Age Verification Laws by State (2026): All 27 States and Court Status

The most common phrase people search is "porn is banned in [state]." That framing is wrong everywhere it appears. As of August 13, 2026, 27 states require commercial adult-content websites to verify a visitor's age before granting access, and the U.S. Supreme Court settled the constitutional question in June 2025: Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton upheld Texas's law 6-3, applying intermediate scrutiny, not strict scrutiny. We found no court order blocking any state's core adult-content verification requirement. Court orders do block two narrower parts of these laws: a September 24, 2026 preliminary injunction blocks Utah's 2026 actual-location provision, which reaches visitors who are physically in Utah but hide their location, for example with a VPN, and the injunction in the original Texas case still covers that law's health-warning notices. States require verification. Some platforms, including Pornhub's parent company Aylo, chose to geo-block a state's traffic entirely rather than build a verification system. That is the platform's own business decision, not a government prohibition on the content itself.

For obscenity, revenge-porn, and other adult-content rules beyond age verification, see the guide to pornography laws by state.

The single biggest source of confusion in this space, and the reason this page exists, is that readers, and a fair number of news headlines, conflate that 27-state adult-content family with a legally separate one: state laws that require age verification or parental consent for social media accounts generally, not just access to material harmful to minors. Five of the six social-media age-verification statutes tabled on this page, in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Virginia, have drawn serious First Amendment challenges, similar laws in Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah are also in court, and several are currently enjoined, because they regulate far more speech than an adult-content gate does: they condition an entire platform's account creation and screen time on age, not access to one narrow category of sexual material. Litigation and current status are not the same thing, though. Mississippi's law is enforced while its second Fifth Circuit appeal remains under submission, and Georgia's injunction was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit on October 15, 2026, with the case sent back to the district court. Georgia and Virginia, the two states that appear in both tables on this page, each run an adult-content law (enforced, unchallenged) and a separate social-media law whose litigation ran its own course, which is exactly the kind of detail that gets lost in a single-sentence summary. This page keeps the two families in separate tables for that reason.

Below: the full 27-state adult-content table, the separate 6-state social-media table, an explanation of what FSC v. Paxton actually held, what happens in practice when a state requires verification, and where federal legislation on this topic currently stands.

Age-Verification Laws by State

The tracker below covers every state and the District of Columbia: whether an adult-website age-verification law exists, its status, effective date, which sites it covers, accepted verification methods, enforcement, related app-store, device and social-media laws, court cases and pending bills. Each entry is tied to its statute or court order.

Age-verification laws by state

Which states make adult websites verify a visitor is 18 or older, whether a court has blocked any of it, and how each law is enforced. Each state is checked against its statute and court records.

Statuses checked against statutes and court dockets. Last checked Oct 26, 2026.

Age-verification laws for adult websites, by state

27 states require adult websites to verify that a visitor is 18 or older.

In 2 states, a court has blocked all or part of the law.

• In force (23 states)The law applies and no court order blocks any part of it.
• In force, under challenge (2 states)The law applies while a court challenge to it is pending.
• In force, part blocked (2 states)A court order blocks one part of the law; the core verification duty still applies.
• Blocked by a court (0 states)A court order blocks the core verification duty.
• Enacted, not yet in effect (0 states)Signed into law with an effective date still ahead.
• No law (23 states + DC)No enacted law requires adult websites to verify ages (pending bills are listed in the table).

Look up one stateChoose a stateAlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming

This map covers laws that make commercial websites verify age before showing sexual material harmful to minors. App-store, device and social-media age-verification laws are separate laws and are not counted here. A site that blocks a state instead of verifying ages is making a business choice; no state bans adults from viewing legal adult content.

Each state checked against its official source. Last checked October 26, 2026.

