Right to Repair 2026: What It Means for Your Repair Shop

As of January 1, 2026, manufacturers like Apple, Google, Samsung, and Amazon are legally required to give you — the independent repair professional — access to genuine parts, diagnostic tools, and repair documentation in multiple US states. In several of those states, the software locks that manufacturers used to keep you out have been banned entirely.

This is not a proposal. This is not a “maybe next year” situation. Right to Repair for digital electronics is law. And it’s expanding faster than most people in this industry realize.

But here’s the problem: most independent repair shops aren’t taking advantage yet. The organizations you’d expect to be leading the charge for your rights? Some of them are working against you. And the enforcement phase — the part that determines whether these laws actually protect your business — is just getting started.

Eight States and Counting

Five states — New York, California, Minnesota, Colorado, and Oregon — passed digital Right to Repair laws between 2022 and 2024. Washington became the sixth in 2025. Texas and Connecticut will join them later this year.

New York’s Digital Fair Repair Act went into effect first, in December 2023. California and Minnesota followed in July 2024. California’s law is particularly notable — it requires manufacturers to provide repair materials for seven years on products priced over $100.

Then, on January 1, 2026, both Colorado and Washington’s laws went live. These are some of the strongest yet. Colorado’s HB24-1121 requires OEMs to provide software tools free of charge to independent repair providers. Both Colorado and Washington ban parts pairing — the practice where manufacturers program components together so that replacing one triggers error messages, disables features, or degrades device performance.

Oregon’s law takes effect in July 2027. Texas goes live in September 2026. Connecticut follows in July 2026.

That’s eight states either enforcing or implementing digital Right to Repair laws right now. And the pipeline behind them is enormous.

57 Bills Across 22 States — And It’s Only March

According to US PIRG — the organization doing more on-the-ground Right to Repair work than anyone else in the country — there are currently 57 active Right to Repair bills across 22 states in 2026. Nathan Proctor and his team at PIRG deserve enormous credit here. They are tracking every bill, testifying in statehouses, and pushing this movement forward with a level of dedication that the entire repair industry should recognize. If you’re looking for people who are genuinely fighting for your rights as a repair professional, PIRG is at the top of that list.

The most significant movement so far this year has been in Florida, where SB 806 — covering both cell phones and farm equipment — passed the full state Senate 39 to 0. Unanimously. After already clearing three earlier committees without a single no vote. If Florida passes this into law with a July 1, 2026 effective date, it will be one of the largest states in the country with digital Right to Repair protections.

Kansas isn’t far behind. The state House voted 122 to 2 to advance their legislation. Maine advanced its bill out of committee. Massachusetts passed a bill covering portable electronic devices through committee. Pennsylvania passed a bill in the House and its Senate companion is moving. Iowa passed a farm equipment bill through its House Agriculture Committee with impressive bipartisan support.

The full list keeps growing: New Jersey, Ohio, New York (with seven new bills), Rhode Island, Missouri, Hawaii, Alaska, and more. While many of these bills cover agricultural equipment, wheelchairs, and other categories, the digital electronics provisions are where the real momentum is building for our industry.

The Auto Industry Proved How This Gets Won

If you want to understand how Right to Repair actually succeeds, look at the automotive repair industry.

In 2012, Massachusetts became the first state to pass an automotive Right to Repair law. It didn’t happen by accident. The Auto Care Association and the Coalition for Auto Repair Equality (CARE) organized the independent auto repair industry, funded a ballot initiative, collected over 106,000 voter signatures, and put it directly to the voters. It passed with 86% support.

That single state law was so powerful that within two years, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association for Global Automakers signed a national Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to meet those requirements in all 50 states. One state. One strong trade association. A national result.

The lesson is impossible to miss: the first industry to win Right to Repair was the one with a strong, organized nonprofit trade association leading the fight on behalf of independent professionals. And here’s the key detail — those automotive trade associations operate independently from the OEMs. They don’t take direction from the manufacturers they’re holding accountable. They don’t have financial relationships that compromise their ability to speak the truth. That independence is what made them effective.

