The fitness equipment right to repair question now has a statutory answer in Texas. House Bill 2963, passed by the 89th Legislature, added Chapter 121 to the Business and Commerce Code and took effect on September 1, 2026. The chapter reaches products that depend on digital electronics to work, which is a description that fits any treadmill, bike or selectorized machine with an electronic console. Whether a specific unit is covered, though, turns on who bought it.
The fitness equipment right to repair duty in Chapter 121 falls on original equipment manufacturers, not on dealers or service companies. Dealers still field the questions. Independent service companies gain real leverage where the chapter applies, and gym operators will start asking which models carry the obligation and which do not. The distinctions are narrow enough that getting them wrong on a showroom floor is a commercial risk, not just a legal one.
What the fitness equipment right to repair law covers
Chapter 121 defines “digital electronic equipment” or “equipment” to mean “any product that depends, wholly or partly, on digital electronics embedded in or attached to the product to function.” A console that controls speed, incline, resistance or a weight-stack selector generally satisfies that test, and so does a connected display bolted to a frame. There is no fitness-specific carve-out in the statute.
The applicability test is short. Section 121.002(a) applies the chapter only to digital electronic equipment “sold to a consumer in this state” and “that has a wholesale price of at least $50.” Section 2 of the act then limits it further, to equipment that “was originally made available for sale in this state by an original equipment manufacturer” “on or after the effective date of this Act.”
That last clause matters more than the headline date. A model an OEM has been shipping into Texas for three years is not pulled in by the chapter on September 1. The obligations attach as new product reaches the state, which means the practical effect arrives model year by model year rather than all at once.
The consumer test is the line dealers will argue about
Chapter 121 defines “consumer” as “an individual who enters into a transaction primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.” A club buying eight treadmills for a members’ floor is generally not making that kind of transaction. On the face of the applicability test, equipment that reaches Texas only through commercial channels sits outside the chapter.
The access right, once it attaches, is broader than the trigger. The chapter defines “owner” as “an individual or business entity that owns digital electronic equipment,” and an independent repair provider can likewise be “an individual or business entity operating in this state” that is not an authorized repair provider or affiliated with one. So the duty is switched on by consumer sales, but what it delivers runs to businesses as well.
For a dealer carrying light-commercial product, that combination is the interesting part. A SKU sold through a specialty retail showroom to households in Texas may be covered, and the same SKU on a studio floor would then be owned by a business entity with an interest in that coverage. The statute is new and untested on this point, so the honest answer to a buyer is that it depends on the channel history of the model, and that it is a question for counsel rather than for a spec sheet.
What an OEM has to make available
Under Section 121.051(a), the OEM must, “not later than one year after the date of the first sale of the digital electronic equipment in this state,” “make available on fair and reasonable terms to any independent repair provider or to an owner” the documentation, replacement parts and tools, or equivalents, needed for diagnosis, maintenance or repair. The chapter lets the OEM do that “directly by an original equipment manufacturer or through an authorized repair provider or a third-party provider.”
“Fair and reasonable terms” is itself defined, and the definition is where the commercial substance sits. Tools must be available without conditioning availability on being an authorized repair provider, and at no cost to use or at a cost equivalent to the lowest actual cost at which the OEM offers the tool to an authorized repair provider, accounting for discounts, rebates and other financial incentives. Where a tool is requested in physical form, the OEM may charge the actual cost of procuring, preparing and sending it.
Replacement parts must be offered “at costs and terms that are equivalent to the costs and terms under which the part is offered to an authorized repair provider,” again without an authorization condition. Documentation, including relevant updates, must be available at no cost, except that the OEM may charge the reasonable actual cost of preparing and sending a printed copy. The definition closes with a requirement of terms “that are fair to all parties,” naming both the OEM and authorized repair providers.
The carve-outs and the limits
Section 121.002(b) excludes a long list of categories, and the chapter separately limits what an OEM has to hand over. The table summarizes the items that bear on equipment likely to appear on a gym floor or in a dealer warehouse.
| Carve-out or limit | What it means for equipment |
|---|---|
| “a home appliance that has digital electronic equipment embedded within it, including refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, air conditioning units, and heating units, excluding other countertop or stand-alone small appliances” | Fitness equipment is not named in the appliance carve-out |
| Commercial and industrial electrical equipment, and related tools, parts and accessories | The nearest argument for commercial-only product, and untested as applied to gym equipment |
| Medical devices or products | Where rehabilitation and clinical devices may sit |
| Critical infrastructure information technology, aerospace, airplane or train equipment, heavy equipment, powersports vehicles and outboard motors, video game consoles | Not relevant to a gym floor |
| An OEM that provides an equivalent or better readily available replacement part at no charge, at the consumer’s discretion | A free-replacement route out of the parts duty |
| Trade secrets, except as necessary for repair; items for modification; anything that would “disable, reset, or override electronic security locks or other security-related measures or functions,” or override anti-theft measures set by the owner | Access to parts is not access to everything |
| Remote authorization or an internet connection may be required, and preassembled parts may be supplied where they are also available to authorized repairers | Board-level repair is not what the chapter promises |
Enforcement sits with the attorney general on an exclusive basis, and there is no private right of action. Before suing, the attorney general “shall notify a person in writing at least 30 days before the date the attorney general brings the action,” and may not bring it at all where the person cures the violation inside that period and provides a written statement that it was cured and that no further violations are intended. Otherwise a violation is actionable as a deceptive trade practice under Subchapter E, Chapter 17, with injunctive relief, attorney fees and investigation expenses available.
Two further provisions matter at contract level. Provisions that purport to waive or limit the chapter obligations are void and unenforceable. Agreements between OEMs and authorized repair providers made before the effective date keep their existing terms where those terms conflict with the new chapter.
Six fitness equipment right to repair checks before the next model year
None of this requires a legal department. It requires six written answers.
- Ask each OEM, in writing, which of its Texas-available models it treats as covered by Chapter 121, and from what date each one was first made available for sale in the state.
- Ask for the published parts, tool and documentation terms the OEM intends to rely on, and compare them with the pricing you receive as an authorized dealer.
- Split your Texas catalog into models that reach consumers and models that ship only into commercial channels, and record which channel each one actually moves through.
- Read any dealer or service agreement signed before September 1, 2026, for terms the transition provision preserves, and note where they differ from the chapter.
- Flag any contract language that waives or limits repair access, because the chapter makes those provisions void.
- Brief the sales floor and the service desk on what the chapter does and does not promise a buyer, so nobody oversells parts availability on a commercial order.
What changes for an independent service company
Where the fitness equipment right to repair duty applies, an independent shop can ask for the diagnostic tool and the service documentation on the same commercial footing as an authorized provider, and can price a repair without an authorization premium built into the part. That strengthens the case for carrying diagnostic capability in-house rather than referring the call, a calculation set out in costing an independent service route. It also raises the value of a disciplined console firmware version and support-lifecycle register, since access to documentation is only useful if you know which build each unit is running.
For dealers, the near-term work is inventory and record keeping rather than compliance. Knowing which models are covered sharpens the conversation about choosing between spares, retrofit and replacement on obsolete parts, and it changes what a buyer should expect when a claim is denied and the job moves to a paid repair, which is where building a complete warranty claim file still decides who pays.
Other states have enacted repair statutes with their own definitions, thresholds and carve-outs, so a national dealer should not read Texas as a template. The immediate action is narrower and entirely practical: get each OEM to say in writing which models it considers covered, and from when. Everything else follows from that list. The full text and the official analysis are worth reading before the next line review, at the enrolled text of House Bill 2963 and the Senate Research Center bill analysis.
