AT&T Data Breach Settlement: Payouts, Eligibility, and Payment Dates

The AT&T data breach settlement is a $177 million class action deal that received preliminary court approval on June 20, 2025, and is still awaiting a final approval ruling from U.S. District Judge Ada Brown after a hearing held on January 15, 2026. The claims filing window has closed, and no payments have gone out to class members yet.¹

Where the Settlement Stands Now

Judge Ada Brown, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, held a six-hour final approval hearing in Dallas on January 15, 2026.² As of the settlement website’s most recent update on April 23, 2026, she has not issued a decision. There is no public timeline for when a ruling will come.

Kroll Settlement Administration is processing claims in the interim, but nothing pays out until two things happen: the court grants final approval, and the window for any appeals of that approval expires.¹ The settlement administrator has said updates will be posted to telecomdatasettlement.com as things develop.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked the court to approve about $59 million in combined fees, roughly a third of the total settlement. The Lanier Law Firm, lead counsel for the first breach class, requested $49.67 million.² Kopelowitz Ostrow, counsel for the second breach class, requested $9.33 million plus up to $231,438 in costs.³ Judge Brown has not ruled on the fee requests either.

What the Settlement Pays

The $177 million is split into two separate cash funds, one for each breach. The AT&T 1 fund holds $149 million and covers the dark web data set disclosed in March 2024. The AT&T 2 fund holds $28 million and covers the Snowflake-related breach disclosed in July 2024.⁴ Both funds are non-reversionary, meaning AT&T cannot claw back any unspent money. Administration costs, attorneys’ fees, and service awards to the named plaintiffs come out of each fund before class members are paid.

Claimants had two options when they filed:

Documented losses. If you could show specific out-of-pocket costs tied to a breach, such as identity theft protection expenses or fraudulent charges, you could claim up to $5,000 for the first breach and up to $2,500 for the second. A person affected by both breaches could claim up to $7,500 total.⁵
Pro rata cash. Everyone else takes a share of what remains in the fund. For the first breach, people whose Social Security numbers were exposed (Tier 1) receive five times what people with only other data exposed (Tier 2) receive. For the second breach, eligible account owners share the AT&T 2 fund on a pro rata basis (Tier 3).⁴

Actual pro rata amounts are not yet known. They depend on how many valid claims came in and how much is left after fees and costs are deducted. With tens of millions of people eligible, individual pro rata payments are likely to be modest. The settlement is entirely cash. It does not include credit monitoring or any other non-cash benefit.⁴

AT&T denied any liability or wrongdoing in connection with either breach and said it settled to avoid the cost and uncertainty of continued litigation.⁵

Who Is Covered

The settlement has two overlapping classes. The AT&T 1 class covers all living people in the United States whose personal information was part of the dark web data set AT&T acknowledged on March 30, 2024. That data set affected roughly 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders. Exposed fields included names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, AT&T account numbers, and account passcodes.⁶

The AT&T 2 class covers AT&T account owners, line users, and end users whose call and text metadata was stolen from an AT&T workspace on Snowflake, as disclosed on July 12, 2024. The exposed data included phone numbers, interaction counts, and aggregate call durations for nearly all of AT&T’s wireless customers, covering May 1 through October 31, 2022, with a small additional subset from January 2, 2023. Cell site identification numbers were exposed for some records. Call and text content, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth were not part of this breach.⁷

Account owners in the AT&T 2 class could file claims on behalf of their line users and end users. People who fall into both classes were designated “overlap” members and are eligible for compensation from both funds.⁴

Deadlines Have Passed

The claim filing deadline was originally November 18, 2025, and was extended by a month to December 18, 2025.⁸ That window is now closed, and claim forms are no longer available on the settlement website.¹ The deadline to opt out or object was November 17, 2025.⁹ If you did not file a claim by December 18, 2025, you are not eligible for a payment from this settlement.

When Payments Will Arrive

No payments have been issued, and none can be until Judge Brown grants final approval and any appeal window closes.¹ The final approval hearing has already been held; the ruling has not. Once approval issues and any appeals are resolved, Kroll will distribute funds to claimants whose forms have been validated. Class members who filed a claim should watch telecomdatasettlement.com and their email for notifications from the administrator.

1
Telecom Data Settlement. In re AT&T Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Settlement
2
New Haven Register. AT&T Data Breach Settlement Attorney Fees
3
Greenwich Time. AT&T Data Breach Settlement Attorney Fees
4
CCH Cybersecurity Privacy. AT&T Settlement Agreement
5
Time. AT&T Data Breach Settlement: How to File a Claim
6
AT&T. Addressing Data Set Released on Dark Web
7
Panorays. AT&T Data Breach: What Happened
8
The Commercial Appeal. AT&T Data Breach Settlement New Deadline
9
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. MDL 3:24-md-03114 – In re AT&T Inc Customer Data Security Breach Litigation