The digital Right to Repair movement explicitly modeled itself on that success. The Repair Association adopted the Massachusetts automotive bill’s language as its template, replacing “automobile” with “digital electronic product.” PIRG has carried that template into statehouses across the country. But the tech repair industry still lacks the one thing that made the automotive victory stick — a unified trade association built by and for the independent professionals who actually fix devices every day.

That’s what the TCA is building with the United We Repair Coalition. And it’s what the industry needs more of its participants to invest in.

The Industry’s Leadership Gap

Let’s be direct about something that doesn’t get said enough in this industry.

The TCA has spoken with many of the biggest names in tech repair — well-known brands, franchise networks, and companies with real influence. The conversations are always encouraging. Everyone agrees that Right to Repair matters. Everyone acknowledges that organized advocacy is essential. Everyone says they support the movement.

But when it comes time to invest — to actually commit resources, time, or funding to the organizations doing this work — the conversation tends to end. The willingness to benefit from legislative wins that other people fought for is rarely matched by a willingness to help fund those fights.

It’s not just financial support that’s missing. Some organizations in the repair space talk a big game about advocacy and industry leadership, but when you look at the actual work being done — the testimony in statehouses, the coalition building, the legislator outreach — the list of contributors is much shorter than the list of cheerleaders.

This isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about being honest that the movement needs more from the people and companies who have the most to gain. The independent shops doing $300K to $700K a year are the backbone of this industry. They deserve to know who’s actually fighting for them and who’s just along for the ride.

Why Statehouses Matter More Than Congress

There have been meaningful federal efforts on Right to Repair, particularly around military equipment. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — a former auto repair shop co-owner from Washington state — introduced the Warrior Right to Repair Act alongside Rep. Jen Kiggans and Rep. Maggie Goodlander. The bill would have required the Department of Defense to only enter procurement contracts with manufacturers who provide fair access to repair materials.

The provision had everything going for it: bipartisan co-sponsors, support from the Trump administration, endorsement from senior DoD leaders including Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and it passed the House Armed Services Committee.

Then defense industry lobbyists stepped in during the conference process. The provisions were stripped from the final bill. The National Defense Industrial Association argued the reforms would “hamper innovation” — the same argument manufacturers have used against every Right to Repair bill in every state for the past decade.

This is exactly why the state-by-state approach matters more right now. Passing national legislation is extraordinarily difficult. Even with bipartisan support, even with the military behind it, industry lobbying can kill federal bills in closed-door negotiations. State legislatures are more accessible, more responsive to constituent pressure, and — as the auto industry proved in Massachusetts — once enough states pass laws, the entire industry has to comply everywhere.

Your state legislators need to hear from you. Not from a lobbyist. From the repair professional down the street who employs local workers and serves local customers. The TCA’s Right to Repair 2026 Action Guide has templates, talking points, and step-by-step instructions for contacting your representatives. And to make taking action even easier, The Repair Association has built a simple tool that lets you find and contact your state representative in minutes.

CTIA and the WISE Program: Follow the Money

If you’ve been in this industry for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of CTIA’s Wireless Industry Service Excellence (WISE) certification program. On the surface, it sounds like a good thing — industry-recognized standards for repair technicians. Level 1 and Level 2 certifications. An Authorized Service Provider program.

Here’s what you should know about its history. The WISE program launched in 2019, and in its early days, it included independent repair professionals in its development. The Reverse Logistics and Service Quality working groups that built the program had independent shop representation. That part was genuinely promising.

But over time, the program shifted. CTIA is the wireless industry trade association, and its members are the carriers and the OEMs — the companies with the deepest pockets and the most to gain from controlling the repair ecosystem. As those players took a larger role, the program increasingly reflected their interests, not the interests of the independent professionals it was originally built to serve.

