H.R. 10184 — Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act of 2026

This section terminates the Bureau's authority to receive transfers from the Federal Reserve System, capped at 12 percent of the System's operating expenses (adjusted annually for the employment cost index), and eliminates the separate Consumer Financial Protection Fund. It subjects the Bureau to the regular appropriations process, while retaining requirements for budget and financial management, audits, penalties and fines, and an annual report.

This section directs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to pay Civil Penalty Fund amounts only to direct victims of the activities giving rise to each civil penalty. It requires the Bureau to transfer any remaining amounts for that penalty to the Treasury general fund once all such direct victims have been paid.

This section requires each notice of proposed rulemaking issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be published in full in the Federal Register and to include identification of objectives and key performance indicators, statutory authority for each material requirement, analysis of why private markets or state authorities cannot address the problem, duplication review with other federal rules, quantitative and qualitative assessments of all direct and indirect costs and benefits across nine specified categories, reasonable alternatives, justifications when quantified net benefits do not exceed those of alternatives, burden distribution, and a probability distribution of outcomes. It also requires the Bureau to release to the Office of Management and Budget and the public all data and assumptions relied upon, except for confidential information, with an exception for provisions where the Bureau exercises no material discretion.

This section requires the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, when prescribing rules under Federal consumer financial laws, to consider the impact of proposed rules on small entities in accordance with section 609 of title 5, United States Code. It also requires covered agencies to provide detailed justifications, supported by factual, policy, and legal reasons, when they do not adopt alternatives to reduce impacts on small entities in initial and final regulatory flexibility analyses.

This section requires the OMB Director to review major rules or orders issued by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection not later than 8 years after the first compliance date, evaluating compliance costs for covered persons, achievement of objectives, technology and market changes, impacts on competition and innovation, and effects on consumer access to credit. It mandates at least 90 days of public comment, consultation with the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, FTC, and SBA, and requires the Bureau to propose amendments or repeal within 1 year if net benefits are not demonstrated. It also requires reviews of non-major rules within 10 years, excludes rules where the Bureau exercised no material discretion, and directs the OMB Director to publish a 2-year review calendar and issue severability guidance.

This section establishes an independent Inspector General for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. It separates the Bureau from the Inspector General of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, requires the new Inspector General to appear before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the House Committee on Financial Services after each Director appearance, adds the Bureau to the Council of Inspectors General on Financial Oversight, and directs the President to appoint the Inspector General within 60 days of enactment, effective upon Senate confirmation.

This section requires the Bureau to define abusive acts or practices by rule within 180 days, mandates a cost-benefit analysis for any final UDAAP rule, and bars enforcement, supervisory, or other actions based on the abusive standard until that rule takes effect. It prohibits interpreting UDAAP authority to cover discriminatory practices. It narrows the abusive standard to require intentional material interference with consumer understanding or unreasonable advantage of specific consumer vulnerabilities tied to affirmative representations. It adds a presumption that timely, clear, and conspicuous disclosures make resulting injury reasonably avoidable. It bars monetary relief unless a covered person fails to show good-faith compliance by a preponderance of the evidence, while preserving other remedies for consumer injury, and requires the Bureau to provide notice and 180 days to cure after a self-identified potential violation.

This section limits actions brought by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection or state attorneys general alleging unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices by requiring that the statute of limitations be the one applicable to the same conduct under another Federal consumer financial law. It applies to actions brought on or after the date of enactment.

This section defines "substantial injury" under the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 as concrete and quantifiable harm to a consumer or class of consumers, including monetary harm, a material risk of monetary harm that the Bureau determines is likely, or a significant adverse effect on access to or use of a consumer financial product or service. It excludes trivial, hypothetical, emotional, or reputational harms without material financial or functional impairment, as well as harms outweighed by countervailing consumer or competitive benefits, and requires objective evidence of reasonably foreseeable injury rather than a technical violation alone.

This section prohibits federal agencies from exercising supervisory, enforcement, or regulatory authority over attorneys' or law firms' litigation activities and bars private rights of action in federal court for alleged misconduct by opposing counsel in such activities. It excludes licensed attorneys and law firms engaged in litigation activities from the definition of debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and related Consumer Financial Protection Act provisions.

This section limits the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's enforcement authority over persons regulated by a State insurance regulator to the extent such persons are engaged in the business of insurance. It also requires that enforcement of the Consumer Financial Protection Act be broadly construed in favor of State insurance regulators' authority over such persons.

This section establishes a safe harbor from civil money penalties and private damages under the Truth in Lending Act for insured depository institutions, insured credit unions, and their contractors offering small-dollar credit products of $3,500 or less. Covered entities qualify if the product uses a repayment term exceeding 45 days with full amortization, prohibits most rollovers and simultaneous products, applies sound underwriting, bars balloon payments exceeding double any other payment, prohibits prepayment penalties, complies with all disclosures, and disburses funds within 5 days; the $3,500 threshold adjusts annually for CPI inflation beginning in 2028.

This section requires the heads of nine specified financial regulatory agencies to display a prescribed statement on the first page of all guidance issued after enactment. The statement declares that the guidance lacks the force and effect of law, creates no rights or obligations, binds neither the agency nor the public, and that noncompliance does not conclusively establish a violation of law.