Show every state, with the law behind each answer

State	Answer	What it means	Authority (official source)
Alabama	In force	In force since October 1, 2024; no court challenge to the law has been found.The Code of Alabama section numbers for this act could not be confirmed on the official code site, so it is cited by its session-law number. No court challenge was found in federal docket searches, which were not exhaustive.	HB 164 (2024); Act 2024-97 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Alaska	No law	Alaska has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages; the 2024 House-passed bill died in the Senate.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Arizona	In force	In force since September 26, 2025; it is enforced only through private lawsuits, and no court challenge has been found.	HB 2112 (2025); A.R.S. 18-701 (Laws 2025, ch. 193) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Arkansas	In force	In force since August 1, 2023; the Act itself provides a private damages remedy, and no court challenge to it has been found.Act 612 has no effective-date clause, so its August 1, 2023 date rests on the general date for that session's acts, stated by the Arkansas Senate rather than in the Act. No court challenge was found in federal docket searches, which were not exhaustive. The Act sits in the Deceptive Trade Practices Act chapter (Ark. Code 4-88); whether that chapter's general Attorney General enforcement provisions apply to it has not been confirmed. Act 612 was drafted as Ark. Code 4-88-1101 to -1105 but is codified at 4-88-1301 to -1305 (corpus code row with history Acts 2023, No. 612, § 1).	SB 66 (2023); Ark. Code Ann. 4-88-1301 to 4-88-1305 (Act 612 of 2023) (opens the official source in a new tab)
California	No law	California has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages; a separate device-level age-signal law starts January 1, 2027.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Colorado	No law	Colorado has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages; a 2026 device-level age-signal law starts July 1, 2028.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Connecticut	No law	Connecticut has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages; a 2026 online-safety act adds an age-determination or parental-consent rule for social-media feeds from January 1, 2028.No adult-website law was found in a title review of every 2025 and 2026 Connecticut public act; 2023-2024 acts were not enumerated.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Delaware	No law	Delaware has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages; a 2024 bill died in a Senate committee.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
District of Columbia	No law	The District of Columbia has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages, and no such bill has been introduced in the Council since 2023.The search covered bill titles in the DC Council's legislative database for 2023-2026, not the full text of every bill or the D.C. Code.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Florida	In force	In force since January 1, 2025; a federal challenge was voluntarily dismissed in July 2025.	HB 3 (2024); Fla. Stat. 501.1737 and 501.1738 (ch. 2024-42, Laws of Fla.) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Georgia	In force	In force since July 1, 2025; no court challenge to the adult-website section has been found.A keyword search of the General Assembly's 2025-2026 bills found no enacted amendment to O.C.G.A. 39-5-5; the official annotated code itself was not read. No court challenge was found in federal docket searches, which were not exhaustive.	SB 351 (2024), Act 463; O.C.G.A. 39-5-5 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Hawaii	No law	Hawaii has no law requiring adult websites to verify visitors' ages; two 2025 bills never moved past their first committee referral.No enacted law was found, but the search covered the two known adult-website bills rather than a full search of every 2023-2026 Hawaii measure.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Idaho	In force	In force since July 1, 2024; it is enforced through private lawsuits, and no court challenge has been found.	H 498 (2024); Idaho Code 6-3801 to 6-3806 (2024 Sess. Laws ch. 113) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Illinois	No law	Illinois has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; a 2026 law will require device-level age signals starting in 2028.No enacted law was found, but the search covered named bills rather than a full-text search of every 2023-2026 Illinois bill.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Indiana	In force, under challenge	In force since July 1, 2024. The 2024 order blocking it was vacated in 2025, but two site operators' claim that federal law (Section 230) preempts it is still pending in federal court.The official Indiana Code text was not available to us; the coverage, method and enforcement entries rest on the enrolled bill's digest and the federal court's description of the statute.	SEA 17 (2024); Ind. Code 24-4-23 (P.L. 98-2024) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Iowa	In force	In force since July 1, 2026; the Attorney General enforces it and no court challenge has been found.	