The CFPB’s last swing at credit card late fees was supposed to save consumers $10 billion a year. A court killed it. Now the agency is winding up again.
The Bureau quietly submitted a request for information on “Credit Card Late Fees and Late Payments” for interagency review at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, according to a posting flagged by law firm Ballard Spahr. The filing sits at the prerule stage. No draft text, no timeline, just a signal that late fees are back on the docket.
Context matters here. In March 2024, the CFPB finalized a rule capping late fees at $8, down from a typical $32, a change the Bureau said would save American families more than $10 billion annually. Banking trade groups sued within two days. By April 2025, under new leadership, the CFPB stopped defending its own rule and let a Texas judge vacate it on consent.
That’s the pattern worth flagging: an agency that abandoned a $10 billion consumer-savings rule under litigation pressure is now reopening the exact same question it just walked away from. Ballard Spahr’s read is that the RFI could be an attempt to build a fresh factual record since the 2022 inquiry, or to find a narrower rule that survives a CARD Act challenge that torched the last one.
Card issuers won’t love round two, but they’ve already beaten this fight once in court. The real fight isn’t the fee cap, it’s whether the CFPB can write a rule Judge Pittman’s successor won’t vacate again.
No public deadline attached. Next move belongs to whoever drafts the actual proposal.
— Marcus Webb