How state rules change what a loan costs
Quick answer
Consumer lending is licensed state by state, so the legal ceiling on a loan's cost, the licence a lender needs and the complaint route all depend on where you live. There is no national rate cap and no national payday rule; the state regulator is the authority.
Why there is no national answer
Licensing is the mechanism. A lender must hold a licence in the state where the borrower is, and each state sets its own licence categories, fee limits and renewal rules. That is why a product legal in one state can be unavailable next door, and why a fee schedule quoted nationally is not a legal statement anywhere.
What actually varies
| Item | Set by | Where to confirm it |
|---|---|---|
| Fee or rate ceiling | State statute and licence category | State regulator's published fee schedule |
| Whether a product is permitted | State law | State regulator licence list |
| Renewal / rollover limits | State rules | State regulator guidance |
| Complaint and enforcement | State regulator, plus federal agencies | State regulator complaint page |
The ten-minute check
Ask the lender for its licence number and the state it is licensed in, then look the number up on the state regulator's site. Two regulators whose remit covers these licences are listed in the sources box. If a lender cannot supply a licence number, the conversation is over — that is not a pricing question.
What this page will not do
It will not publish a per-state rate or cap table. Those figures are statute-specific and change; quoting them from memory would be the exact failure mode this site exists to avoid. Each state page will ship only with the regulator document it cites.
For U.S. borrowers only
Every benchmark on this site comes from U.S. federal sources. If you are borrowing outside the United States, use your own regulator's published information — the arithmetic in the calculators still works, the benchmarks do not transfer.
Sources
- Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner (OCCC) — State regulator for consumer loans, payday and auto-title lending in Texas.
- Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) — State regulator licensing consumer-finance lenders in Florida.
- FDIC Consumer Resource Center — Consumer guidance on credit, loans and deposit accounts.
- OCC — Consumer Protection — Federal bank regulator consumer-protection guidance.
Figures marked VERIFIED were read from these sources at build time; figures marked CALCULATED come from the arithmetic shown; VARIABLE means the number differs by lender, state or credit tier and is not quoted as a single value.