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.
Calculate your loan’s real APR and compare it to your state’s cap →
All 51 jurisdictions are published, each traced to the statute or the state regulator and carrying the date it was checked.
Pick your state for the rate or fee cap, loan and term limits, rollover rules and the licensing requirement — each with its citation. Or run your own loan through the calculator above to see its real APR against that cap.
The cost cap, loan and term limits and borrower protections for all 50 states and D.C. Open the state index →
A lender operating without the licence your state requires is a red flag on the loan itself. See the lenders we track →
The statute of limitations to sue over a debt, by state — and the payment that quietly restarts the clock. Check the time limit →
How much of your pay can be taken, by state — and the states that bar it for consumer debt entirely. See your state’s limit →
What can and cannot happen if you don’t pay — including the one thing that cannot: jail. What can happen →
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.
While building this we found published guides that flatly contradict each other — one lists Nevada, South Dakota and Wisconsin as outright bans, another says those same three have no rate cap at all, and a third wrongly lists Texas as a ban when it is one of the most permissive states in the country. Getting it wrong would tell someone 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. So every jurisdiction is checked against the statute or the regulator’s own materials; where a source could not be pinned down, the page says so rather than guess.
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 →