Overview
- The bureau issued an interpretive rule effective October 28 declaring that Congress occupied the field of consumer reporting under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
- It signals that state content-based restrictions, including laws excluding medical debt from reports, could be vulnerable under federal preemption.
- The CFPB argues state-by-state standards would fracture the national market, drive up compliance costs, and hinder lenders’ ability to compare consumers across jurisdictions.
- The action supersedes a 2022 interpretation that permitted broader state regulation, which the agency withdrew in May while noting it had not been binding.
- Because it is an interpretive rule, the change did not go through notice-and-comment, and legal challenges testing the preemption view are described as likely in practitioner reporting.