The Rule That Stops Payday Lenders From Draining Your Bank Account Is Next on the CFPB's Chopping Block.

If you have ever watched a payday lender pile $175 in overdraft fees on your checking account by trying to debit you again and again after the first hit bounced, the rule that stopped that pattern is about to get reopened.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its 2026 regulatory agenda this month. One item is a proposed rewrite of the last part of the 2017 payday lending rule still standing. The Bureau plans to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by the end of July “reconsidering the remaining provisions” of that rule. The Fall 2025 Unified Agenda designates the item deregulatory under Executive Order 14192.

Translation: the last piece of the payday rule that costs lenders money instead of costing you money is on the table.

Quick history. The 2017 rule came in two parts. Part one required a lender to check whether you could actually afford a payday loan before making it. That part got repealed in 2020. Part two, still in effect today, says a lender cannot try to debit your bank account for a payday loan after two consecutive attempts have failed, unless you sign a fresh written authorization. That is the “two strikes” rule. It stops the machine-gun debits that used to stack bank fees on top of the payday debt.

Here’s what they don’t tell you. Every failed debit attempt from a lender triggers a nonsufficient funds fee at your bank. Thirty-five dollars is the going rate. Before the two-strikes rule, some lenders were trying to hit accounts five and six times a week. Your bank charged you every time. The payday loan itself was already a 400 percent APR product. The overdraft cascade on top of it turned a $500 loan into a $700 emergency by the following payday.

If the two-strikes protection goes, that cascade comes back.

You don’t need to do anything today. The NPRM has not dropped, the comment period is not open, and any final rule is months to a year away. File this away. When the notice hits the Federal Register, likely late July or early August, the comment window will open. If a payday lender has ever hammered your checking account with repeat debit tries, that is the exact story a public comment records. Comments do get read.

In the meantime, know the tell. If a payday or high-cost installment lender has bounced two debits in a row against your account and now says they are trying again, ask for the new written authorization you supposedly signed. If they can’t produce one, they are supposed to stop. That rule is on the books through the end of this year at least.

Bank’s bet is that you don’t know that.

If you’re in this box because a real cash-flow gap is forcing you toward a payday loan in the first place, our loans page covers cheaper alternatives, and our best-for-bad-credit list ranks options that don’t start at 400 percent APR.

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