On November 13, 2025, the CFPB issued proposed revisions to certain provisions of Regulation B, subpart B, implementing changes to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act made by section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The CFPB believes the proposed changes would streamline the rule, reduce complexity for lenders, and improve data quality, advancing the purposes of section 1071 and complying with recent executive directives.
The following changes are being proposed:
Covered credit transactions.
The CFPB believes that the initial iterations of data collection under the rule should focus on the core, widely used lending products most likely to be foundational to small businesses’ formation and operation. The CFPB therefore proposes to exclude merchant cash advances (MCAs), agricultural lending, and small dollar loans from the definition of covered credit transaction.
Covered financial institutions.
The CFPB believes that the initial iterations of data collection under the rule should focus on larger core lenders. The CFPB therefore proposes two changes to the covered financial institution definition: first, to exclude FCS lenders from coverage; and second, to raise the origination threshold from 100 to 1,000 covered credit transactions for each of two consecutive years. The CFPB is also proposing conforming changes to the bona fide error portions of the enforcement provisions in the rule.
Small business.
The CFPB believes that the focus of the rule, at least initially, should be truly small businesses. The CFPB therefore proposes to change the gross annual revenue threshold in the rule’s definition of small business from $5 million or less to $1 million or less.
Data points.
The CFPB believes that the initial iterations of data collection under the rule should focus on core data points and be consistent with other executive agency directives concerning the collection of demographic data. The CFPB therefore intends to focus data collection on data points specifically identified in section 1071 and a limited number of other data points needed to facilitate the collection of these statutory data points. The CFPB proposes to remove the discretionary data points for application method, application recipient, denial reasons, pricing information, and number of workers. The CFPB also proposes changes to comply with an executive branch mandate, which would result in a modification of the collection of data concerning business ownership status of small business applicants and the format of demographic data collected concerning the principal owners of a small business.
Time and manner of data collection.
The CFPB proposes changes to the provisions on the time and manner of data collection, to remove certain requirements that are not statutorily required and appear to anticipate or presume non-compliance with the rule. The CFPB also proposes to add a provision that would emphasize for applicants their statutory rights under the rule.
Compliance dates.
Finally, in light of these other proposed changes to the rule, the CFPB proposes to extend the rule’s compliance date provisions to January 1, 2028 for all financial institutions that remain covered by the rule, and to make other simplifying and streamlining changes.
In addition, the CFPB addressed the following two other issues in the proposed rule:
Privacy and data publication.
The CFPB's proposal does not address privacy discussions from the 2023 final rule, which did not finalize decisions on privacy analysis or the timeline for publishing data. The CFPB plans to publish aggregate data within the first year of receiving it while continuing to engage with stakeholders on these matters. Importantly, the data alone will not determine compliance with fair lending laws, as regulators will consider additional information during their examinations.
Grace period.
The CFPB does not address the grace period policy statement in this proposal. The CFPB does, however, announce its intention to maintain the grace period for the same reasons articulated in the 2023 final rule, as amended by the 2025 interim final rule, and to alter the grace period to coincide with the new proposed compliance date, if it is finalized.
Comments on the proposed changes will be accepted until December 15, 2025.
The CFPB’s proposed rule can be found here.