Right-to-Repair Laws Now in Six States: What Service Businesses Need to Know

A Patchwork of State Mandates

Right-to-repair legislation has moved from the fringe to mainstream policy. Six states have now enacted comprehensive regulations between 2023 and 2024, each with different scope, timelines, and penalties. For service businesses that depend on steady access to parts and repair documentation, understanding these laws matters—both for accessing manufacturer resources and for positioning your business as a compliant, professional operation in an evolving regulatory landscape.

What Manufacturers Must Do

The core requirement across all six states is consistent in principle: manufacturers must provide consumers and independent repair providers access to tools, parts, and repair information on fair and reasonable terms. However, the specifics vary significantly.

California's law is among the most prescriptive. It covers electronics and appliances costing $50 or more, with repair resources required for seven years for products over $100 and three years for products between $50 and $99.99. This creates a clear window for repair providers to source documentation and components.

Colorado and Minnesota take broader approaches. Colorado prohibits manufacturers from using parts pairing to prevent installation of functional replacement parts, reduce performance, or display misleading warnings—a direct challenge to proprietary parts lock-in strategies. Minnesota's Digital Fair Repair Act is described as the broadest, covering any hardware product using digital electronics if the manufacturer provides tools, parts, or documentation to authorized repair providers. This breadth means your HVAC, appliance, and electrical work could all fall under the umbrella depending on the devices you service.

New York's Digital Fair Repair Act and Oregon's law (effective January 1, 2025) take similar paths, requiring manufacturers to make repair information and parts available to consumers and third-party repair services.

What This Means for Your Business

These laws expand your negotiating position with manufacturers. If you operate in or serve customers in any of these six states, you now have statutory backing to request repair manuals, diagnostic tools, and replacement parts that manufacturers might otherwise restrict to authorized dealers. This access directly reduces your dependency on manufacturer-approved repair networks and can lower your sourcing costs.

However, compliance is mutual. If you market yourself as a repair provider in these states, understand that manufacturers are documenting which shops request parts and information. Regulators will eventually track whether manufacturers honor requests. If you file a complaint or need to escalate an access dispute, the legal framework now exists to back you up.

Penalties Are Significant

Manufacturers are taking these laws seriously because the penalties are substantial. California imposes civil penalties of $1,000 per day for first violations, $2,000 per day for second violations, and $5,000 per day for subsequent violations. Colorado violations constitute deceptive trade practices subject to civil penalties up to $20,000 per violation. Minnesota allows penalties up to $25,000, plus investigation costs and attorney's fees. New York caps penalties at $500 per violation, while Oregon allows up to $1,000 per day of violation.

These stakes mean manufacturers will likely accelerate efforts to build compliant parts and documentation portals in 2025 and beyond. Service businesses that proactively engage with these new systems early will gain an advantage over competitors who wait.

Massachusetts and the Litigation Precedent

Massachusetts has focused its right-to-repair law on automobiles, requiring manufacturers to provide independent repair facilities access to diagnostic and repair information systems. A five-year litigation challenging the law was dismissed on February 11, 2025, signaling that courts are unlikely to overturn these mandates. This precedent may embolden other states to expand their own regulations into appliances, HVAC systems, and other home-service categories.

Next Steps

If your business operates in California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, or Oregon, document your current relationships with manufacturers regarding parts and documentation access. Identify where you rely on authorized dealer channels and consider whether these new laws give you grounds to negotiate direct access. For service businesses in other states, monitor legislative activity in your region—more right-to-repair bills are likely in the pipeline.