How CFPB Rulemaking Shifted In 2025

CFPB rulemaking in 2025 shifted from an expansive, aggressive agenda to a more restrained, deregulatory, and procedurally focused program under new Trump‑aligned leadership.

Overall shift and volume

• Regulatory output fell: commentary comparing 2024 and 2025 notes far fewer final rules and enforcement actions, with more attention to rescinding or revising recent rules instead of adding new mandates.

• The Bureau’s stated emphasis moved from pushing the boundaries of its authority to “recalibrating” existing frameworks, reducing burdens, and tying actions more closely to clear statutory text.

Regulatory agenda and priorities

• The Spring/Summer 2025 Unified Agenda focused on reconsidering recently completed rulemakings, scaling back several high‑profile rules, and adding only limited new initiatives.

• Priority topics included: revisiting open banking/personal financial data access rules, narrowing the small‑business lending data rule under Section 1071, revising ECOA/Regulation B standards, and raising “larger participant” thresholds so supervision concentrates on the biggest market players.

Key deregulatory and “redo” moves

• Section 1071 small‑business data: CFPB proposed to narrow coverage, raise transaction‑volume thresholds, streamline data fields, remove several discretionary data points (including LGBTQI+ status), and extend compliance timelines, explicitly to reduce burden on smaller lenders.

• The Bureau also moved to extend compliance dates for the 1071 rule and framed 2025 activity as a “redo” of the earlier, broader version.

• BNPL and other products: commentary highlights withdrawal of the prior interpretive rule treating buy‑now‑pay‑later products as “credit cards” under Truth in Lending, reflecting a lighter‑touch approach to new products.​

Procedural and structural rule changes

• CFPB initiated efforts to rescind or revise its Rules of Practice for adjudication, shifting some decision‑making authority away from the Director toward more neutral hearing officers or ALJs and undoing centralizing changes from 2022–2023.​

• It pursued rules for periodic regulatory review and for handling guidance documents, signaling a more formal, self‑limiting process before launching future substantive rulemakings.

• The Spring 2025 agenda also emphasized reviews of mortgage servicing, remittance transfers, and other existing rules rather than wholly new regulatory regimes.

Fair lending, ECOA, and disparate impact

• In November 2025, CFPB issued an ECOA/Regulation B NPRM that would clarify that ECOA does not authorize disparate‑impact liability, remove “effects test” language, and realign discouragement provisions more narrowly with “oral or written statements.”

• The proposal would also tighten standards for Special Purpose Credit Programs and is explicitly aligned with an April 2025 executive order from President Trump directing agencies to eliminate disparate‑impact liability and emphasize “merit‑based opportunity.”

Several items in the 2025 agenda involved outright rescission or withdrawal rather than mere revision.

Major rules and interpretive rules rescinded

• Nonbank registry rule: CFPB moved through notice‑and‑comment to rescind its “Registry of Nonbank Covered Persons Subject to Certain Agency and Court Orders,” concluding the compliance burden and duplicative reporting were not justified by marginal consumer benefit.

• Adjudication rules amendments: The Bureau proposed to rescind the 2022 and 2023 amendments to its Rules of Practice for adjudication, effectively restoring the pre‑2022 framework and undoing the earlier centralization of decision‑making authority in the Director.

• Supervisory designation procedures amendments: CFPB proposed to rescind amendments adopted in 2022 and 2024 that had allowed public release of supervisory designation decisions and altered how nonbanks are designated for CFPB supervision.​

State‑enforcement and BNPL interpretive rules

• 2022 state‑enforcement interpretive rule: CFPB formally rescinded its 2022 interpretive rule “Authority of States to Enforce the Consumer Financial Protection Act,” reversing the prior view that states could broadly enforce most federal consumer‑finance laws and instead limiting them largely to UDAAP under the CFPA.

• BNPL as “credit card” under TILA: The Bureau withdrew the prior interpretive rule that had treated buy‑now‑pay‑later products as credit cards for Truth in Lending purposes, backing off from applying full credit‑card‑style protections and disclosures to BNPL providers.

Guidance and other rescissions

• 67 guidance documents and related materials: Effective May 12, 2025, CFPB revoked 67 guidance documents, interpretive rules, policy statements, and advisory opinions spanning multiple statutes (including TILA, RESPA, FDCPA, FCRA, and ECOA), citing a desire to reduce reliance on informal guidance and perceived compliance burdens.

• COVID‑era mortgage servicing protections: In the mortgage‑servicing space, the agenda included rescission of temporary RESPA/Regulation X COVID‑19 loss‑mitigation protections that had been adopted during the pandemic period.

CFPB said it rescinded the 67 guidance documents because they created undue regulatory burden, sometimes conflicted with statute, and relied too heavily on informal guidance instead of formal rulemaking.

Core legal and policy reasons

• The Bureau argued that many guidance documents adopted interpretations “inconsistent with the statutory text” and effectively imposed obligations “outside of the strictures of notice‑and‑comment rulemaking.”

• Leadership stated a policy preference to avoid using guidance to create de facto rules, invoking Administrative Procedure Act principles and echoing a Trump‑era executive order discouraging agencies from using guidance to establish binding duties.

Burden, enforcement, and reliance

• CFPB said prior guidance often increased, rather than reduced, compliance burdens, and that future guidance will be issued only when it clearly lowers burdens.

• The Bureau linked the rescission to a broader directive to deregulate and “streamline bureaucracy,” including reducing overlapping or duplicative enforcement relative to other regulators.

• It also concluded that regulated parties’ “reliance interests” did not justify keeping the documents, emphasizing that guidance is non‑binding and that any guidance exceeding statutory or regulatory text is “unlawful,” undermining reliance on it.

Implementation details

• The 67 items included policy statements, interpretive rules, advisory opinions, circulars, and bulletins issued since 2011, which CFPB said should not be enforced or relied on by the Bureau while a longer‑term review is underway.

• CFPB signaled some guidance might later be reinstated in revised form, but in the interim it emphasized returning to the underlying statutes and regulations rather than informal pronouncements.