Money being taken from your account right now? You can stop it, and you don't have to clear the loan first. Read this first →

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Payday loans in Montana

Capped at 36% APR by citizen initiative in 2010 — replacing a ceiling of 400%. The first of the modern wave of ballot-box rate caps.

Initiative 164, approved 2 November 2010

Montana went from a 400% ceiling to 36% in one vote.

I-164 capped yearly interest on payday and title loans at 36%. The previous ceiling was 400%.Montana · Ballot measureMontana Initiative I-164 (2010) — capped yearly interest rates of payday and title loans at 36 percent; the previous interest rate cap was 400 percent

Montana was the first of the modern wave of citizen-initiated 36% caps — South Dakota followed in 2016, Colorado in 2018, Nebraska in 2020. Every one of them passed.

Four states, four votes, four wins

Where a 36% cap has been put directly to voters rather than to a legislature, it has passed every time and usually by a wide margin: Montana 2010, South Dakota 2016 (76%), Colorado 2018 (77%), Nebraska 2020 (83%).

That is a striking pattern in a policy area where legislatures have often stalled for a decade or more — Ohio being the clearest example.

Rate cap
36% APR on payday and title loans.
Previous cap
400%.
Passed
2 November 2010, by citizen initiative.
Covers
Payday loans and title loans.
Regulator
Montana Division of Banking and Financial Institutions
Measure
Initiative I-164 (2010)

If money is being taken from your account

You can revoke authorisation and instruct your bank to stop the payment, whatever your agreement says.

What Regulation E says about automatic payments →

Every figure carries the jurisdiction and the exact provision it came from. Click to open the source.

Debt-collection law in Montana

A payday loan is a consumer debt. If it goes unpaid, two Montana rules decide what a lender can do next: how long it has to sue you, and how much of your pay a court can order taken.

Being sued over an old payday loan? A collector can still file, but the time limit is a defence you can raise — and you cannot be jailed for the debt. What can and cannot happen if you don’t pay →

Sources. Ballotpedia and Montana Secretary of State records of Initiative I-164 (2010). Montana Division of Banking and Financial Institutions.
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