Texas Traffic Ticket Laws Changed in 2025: What HB 4504 and SB 296 Mean for Your Ticket

Texas changed its traffic ticket laws twice in 2025. On January 1, 2025, the Legislature's recodification bill (H.B. 4504) renumbered the entire fine-only misdemeanor chapter — the defensive driving dismissal statute everyone knew as "Article 45.0511" became Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 45A. Then on September 1, 2025, S.B. 296 took effect and made two practical changes: it modernized how you can request a driving safety course, and — the big one — it now lets one course dismiss every eligible charge from the same stop.

Here's exactly what changed, what didn't, and how to tell whether the page you're reading about Texas tickets is up to date. (Spoiler: if it cites "Art. 45.0511," it was written before 2025.)

H.B. 4504 (88th Legislature) repealed Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 45 and replaced it with a reorganized Chapter 45A, effective January 1, 2025. It was expressly a nonsubstantive revision — the rules didn't change, just the addresses. But every citation drivers, courts, and websites had used for two decades moved:

Why it matters to you: most Texas traffic content on the internet — including some court websites — still cites the old article numbers. The rules they describe may still be roughly right, but a page citing 45.0511 hasn't been touched since before January 2025, which means it also can't know about the September 2025 changes below.

S.B. 296 passed the Texas Senate 30–0 and the House 139–0, and it amended the defensive driving dismissal statute (art. 45A.352) in two ways that matter to drivers.

1. One course can now dismiss multiple charges from the same stop. This reverses the old rule, which said a court "may dismiss only one charge for each completion of a course." Under the amended art. 45A.352(b), if you picked up more than one eligible charge in the same criminal transaction — say, speeding plus an eligible companion violation in one stop — each eligible charge can be dismissed with a single course completion, as long as every charge would qualify on its own. The court can charge a separate administrative fee (up to $10) per dismissed offense, but you only take the 6-hour course once.

2. Requesting the course is officially modern. The statute now expressly allows the request to be made in person, by your attorney, by certified mail postmarked on or before your answer date, or — if your court authorizes it — through a court-designated email address or online portal. Courts are still rolling out email and portal options at different speeds, so check how your court takes requests in our Texas courts directory.

One detail most summaries miss: the multi-charge and fee changes apply based on when you request the course — any request made on or after September 1, 2025 gets the new treatment, even if the ticket itself is older.

Everything else about ticket dismissal carried over intact, so the fundamentals you may already know still hold:

— You still must request the course on or before the answer date on your citation, and you still get 90 days to complete it and submit your certificate.

— Eligibility is unchanged: valid Texas license (or active-duty military status), no course used for dismissal in the 12 months before the offense, and proof of insurance.

— The exclusions are unchanged: speeding 25+ mph over or 95 mph and faster (if that's you, see your options for 25-over tickets), work-zone offenses with workers present, passing a stopped school bus, leaving the scene, and CDL holders.

— The course itself is unchanged: 6 hours, TDLR-approved, with a statutory minimum price of $25 plus a $3 materials fee — $28 total. And a dismissed charge still, by law, "may not be part of a person's driving record or used for any purpose" (art. 45A.357).

For the full walkthrough of how dismissal works under the current law, see our complete Texas speeding ticket guide.

If you got multiple tickets in one stop: before September 2025, you could dismiss one and had to handle the rest another way (pay, deferred disposition). Now one $28 course plus per-offense court fees can clear all eligible charges from that stop — ask the court to apply your request to each charge, and confirm each one qualifies on its own.

If your court offers email or portal requests: use them — they timestamp your request, which is what preserves your eligibility if anything is disputed later. If your court still wants certified mail, send it return-receipt-requested and keep the receipt.

If you're reading legal info anywhere online: check the citations. 45.0511 or 45.051 means pre-2025 content; 45A means current. In our experience maintaining court-by-court instructions across Texas, even official court pages lag the statute by months — when a court's website conflicts with what the clerk tells you on the phone, the clerk wins.

We keep this page, our dismissal guide, and our court-by-court instructions verified against the current statutes — because half the frustration of a Texas ticket is acting on outdated information. If your ticket qualifies, the course is $28 all-in, online, with a free instant certificate.