HF 864 (2026); Iowa Code ch. 554J (2026 Iowa Acts ch. 1143) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Kansas	In force	In force since July 1, 2024; no court challenge to the law has been found, and it is enforced by the Attorney General and by parents' lawsuits.Four 2025 federal suits by a Kansas parent under this law have ended without a ruling on the law's validity: three were dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction over the site operators (February and June 2026), and the fourth was sent to arbitration and then voluntarily dismissed (March 2026). An Attorney General suit in Shawnee County (State v. SARJ LLC, reported filed January 2025) was not reviewed.	SB 394 (2024); K.S.A. 50-6,146 (L. 2024, ch. 28) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Kentucky	In force	In force since July 15, 2024; it is enforced only through private lawsuits, and no court challenge has been found.	HB 278 (2024); KRS 436.001 to 436.009 (2024 Ky. Acts ch. 106) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Louisiana	In force	In force since January 1, 2023, the first law of its kind; the Attorney General can also seek penalties since August 1, 2023, and a federal challenge was voluntarily dismissed in 2025.	Act 440 of 2022 (HB 142); La. R.S. 9:2800.29 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Maine	No law	Maine has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; a 2025 bill died between the House and Senate.No enacted law was found, but the search did not include a full-text sweep of every 2025-2026 Maine bill.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Maryland	No law	Maryland has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; bills in 2025 and 2026 never left the House Judiciary Committee.No enacted law was found, but the search covered named bills rather than a full-text search of every 2023-2026 Maryland bill.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Massachusetts	No law	Massachusetts has no law requiring adult websites to verify age.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Michigan	No law	Michigan has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; an age-verification bill and a device-based age assurance bill are in committee.No enacted law was found. The check covered the named bills; it was not a full keyword search of every Michigan bill.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Minnesota	No law	Minnesota has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; a 2025 bill stalled in committee after a 67-67 vote in March 2026.No enacted law was found, but the search covered named bills rather than a full-text search of every 2023-2026 Minnesota bill.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Mississippi	In force	In force since July 1, 2023; it is enforced through private lawsuits, and no court challenge has been found.	SB 2346 (2023); Laws 2023, ch. 513 (SB 2346) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Missouri	In force	The statute has been in force since August 28, 2026; an Attorney General rule under the consumer protection law has required age verification since November 30, 2025. No court challenge has been found.	HCS HBs 1839, 2921 & 3015 (2026); RSMo 407.3405 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Montana	In force	In force since January 1, 2024; since April 17, 2025 only private damages suits can enforce it, and a federal challenge was dismissed in August 2025.	SB 544 (2023); Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-159 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Nebraska	In force	In force since July 19, 2024 and enforced only through private lawsuits; no court challenge to this law has been found.	LB 1092 (2024), Online Age Verification Liability Act; Neb. Rev. Stat. 87-1001 to 87-1005 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Nevada	No law	Nevada has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; a 2025 bill (AB 294) was not enacted, and the next regular session is in 2027.Nevada's bill-tracking pages were not available to us, so AB 294's final committee action and any other 2025 bills are unconfirmed; the finding rests on the codified statutes.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
New Hampshire	No law	New Hampshire has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; a 2026 Senate bill on the subject did not become law.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
New Jersey	No law	New Jersey has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; identical Senate and Assembly bills introduced in 2026 sit in committee.The finding rests on the named bills and the existing obscenity statute; it was not a full keyword search of every New Jersey bill.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
New Mexico	No law	New Mexico has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; the 2025 bill on the subject (HB 44) died in committee.The 2025 special sessions were not enumerated; no enacted law was found.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
New York	No law	New York has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; the Senate bill was defeated in committee in 2025 and 2026. The SAFE for Kids Act is a separate social media law.The finding rests on the named bills; a full keyword search of New York's 2025-2026 bills was not run.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
North Carolina	In force	In force since January 1, 2024 and enforced only through private lawsuits; no court challenge to this law has been found.	HB 8 (2023), S.L. 2023-132, s. 3.20 (PAVE Act); N.C. Gen. Stat. 66-500, 66-501 (opens the official source in a new tab)
