State directory

Collecting debt in Wyoming: licensing, bonds and statutes of limitations.

Collection agencies, including debt buyers and out-of-state collectors contacting Wyoming debtors by interstate communications, must be licensed by the Wyoming Collection Agency Board through NMLS, maintain an established Wyoming office with a Wyoming-resident manager who has passed the Board exam, and post a $10,000 surety bond or cash deposit; licenses expire December 31 and renew through NMLS November 1 to December 1.

License required Bond $10,000 Written contracts: 10 yearsVerified 2026-09-20

General information, not legal advice. Every figure on this page links to the statute, rule or regulator page it came from, with the operative words quoted, and the date we verified it. Rules change; confirm with the regulator or your counsel before acting, and tell us if something here is out of date.

Licensing and bonding

Do you need a license to collect in Wyoming?

Wyoming licenses collection agencies and debt buyers through NMLS with a $10,000 bond, a December 31 expiration with a November 1 to December 1 renewal window, and a hard requirement for a physical Wyoming office run by a Wyoming-resident manager who has passed the Board exam; there is no reduced out-of-state license and no interstate-only exemption.

Requirement

License required

Wyo. Stat. § 33-11-102 (license required); § 33-11-101 (definitions); § 33-11-107, -108, -110; Wyo. Code R. Agency 031, ch. 2 (Licensing)

Regulator

Wyoming Collection Agency Board (independent five-member board created by W.S. 33-11-103; licensing administered through NMLS)

Licensing page

Surety bond

$10,000

Surety bond of $10,000.00 from a surety licensed in Wyoming, running to the State of Wyoming and any claimant, filed within 20 days after the Board approves the application and maintained thereafter; license issues on approval of the bond by the Board and the Attorney General; applicant may instead deposit $10,000.00 cash with the State Treasurer (§ 33-11-108(a)). Bond conditioned on paying over collections to claimants (§ 33-11-108(b)); actions on the bond barred two years after license revocation or expiration (§ 33-11-109). Rule 2-3(d) allows filing the bond with the application. No tiers.

Wyo. Stat. § 33-11-108(a)

NMLS

Yes, via NMLS

Board: 'Collection Agency licenses in Wyoming can be applied for, renewed, and managed through the Nationwide Multi-state Licensing System (NMLS)' (since August 1, 2018). Rule 2-3(a): each new or renewal application 'shall be submitted through the registry'; 'registry' defined at § 33-11-101(a)(xiv).

Application fee

$500

Wyo. Code R. 031-2 § 2-3(b): New Agency License $500.00; New Branch License $500.00; 'The license fee shall not be refunded for any reason.' Fees are 'in addition to any fees assessed by the registry' (NMLS). Resident manager examination fee $100.00 per attempt (§ 33-11-107(d); Rule 2-5(b)(iii)) plus background investigation reimbursement not to exceed $50.00 (Rule 2-5(b)(v)). Chapter 2 last amended effective 11/1/2023.

Wyo. Code R. 031-2 § 2-3; Wyo. Stat. § 33-11-110(a), § 33-11-107(d)

Renewal fee

$150

annual, renews December 31 (license expires December 31 each year; renewal must be submitted through NMLS November 1 through December 1)

Wyo. Stat. § 33-11-110(b); Wyo. Code R. 031-2 §§ 2-3, 2-10

Branches and other fees

See note

§ 33-11-110(a): 'Each office or place of business shall be licensed separately.' Rule 2-8: branch offices must meet full licensing requirements. Branch license $500.00 new / $150.00 renewal.

Other requirements

9 items

physical office: 'All applicants shall have an established office in Wyoming with a bona fide resident of Wyoming as a resident manager of the office' (§ 33-11-107(c)); Rule 2-2 requires a physical address in Wyoming; applies to out-of-state agencies too; collection manager exam: resident manager must pass the Board's open-book examination on Wyoming collection agency laws and rules and the FDCPA ($100 per attempt, no more than twice in six months); at least three years of third-party collection experience; may serve up to 15 agencies; personally responsible for employees' conduct (§ 33-11-107(c)-(d); Rule 2-5); trust account: FDIC/NCUA-insured trust account holding at all times all sums due clients; not an operating account; sole-activity debt buyers exempt on annual verification (Rule 2-4); financial statements: financial statement showing applicant 'to be financially sound' (§ 33-11-107(b)); on Board form, not more than six months old (Rule 2-6); background checks / fingerprints: fingerprints for FBI criminal history check, independent credit report, and administrative/civil/criminal history through NMLS as channeling agent (§ 33-11-105(c), § 33-11-107(f)-(h)); copies of standard client contracts and consumer form letters filed with the application (Rule 2-7); branch licenses: each office or place of business licensed separately (§ 33-11-110(a); Rule 2-8); license not transferable; must be displayed conspicuously (§ 33-11-110(b); Rule 2-11); Board forms via NMLS: Alias Desk Name, Bank Reference, Financial Information, Professional Reference, Resident Manager, State Specific Disclosure, Summary of Account Collection Methods

