Home → Is my loan legal?
Rate caps, loan limits, rollover rules and licensing are set state by state — and a meaningful share of online loans do not comply with the borrower’s state law.
We are checking all 51 jurisdictions (50 states and the District of Columbia) against the statute or the state regulator’s own published materials, one at a time. It is slower than copying another website, and it is the reason this page is not finished.
Here is why that matters. While researching this we found published guides that flatly contradict each other. One lists Nevada, South Dakota and Wisconsin among states with an outright ban on payday lending. Another states those same three have no limit on interest rates or fees at all. A third lists Texas as a ban, which is almost certainly wrong — it is one of the more permissive states in the country.
Someone relying on the wrong version could conclude their loan is illegal when it is not, or lawful when it is not. On a page people read at the worst moment of their financial lives, that is not an acceptable margin of error.
Each state will be published as it is verified, carrying its citation and the date it was checked.
Maximum loan amount · rate or fee cap · maximum term · rollover and renewal limits · cooling-off periods · whether an extended payment plan must be offered · the licensing requirement and how to check a lender against the state register · the citation and the date verified.
If you are active-duty military, or a dependent of someone who is, most consumer credit to you is capped at a 36% Military Annual Percentage Rate. That cap includes most fees, not just interest. It is federal, it applies in every state, and it is violated more often than it should be.
Several online lenders are affiliated with federally recognised tribes and assert sovereign immunity from state rate caps and licensing rules. In practice a borrower in a state capping rates at 36% can end up on a loan costing several times that, and be told state law does not apply.
Whether that position holds has been litigated repeatedly, and outcomes vary by structure and state. What we can tell you now is which lenders make the claim — nine of them appear in our directory. See which lenders are tribal-affiliated →