Today, while PIRG, The Repair Association, and advocates across the country fight to pass Right to Repair legislation, CTIA has been testifying against those bills in state after state. Their argument? That the WISE program makes legislation unnecessary — that the industry is already “self-regulating” through voluntary certification.

This is the same playbook manufacturers used against automotive Right to Repair before Massachusetts forced their hand in 2012. “Trust us, we’ll do the right thing voluntarily.” They didn’t then. They aren’t now.

The WISE certification costs $200 to $300 per technician, plus a $400 annual license fee per location. And while it certifies technicians on repair competency, it does nothing to guarantee you access to genuine parts at fair prices, free diagnostic software, or complete repair documentation. Those are the things Right to Repair laws actually provide.

Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: WISE is money well spent — for the OEMs and wireless carriers. It gives them a credentialing system they influence, a talking point against legislation they oppose, and a mechanism for maintaining control over a large segment of the repair industry. From their perspective, it’s a smart investment. From the perspective of independent repair professionals, you should ask yourself who this program is really designed to serve.

A lot of well-respected people in this industry see CTIA and WISE for what they are. But many don’t want to ruffle feathers by saying so publicly — they have business relationships they don’t want to jeopardize. Others follow along because there’s a short-term credential to earn or a business opportunity to chase, without looking closely enough at who’s funding the program and what that organization is doing in statehouses when no one from the repair community is watching. It’s unfortunately a case where some can’t see the forest for the trees.

The TCA can speak this truth because we don’t have any financial incentive to work with CTIA, WISE, or any of the OEMs. We’re a nonprofit trade association funded by the independent professionals we represent. No carrier partnerships. No manufacturer sponsorships. No conflicts of interest. That independence isn’t just a talking point — it’s the only way a trade association can truly fight for the people it represents. It’s how the automotive industry’s trade associations operate, and it’s how ours operates too.

The Next Battle: Enforcement

Passing laws is only half the fight. The next phase — and arguably the more important one — is enforcement.

Right to Repair laws give state attorneys general the authority to investigate violations and bring enforcement actions. But attorneys general have limited resources. Enforcement is typically reactive — they respond to complaints rather than proactively monitoring compliance. And the penalties for violations, in many states, aren’t yet strong enough to force immediate change from manufacturers who have every incentive to drag their feet.

This is where a strong nonprofit trade association becomes essential. Individual shops don’t have the resources to challenge Apple or Samsung when they slow-walk compliance. But a trade association representing thousands of repair professionals can document violations across the industry, organize formal complaints, brief attorneys general on the real-world impact of non-compliance, and push for stronger enforcement mechanisms in the next round of legislation.

This is also where the biggest brands in the repair industry face a defining choice. You can stay on the sidelines and hope that someone else handles enforcement. But understand what that means: without organized pushback, OEMs and their agents will set the pace of compliance. They’ll interpret the laws as narrowly as possible, provide the bare minimum, and rely on the fact that no individual shop has the resources to challenge them.

Over time, that model looks a lot more like the appliance industry — where manufacturers control the repair ecosystem — and a lot less like the thriving, independent automotive aftermarket. The auto industry didn’t win Right to Repair by waiting for someone else to do the work. They organized, they funded the fight, and they showed up.

What You Should Do This Week

The Biggest Opportunity in 20 Years

Right to Repair is the most significant structural change to hit the independent repair industry in a generation. The laws are real. The momentum is building. And the shops that engage now — accessing new parts channels, updating their marketing, advocating in their statehouses, and investing in organized representation — will have a decisive advantage over those who sit back and wait.

The auto repair industry proved that a unified trade association could turn a single state law into a national standard. The tech repair industry has the same opportunity. But it requires showing up — as individual shop owners, as an organized industry, and as professionals who refuse to let manufacturers control whether or not you can do your job.

Right to Repair is here. The question is whether this industry will let OEMs and their allies shape what comes next, or whether independent professionals will step up and lead.

More from the State of Tech Repair 2026 Series