Who needs it

Third-party collection agencies

Yes

Debt buyers

Yes

Collection law firms

It depends

Out-of-state agencies collecting from residents

Yes

Original creditors collecting their own accounts

It depends

Exemptions. § 33-11-101(b): not a collection agency: (i) officers/employees of a creditor collecting in the creditor's name; (ii) federal/state officers on official duty; (iii) process servers; (iv) mortgage loan correspondents/servicers for real-property-secured debt; (v) persons collecting in the creditor's true name incidental to another business, 'including but not limited to banks, trust companies, savings and loan associations, abstract companies doing an escrow business, real estate brokers, attorneys, insurance companies, credit unions or loan or finance companies'; (vi) credit card debt servicers; (vii) persons collecting solely business debts; (viii) licensed attorneys in an attorney-client relationship with the creditor collecting in the client's true name. Rule 2-9: no license for a pure billing service done in the client's name. Employees (debt collectors/solicitors) of a licensed agency need no individual license (§ 33-11-102).

Statutes of limitations

How long can a debt be sued on in Wyoming?

Wyoming's limitations periods are long: ten years on a written contract, eight on an unwritten one, and no court has said which applies to credit-card debt, so treat eight years as the minimum. Any payment or signed written acknowledgment restarts the clock from that date, and Wyoming has no state-law time-barred-debt disclosure beyond federal Regulation F.

Type of debt

Period

Where it says so

Written contract

10 years

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105(a)(i)

“Civil actions other than for the recovery of real property can only be brought within the following periods after the cause of action accrues: (i) Within ten (10) years, an action upon a specialty or any contract, agreement or promise in writing;”

Oral contract

8 years

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105(a)(ii)(A)

“(ii) Within eight (8) years, an action: (A) Upon a contract not in writing, either express or implied;”

Promissory note

6 years

Wyo. Stat. § 34.1-3-118(a), (b); see Hill v. Mayall, 886 P.2d 1188 (Wyo. 1994)

“an action to enforce the obligation of a party to pay a note payable at a definite time must be commenced within six (6) years after the due date or dates stated in the note or, if a due date is accelerated, within six (6) years after the accelerated due date.”

Open account and credit card

Not established

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-105(a)(i), (a)(ii)(A)

“(i) Within ten (10) years, an action upon a specialty or any contract, agreement or promise in writing; (ii) Within eight (8) years, an action: (A) Upon a contract not in writing, either express or implied;”

UNRESOLVED 8 versus 10. Wyoming's limitations chapter has no open-account or account-stated category, so a credit-card claim is either a 'contract, agreement or promise in writing' (10 years) or a 'contract not in writing, either express or implied' (8 years). No Wyoming Supreme Court or federal decision classifying credit-card or open-account debt was found by either pass or by the reconciler: CourtListener full-text searches of Wyoming opinions for 'credit card' with 'statute of limitations' and 'eight years'/'ten years'/'1-3-105' return only Seneca Ins. Co. v. Irene, 2014 WY 145 (bail-bond negligence) and Meiners v. Meiners (2019) (divorce), and searches for 'open account' with 'not in writing'/'implied' return only James v. Lederer-Strauss (1925, default-judgment procedure) and Big Horn Lumber v. Davis (1906, mechanics' lien accrual), none on point. Longstaff v. Mills, 773 P.2d 149 (Wyo. 1989) shows the court avoiding the oral-versus-written question when a § 1-3-119 acknowledgment makes the claim timely under the shorter 8-year period. The 8-year figure repeated by third-party sites is not traceable to any Wyoming statute or opinion. Practical reading: 8 years is the floor (any claim timely under 8 is timely); 10 years is available only if the creditor can prove a written agreement.

Judgment

5 yearsrenewable

Wyo. Stat. § 1-17-307 (dormancy); §§ 1-16-502, 1-16-503(a) (revivor); Estate of Weeks v. Weeks-Rohner, 2018 WY 112, ¶ 25

“If execution on a judgment rendered in any court of record in this state ... is not issued within five (5) years from date of the judgment or if five (5) years intervene between the date the last execution issued on the judgment and the time of issuing another execution thereon, the judgment is dormant and ceases to operate as a lien”

When the clock starts, and what restarts it

Accrual

§ 1-3-102: 'Civil actions can only be commenced within the periods prescribed in this chapter, after the cause of action accrues.' § 1-3-105(a) runs each period 'after the cause of action accrues'; no statute fixes accrual for contract or account claims (§ 1-3-106 covers only wrongful taking and fraud). Wyoming Supreme Court: 'In an action founded upon the breach of a written contract, the limitation period begins running when the breach occurs. It is at this time that the cause of action accrues.' Swinney v. Jones, 2008 WY 150, ¶ 8, 199 P.3d 512 (citing Richardson Associates v. Lincoln-Devore, Inc., 806 P.2d 790, 802 (Wyo. 1991)). No Wyoming authority keys consumer-debt accrual to charge-off; the default is the date of breach (missed payment). § 1-3-119 restarts the period from the date of any payment or signed written acknowledgment or promise. Notes: from the stated or accelerated due date (§ 34.1-3-118(a)).