This section requires the Comptroller General of the United States to study buy now pay later services, covering the entities offering them, their market share, consumer disclosures, benefits such as payment flexibility, risks including delinquencies and credit reporting issues, partnerships with financial institutions and e-commerce platforms, fraud potential, comparisons to other credit products on debt accumulation, interest rates, fees, and default rates, and on-time repayment data. It also requires submission of a report with the study results to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee within one year of enactment.

This section requires earned wage access providers to offer a no-cost option for receiving earned wages, with transfer initiated within one business day, and to provide specified disclosures on limits, fees, tips, and terms before agreements or disbursements. It also mandates consumer attestations against duplicate requests in the same pay period, allows cancellation without financial penalty, and requires a dispute process for unauthorized disbursements.

This section raises to $30 billion (from $10 billion) the asset threshold above which the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection has exclusive authority to supervise insured depository institutions, insured credit unions, and their affiliates for compliance with federal consumer financial laws. It requires the Bureau to adjust the threshold every five years beginning April 1, 2031, based on the ratio of current-dollar U.S. gross domestic product to its 2025 value, rounded to the nearest $1 billion.

This section permits an insured depository institution or insured credit union with more than $10 billion in assets to elect supervision by its prudential regulator instead of the Bureau, with automatic election for institutions that cross the threshold after enactment. The Bureau may petition to terminate the election upon a written determination of heightened risks of substantial injury to consumers and inadequate prudential oversight, subject to a 60-day response, denial with explanation, or appeal to the Financial Stability Oversight Council requiring a two-thirds vote. The Bureau gains backup enforcement authority if a prudential regulator fails to act within 120 days on a referred material violation. The subsection excludes affiliates of global systemically important bank holding companies. It also narrows the Bureau’s examination purpose to detecting risks of substantial injury to consumers (from risks to consumers and markets).

This section requires the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to consult with State financial regulators and appropriate Tribal regulatory authorities, in addition to prudential regulators and other Federal agencies, before proposing rules under Federal consumer financial laws. It mandates that, prior to issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking affecting insured depository institutions or insured credit unions, the Bureau provide the proposed rule to each prudential regulator, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, the National Association of State Credit Union Supervisors, organizations representing State financial regulators that license consumer financial providers, and appropriate Tribal regulatory authorities; accept written comments for a minimum of 60 days; publish all comments in the rulemaking docket; and include a detailed written response to substantive issues raised, including explanations for not adopting recommendations. It also requires the Bureau to give advance written notice and a reasonable opportunity for input to the appropriate prudential regulator and any relevant State regulator before initiating civil actions, administrative proceedings, or consent orders against insured depository institutions or insured credit unions, to consider such input in good faith, and to avoid duplicative or conflicting enforcement actions to the maximum extent practicable. These coordination requirements apply to actions initiated or orders entered on or after the date of enactment.

This section narrows the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s supervisory authority over nonbank covered persons by replacing references to risks to consumers with substantial injury to consumers. It requires at least 90 days’ notice and opportunity to respond before the Bureau may determine that a covered person poses such injury, mandates a 90-day public comment period for future rules defining larger participants, excludes small business concerns from coverage, limits supervision to activities directly related to the specific consumer financial product or service, and defines market as products or services that share the same primary consumer purpose and are reasonably interchangeable by consumers.

This section revises civil money penalty tiers for violations of federal consumer financial law by eliminating the $5,000 daily maximum applicable to any violation, setting the maximum at $25,000 for reckless violations, and reducing the maximum for knowing violations to $50,120 (from $1,000,000). It requires the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to consider self-reported violations as a mitigating factor when assessing penalties, directs the Bureau to issue implementing rules within 180 days, and authorizes a civil money penalty matrix to promote consistency.

This section limits the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s market monitoring authorities by prohibiting the use of those authorities or any information obtained under them to initiate or support enforcement investigations, actions, or supervisory examinations, and by barring public disclosure of information obtained from covered persons or service providers. It eliminates the Bureau’s authority to assess and detect risks to consumers and consumer financial markets.

This section prohibits a State attorney general from bringing a civil action to enforce the Consumer Financial Protection Act if the Bureau has provided written notice that it has brought or intends to bring an action against the same entity for the same conduct. It requires the Bureau to notify State attorneys general of its enforcement actions and subjects State actions to the same limitations that apply to the Bureau under sections 1027 and 1029. It provides that States may enforce only this title and not other federal consumer financial laws.

This section requires the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to adjust every asset-based threshold in its regulations every five years by the ratio of U.S. GDP in the prior calendar year to its value for the year preceding April 1, 2026, rounded to the nearest $1 million, $100,000, or $10,000 depending on threshold size. It also directs the Bureau to identify all such thresholds within one year, publish them in the Federal Register, and initially adjust each for CPI inflation from its establishment date.

This section requires consumers submitting complaints to the Bureau’s consumer complaint unit to attest under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate, the complaint is filed by the consumer or an authorized representative providing proof of identification, and the consumer notified the covered person at least 60 days earlier. It permits covered persons to close duplicative, frivolous, unauthorized, or already-remedied complaints and record the reasons. It mandates confidentiality of narrative content in complaints and responses while allowing publication of aggregated data.

This section requires the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to issue a rule through advance notice and comment before deleting or modifying data on women-owned, minority-owned, or small business loan applications, and to describe the intended modifications and how they advance a privacy interest.