPAA civil money penalties

Violation	Maximum	Basis	Source
Statutory annual cap	$2,190,294	per identical provision, per calendar year	HHS inflation adjustment, effective Jan 28 2026
Per-violation range (all tiers)	$145 – $73,011	per violation, by culpability tier	HHS inflation adjustment, effective Jan 28 2026

Texas-specific trap: HB 300 requires employee privacy training within 90 days of hire, and Texas gives patients a 15-business-day window for electronic records requests — both shorter than the federal defaults many practices assume.

Texas licensing boards

Each board that licenses one of these industries has its own administrative penalty authority. The pattern is remarkably consistent: a $5,000 ceiling per violation, with each day of a continuing violation counted separately.

Violation	Maximum	Basis	Source
Texas Medical Board (med spas, delegation)	$5,000	per violation; each day is a separate violation	Tex. Occupations Code §165.001–.002
Texas State Board of Dental Examiners	$5,000	per violation; each day is a separate violation	Tex. Occupations Code §264.002
TSBDE informal resolution track	$1,000	per violation, capped at $3,000 per calendar year	Tex. Occupations Code §264.002
DSHS (tattoo & body piercing studios) — including the employee human trafficking prevention training added by §146.0075 in 2025	$5,000	per violation; each day is a separate violation	Tex. Health & Safety Code §146.019
TDLR (esthetics, cosmetology, laser hair removal)	$5,000	per day, per violation, where the program statute is silent	Tex. Occupations Code §51.302

Why “each day is a separate violation” matters more than the headline number. A missing log or an expired posting is not a one-time $5,000 exposure — it is a condition that persists until someone fixes it. That is also why documentation problems are the cheapest category of finding to resolve: they stop accruing the moment the paperwork exists.

How to use this page

If you are trying to work out where you actually stand, the penalty table is the wrong starting point — the right one is a list of the documents your industry is expected to keep. Our free assessment walks you through that in about two minutes and gives you a scored breakdown, no email required to see it.

See which documents you’re missing.

Free gap assessment →

Sources

OSHA, OSHA Penalties — maximums effective January 15, 2026. https://www.osha.gov/penalties
Tex. Health & Safety Code §181.201 (Texas Medical Records Privacy Act civil penalties).
Tex. Health & Safety Code §146.019 (tattoo and body piercing studio administrative penalty).
Tex. Occupations Code §165.001–.002 (Texas Medical Board administrative penalty).
Tex. Occupations Code §264.002 (Texas State Board of Dental Examiners administrative penalty).
Tex. Occupations Code §51.302 (TDLR administrative penalty amount).
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HIPAA civil money penalty inflation adjustment effective January 28, 2026.

Spotted a figure that has changed? Email [email protected] and we’ll correct it and re-date the page.