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-3-102, 1-3-105(a), 1-3-119; Swinney v. Jones, 2008 WY 150, ¶ 8

Partial payment restarts the period

Yes

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-119

“When payment has been made upon any demand founded on contract or a written acknowledgment thereof, or promise to pay the same has been made and signed by the party to be charged, the time for commencing an action runs from the date of such payment, acknowledgment or promise.”

Written acknowledgment restarts the period

Yes

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-119; Longstaff v. Mills, 773 P.2d 149, 152 (Wyo. 1989); Investment & Securities Co. v. Bunten, 56 Wyo. 77, 103 P.2d 414 (1940); NuHome Investments, LLC v. Weller, 2003 WY 171, ¶ 21

“letters which make excuses for nonpayment of a note and do not deny the obligation nor regard the indebtedness as nonexistent are sufficient acknowledgment to revive the debt as a claim otherwise barred by limitations.”

Borrowing statute

Yes

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-117; see also § 1-3-105(a)(iii); Woodie v. Whitesell, 2019 WY 115, ¶ 23

§ 1-3-117 'Effect of foreign law': 'If by the laws of the state or country where the cause of action arose the action is barred, it is also barred in this state.' The Wyoming Supreme Court applies it to consumer paper: in Woodie v. Whitesell it applied Idaho's UCC 3-118 six-year period to a note that arose in Idaho, considering the foreign state's tolling statutes and cases. Companion rule: § 1-3-105(a)(iii) gives five years after the debtor establishes Wyoming residence for 'an action on a foreign claim, judgment or contract, express or implied, contracted or incurred and accrued before the debtor became a resident of Wyoming' (applied in Bunten).

Time-barred debt

Status after the period runs

Unenforceable

The debt exists but cannot be sued on; a suit can be defended by raising the defense.

Collector must disclose that the debt is time-barred

Wyo. Stat. §§ 33-11-101 to 33-11-116 (Collection Agency Act); 031-4 Wyo. Code R. §§ 4-1 to 4-6 (Collection Agency Board rules, ch. 4); Wyo. Stat. title 40 (Consumer Credit Code and Consumer Protection Act)

“The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) as issued and amended as of October 13, 2006 ... is hereby adopted as if fully set forth herein, except as otherwise set forth in this Chapter.”

Neither the Collection Agency Act (title 33, ch. 11) nor the Board's rules (ch. 4: Ethical Conduct, Desk Names, Solicitation, List of Consumers, Intimidation, FDCPA) contain any time-barred-debt disclosure requirement; pass A searched the official title 33 and title 40 PDFs for 'time-barred', 'time barred' and 'statute of limitations' and found nothing applicable, and pass B searched titles 1 and 33. Rule 4-6 incorporates the FDCPA only as of 2006, so Regulation F's time-barred-debt provisions (12 C.F.R. § 1006.26) apply by federal law, not by Wyoming rule. The Board's rules were read from LII's mirror; the Board's own site links to Google Drive PDFs that did not download.

A payment revives a time-barred debt

It depends

Wyo. Stat. § 1-3-119; Longstaff v. Mills, 773 P.2d 149, 152 (Wyo. 1989); Investment & Securities Co. v. Bunten, 56 Wyo. 77, 103 P.2d 414 (1940)

§ 1-3-119 does not distinguish payments or acknowledgments made before or after expiry: the time 'runs from the date of such payment, acknowledgment or promise,' and the Supreme Court has twice described a qualifying acknowledgment as sufficient 'to revive the debt as a claim otherwise barred by limitations' (Longstaff, quoting Bunten). But both opinions, read in full on the CAP archive, involved acknowledgments made within the original period: in Longstaff the letter of August 24, 1979 came within a year of the October 1978 accrual, and in Bunten the letters (1933 to January 1937) preceded expiry of the five-year period on a note that matured in 1933, with suit in January 1939. Both cases concern signed writings, not payments. Bunten quotes the Ohio rule that the original claim may be sued on 'although the bar was complete before the new promise,' but only on the pleading question of suing on the original obligation. No Wyoming decision squarely holding that a bare partial payment, or any act after the bar has run, revives an already-barred consumer debt was found. Recorded as conditional: a signed written acknowledgment revives; a bare payment very likely does under the same sentence of § 1-3-119 but is untested.

Sources

Where this page comes from.

Researched in two independent passes from primary sources (the statute, the administrative code and the regulator's own pages), then reconciled against the text where the passes disagreed. Verified 2026-09-20. Licensing is re-verified quarterly and limitation periods annually.

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