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HR-1181House2026-07-15Finance and Financial Sector

Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act

YourVoice.Now Summary

Civil LibertiesTransparency & Accountability

Bars payment networks from labeling gun stores with a firearms-specific merchant code — they'd be coded like general retailers instead.

Civil Liberties

  • Firearm-purchase privacy — Card networks barred from firearm-specific transaction codes
  • State merchant-code laws — State requirements for firearm-retailer codes preempted

Transparency & Accountability

  • Enforcement reporting — Attorney General must report investigations to Congress annually

The details

Gun stores would no longer carry their own special label in the credit card system. Payment networks like Visa and Mastercard could not require a firearms retailer to use a merchant category code (the industry label identifying what kind of store processed a purchase) that marks it as a gun seller — gun stores would be coded like general-merchandise or sporting-goods stores instead. State laws requiring firearm-specific codes would be overridden. The U.S. Attorney General would enforce the ban through a complaint process and could sue networks that don't fix violations within 30 days.

Congressional Summary

Protecting Privacy in Purchases ActThis bill prohibits payment card networks from using merchant codes that distinguish firearms retailers from general-merchandise retailers or sporting-goods retailers.The Department of Justice must enforce this bill and report annually on the resulting investigations and cases.

Legislative Subjects

Banking and financial institutions regulationConsumer affairsFirearms and explosivesRetail and wholesale tradesRight of privacy

Details

Congress
119th
Chamber
House
Status
summarized
Action
Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Action Date
2026-07-15
Date Added
2026-07-18
Source
Congress.gov →

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