Paxton Proposes Public Registry of Texas Land Owned by Foreign Adversaries

Attorney General Ken Paxton has proposed rules to enforce Texas’s foreign land-ownership law that would let any Texan report a suspected violation and would build a public, searchable registry of Texas property owned by covered foreign buyers. The proposal appeared October 9 in the Texas Register.

The law is Senate Bill 17, which the Legislature passed in 2025 and which took effect September 1, 2025. It bars certain individuals, governments and companies tied to designated adversary nations, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, from buying or acquiring an interest in Texas real property, and it authorizes the attorney general to investigate and bring civil enforcement actions.

The new proposal builds on rules the office had already proposed. It would let any person who believes a purchase violates the law file a complaint, not only the people and companies that handle real estate sales. Those facilitating entities would have a duty to report a sale they knew, or after reasonable due diligence should have known, broke the law. The proposal also gives them a safe harbor: good-faith reliance on customary industry due-diligence practices may show that they did not know.

The registry would cover properties owned by entities that meet the law’s definitions, including properties acquired before the law took effect. Paxton’s office said it would be modeled on the Texas Sex Offender Registry, with similar mapping and search tools. The rules would apply only to purchases made on or after September 1, 2025. For properties bought earlier, anyone could file a voluntary report, which the proposal says “does not, by itself, indicate that a violation” has occurred.

The office would also keep a dedicated enforcement unit with a task force, and Paxton said he is planning a new task force to uncover and stop foreign land sales. “My strengthened rules will increase transparency, empower Texans to report potential violations, and give my office additional tools to identify foreign land ownership and vigorously enforce the law,” he said.

Comments on the proposed rules will be accepted for 30 days after publication, by email to the attorney general’s office.

Texas wrote its own law on who may own Texas land, and Texas’s own attorney general will enforce it.