Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act: Coverage, Labels, and Enforcement

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is the federal law that governs written warranties on consumer products sold in the United States. Enacted in 1975 and codified at 15 U.S.C. 2301, it does not require any company to offer a warranty, but once a company chooses to offer one, the warranty must meet federal standards for clarity, honesty, and enforceability.¹ The Act also blocks warrantors from using their own written warranty as a way to strip you of the implied protections state law already gives you.

Which Products and Buyers Are Covered

The Act applies to “consumer products,” meaning tangible personal property normally used for personal, family, or household purposes. Phones, appliances, cars, lawn mowers, and items designed to be installed in a home like a furnace or water heater all qualify.¹ What matters is how the item is normally used, not how one specific buyer happens to use it.

You’re protected if you bought the product for your own use, if someone transferred it to you while the warranty was still active, or if the warranty terms or state law otherwise let you enforce it.¹ Used products count too. If a dealer sells you a used item with a written warranty or service contract, the same federal rules apply, and implied warranties still attach when the seller is a merchant who regularly deals in that kind of product. The standard adjusts for age and price: a used appliance isn’t held to new-appliance performance, but it does have to work reasonably well for what it is.² Private sales between individuals don’t carry those implied warranties.

One boundary to keep in mind: a service contract, sometimes marketed as an “extended warranty,” is not a warranty under the Act. A warranty comes with the product and is part of the purchase price; a service contract costs extra or is signed after the sale.² Service contracts skip the “Full” or “Limited” labeling rules, but a seller who offers one still cannot disclaim the product’s implied warranties.

Full Versus Limited Warranty Labels

Any written warranty on a consumer product costing more than $10 must be prominently labeled either “Full (statement of duration) Warranty” or “Limited Warranty.”²³ That label is a legal designation, not marketing language.

A Full warranty has to meet every one of the federal minimum standards. The warrantor must fix defects within a reasonable time and at no cost to you, including shipping, removal, or reinstallation charges. Coverage cannot be restricted to the original buyer. No time limit can be placed on implied warranties. And if the product still doesn’t work after a reasonable number of repair attempts, you choose between a full refund and a free replacement. A Full warranty can exclude consequential damages, such as lost inventory from a broken freezer, but only if that exclusion appears conspicuously on the face of the warranty.⁴

Any warranty that misses even one of those standards must be labeled Limited. Most warranties you actually encounter carry this label. A Limited warranty can charge for labor, cover only certain parts, restrict coverage to the original purchaser, or cap the duration of implied warranties. Every restriction has to be clearly described in the warranty document.

What the Warranty Has to Tell You, and When

For products costing more than $15, FTC rules require the warranty to lay out its terms in a single document written in plain language. Required content includes who is covered, what parts and problems are covered and excluded, what the warrantor will do (repair, replace, refund) and on what timeline, how to get service (with the warrantor’s name, address, and a toll-free number), whether informal dispute resolution is required before you can sue, any limits on implied warranties or on incidental and consequential damages, and a statement that “This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from State to State.”⁵ That last line is not decorative. The Act sets a federal floor, and many states add protections on top of it.

You also have the right to read the warranty before you buy. Sellers of consumer products over $15 must make the warranty text available to shoppers before the sale. In physical stores that means displaying the warranty near the product or posting signs telling customers they can ask for it. Online and catalog sellers must either include the full text near the product description or link to it on the warrantor’s site, along with a phone number or address for requesting a hard copy. Warrantors who post terms online must organize them so you can find the ones that apply to your specific product, and must send a free hard copy on request.⁶

Implied Warranties Cannot Be Disclaimed

Implied warranties are unwritten promises that state law attaches to a sale. The two most common are the implied warranty of merchantability, which means the product will work for its ordinary purpose, and the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, which applies when you told the seller what you needed and relied on their recommendation.²

Any company that offers a written warranty or sells a service contract on a consumer product is prohibited from disclaiming these implied warranties. A disclaimer that tries to do so is void and has no legal effect. The single exception: with a Limited warranty, the warrantor can cap the duration of implied warranties to match the written warranty period, provided the limit is reasonable, clearly stated, and prominently displayed on the face of the warranty.⁷ A Full warranty gets no such limit.⁴

Tie-In Sales and the Right to Independent Repair

For any consumer product costing more than $5, the Act prohibits warrantors from conditioning coverage on your use of a specific brand of part, supply, or service.⁸ If your printer warranty says you must use Brand X ink or lose coverage, that provision is generally illegal. The narrow exceptions are when the manufacturer supplies the branded part free of charge, or has obtained a special waiver from the FTC by showing the product will not work correctly without it.²

The same rule protects your right to use an independent repair shop. A car dealer cannot void your warranty because you had your oil changed at a local mechanic. A computer maker cannot refuse warranty service because you opened the case. “Warranty void if removed” stickers over screws or seams are a recurring problem, and in 2024 the FTC sent warning letters to multiple electronics companies telling them the practice may violate the Act and the FTC Act’s prohibition on deception.⁹

There is a real limit to this rule. The warrantor does not have to cover damage that a third-party repair or an aftermarket part actually caused. Requiring a specific brand is prohibited; refusing to pay for damage someone else caused is not.²

Enforcing Your Rights

Before suing, you generally have to give the warrantor a reasonable opportunity to fix the problem. Some warranties go further and require you to complete an informal dispute settlement process first. A warrantor can only impose that requirement if the process meets FTC minimum standards and the warranty discloses the requirement upfront.¹⁰

If the warrantor still doesn’t resolve things, you can file in any state court with jurisdiction, including small claims court. Federal court is available too, but the amount in dispute must be at least $50,000 excluding interest and costs, and class actions in federal court require at least 100 named plaintiffs.¹⁰

If you win, the court can award reasonable attorney’s fees on top of your damages.¹⁰ That provision is the practical engine of the Act. Individual warranty claims often involve a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, and without fee-shifting few attorneys would take them. Fee recovery changes the math.

You are not the only enforcer. The FTC can act against companies that use deceptive warranties or violate the Act, and the U.S. Attorney General can seek injunctions against ongoing violations.¹¹ Companies that violate FTC orders can face civil penalties exceeding $53,000 per violation as of 2025, adjusted yearly for inflation.¹²

What the Act Does Not Do

The Act is often misread as forcing companies to warrant their products. It doesn’t. A manufacturer can sell with no written warranty at all, and a seller offering no written warranty and no service contract may still disclaim implied warranties to the extent state law allows, usually through “sold as-is” language.

The Act sets no minimum warranty duration either. A 30-day warranty is as permissible as a five-year one, as long as it meets the labeling and disclosure rules. And the law does not cover products purchased for commercial or industrial use, even when the same item is also sold to individual consumers.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 2301 – Definitions
2
Federal Trade Commission. Businessperson’s Guide to Federal Warranty Law
3
eCFR. 16 CFR Part 700 – Interpretations of Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 2304 – Federal Minimum Standards for Warranties
5
eCFR. 16 CFR Part 701 – Disclosure of Written Consumer Product Warranty Terms
6
eCFR. 16 CFR Part 702 – Pre-Sale Availability of Written Warranty Terms
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 2308 – Implied Warranties
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 2302 – Rules Governing Contents of Warranties
9
Federal Trade Commission. FTC Warns Companies to Stop Warranty Practices That Harm Consumers Right to Repair
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 2310 – Remedies in Consumer Disputes
11
GovInfo. 15 USC 2310 – Remedies in Consumer Disputes
12
Federal Trade Commission. FTC Publishes Inflation-Adjusted Civil Penalty Amounts for 2025