States covered by Debt Collection Index
By Kai Greenspan, Founding Editor
Texas
426 register-checked profiles. Every third-party debt collector must file a $10,000 surety bond with the Texas Secretary of State before collecting consumer debts in the state, under Texas Finance Code Chapter 392, Section 392.101. That bond record is what this site verifies: each profile shows the agency's filing history, surety company, bond number and how long it has been continuously bonded.
Texas agencies, ranked by verified bond history · Texas debt collection law · Verify a Texas bond yourself
New York
Live. New York has no statewide bond requirement. Verification is built on New York City's Debt Collection Agency License, issued by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which any agency collecting personal or household debts from New York City residents must hold, wherever that agency is based. The license roll is public, updated daily, and reaches back to 1994, so continuous licensing is verified the same way continuous bonding is verified in Texas. Each profile appears as it passes that check; nothing is published ahead of it.
New York agencies, ranked by verified license history · New York debt collection law
Florida
Live. Florida requires neither a bond nor a license but a registration: Florida Statutes Section 559.553 says a person may not do business in the state as a consumer collection agency without first registering with the Office of Financial Regulation, and maintaining that registration. It is renewed every year, and the whole industry renews in the same window between October 1 and December 31. The register is published by the regulator as a monthly file and records every past term, so continuous registration is traced the same way continuous bonding is traced in Texas.
In Florida a business can be lawfully absent from the register, and the exemptions are broad: Section 559.553(3) exempts nine categories, including members of The Florida Bar and banks and their subsidiaries. (Texas has a narrower one: its bond rule does not reach an attorney collecting in a client's name unless the firm has non-attorney staff who solicit debts or contact debtors.) Absence is therefore never published here as a finding against a company.
Florida agencies, ranked by verified registration history · Florida debt collection law
California
Live. California licenses debt collectors under the Debt Collection Licensing Act: Financial Code Section 100001 says no person may engage in the business of debt collection in the state without first obtaining a license from the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. The department publishes its own list of every license currently in force, so a license that ends leaves the list, and that list is read every week. 41 register-checked profiles are published; each appeared as it passed the same check every other state's profiles pass.
The California license is young by design. The state required no license of collection agencies for thirty years before the Act, and the earliest licenses on the department's register are dated January 2023, so every California agency sits in the newest band for now, and a young license says nothing about how long a company has been collecting. Banks, licensed lenders and commercial collectors are lawfully exempt from the license, so absence from the list is never published here as a finding against a company.
California agencies, ranked by verified license history · California debt collection law · Verify a California license yourself
Illinois
Live. Illinois licenses collection agencies under the Collection Agency Act: 205 ILCS 740, Section 4, says no collection agency shall operate in the state, engage in the business of collecting debt, or receive payment for another of any debt without obtaining a license under the Act, and Section 8 requires a licensed agency collecting for others to keep a $25,000 surety bond in force behind that license (a debt buyer collecting accounts it owns is licensed under the same Act but not required to file one). The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation publishes its license records as open data, back to 1975, so continuous licensing is verified the same way continuous bonding is verified in Texas. 13 register-checked profiles are published; each appeared as it passed the same check every other state's profiles pass.
The register keeps ended licenses on the record with their statuses, and this site treats a license as in force only when the register records it as active or on probation with an unexpired term. The Act exempts an out-of-state agency that collects into Illinois only by interstate communication from a state where it is licensed, with reciprocity, so absence from the register is never published here as a finding against a company.
Illinois agencies, ranked by verified license history · Illinois debt collection law · Verify an Illinois license yourself
Verified in more than one state
Some companies hold current records on more than one covered register. Each record appears on its own state's page, worded in that state's instrument and verified against that state's own register. No combined history is ever shown, because no register asserts one.
How states are chosen
By the quality of the state's public record, not by size. A state qualifies when it maintains a public register that identifies collectors, carries dates, and can be re-checked independently by any reader. The methodology page sets out the verification standard every state must meet; it does not bend per state.
Coverage status on this page is updated when a state goes live. Nothing on this site is published without a public source; a state with no usable public record does not get a lower standard, it waits.