North Dakota	In force	In force since August 1, 2025 and enforced only through private lawsuits; no court challenge to this law has been found.	HB 1561 and SB 2380 (2025); N.D. Cent. Code 51-07-32 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Ohio	In force	In force since September 30, 2025 and enforced only by the Attorney General, after written notice and a 45-day chance to cure; no court challenge has been found.	HB 96 (136th General Assembly, 2025); Ohio Rev. Code 1349.10, 1349.101 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Oklahoma	In force	In force since November 1, 2024: covered sites must let internet and cellular subscribers ask to have the site blocked, and a site that verifies age is not liable for allowing access.	SB 1959 (2024), Laws 2024, c. 181; 15 O.S. 791 to 791.4 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Oregon	No law	Oregon has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; the 2025 bill on the subject (HB 2032) stayed in House committee and did not pass.2025 app-store, device and social-media measures were not enumerated; no enacted law was found.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Pennsylvania	No law	Pennsylvania has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; Senate Bill 603 cleared committee and second consideration on the Senate floor in September 2026.Only the named Pennsylvania bills were checked, not a full-text search of every bill; SB 603's status can change before the 2025-2026 session ends.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Rhode Island	No law	Rhode Island has no law requiring adult websites to verify age, and no 2025-2026 bill to create one was found.Rhode Island's bill-status search has no keyword field, so the negative rests on the code chapter and targeted searches, not a full bill search.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
South Carolina	In force	In force since January 1, 2025; no court challenge to the adult-website rule was found.The litigation check was a name-based federal docket search; South Carolina state-court suits were not searched.	H.3424 (2024), Act No. 198; S.C. Code Ann. 37-1-310 (opens the official source in a new tab)
South Dakota	In force	In force since July 1, 2025; no court challenge was found.	HB 1053 (2025), SL 2025, ch 95; SDCL 22-24-69 to 22-24-73 (definitions in 22-24-27) (opens the official source in a new tab)
Tennessee	In force, under challenge	Took effect January 1, 2025 and has been enforceable since the Sixth Circuit stayed a district-court injunction on January 13, 2025; a federal challenge continues after the court denied Tennessee's motion to dismiss on September 15, 2026.The codified text of Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-912 was not available to us; the section number and its current wording rest on the federal court's 2026 order and the enacted bill amendment.	SB 1792 / HB 1614 (2024), Public Chapter 1021 (Protect Tennessee Minors Act); Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-912 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Texas	In force, part blocked	Age verification took effect September 1, 2023 and has been enforceable since the Fifth Circuit stayed a district-court injunction on September 19, 2023; the Supreme Court upheld it in 2025. The separate health-warning notice rule remains blocked, and the original federal case is still pending.That the health-warning injunction still applies is read from the Fifth Circuit's 2024 ruling and mandate and the absence of any later order lifting it on the district court docket. The 2023 injunction ran against enforcement of any provision of H.B. 1181; after the 2024 appeal it survives only for the health warnings. The status of the SCOPE Act age-verification rule (509.057) rests on the Fifth Circuit's July 24, 2026 opinion; whether its mandate has issued or rehearing was sought was not checked.	HB 1181 (2023), Acts 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., Ch. 676; Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 129B (opens the official source in a new tab)
Utah	In force, part blocked	In force since May 3, 2023; on September 24, 2026 a federal court blocked only the 2026 rule treating anyone physically in Utah as covered regardless of VPN use, and that case is paused until after the 2027 legislative session.Utah's original 2023 effective date is taken from the Utah Code's part heading (Effective 5/3/2023), not from the 2023 enrolled bill.	SB 287 (2023); Utah Code 78B-3-1001 to 78B-3-1007 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Vermont	No law	Vermont has no law requiring adult websites to verify age. Its Age-Appropriate Design Code (Act 63 of 2025), effective January 1, 2027, regulates online services likely to be used by minors and is not an adult-website verification law.The bill scan used official bill titles for the 2025-2026 session, not full bill text.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Virginia	In force	In force since July 1, 2023; no court challenge to the adult-website rule was found. A separate 2025 social media law is blocked by a federal court as to NetChoice members.The litigation check was a name-based federal docket search; Virginia state-court suits were not searched.	SB 1515 (2023), Acts 2023, c. 811; Va. Code 8.01-40.5 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Washington	No law	Washington has no law requiring adult websites to verify age; the 2026 bill (HB 2112) got no action after referral to committee.The bill scan used official bill titles and descriptions for 2025-2026, not full bill text.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
West Virginia	In force	In force since June 12, 2026; no court challenge was found.The litigation check was a name-based federal docket search; no West Virginia-specific docket search was run.	Enrolled Committee Substitute for HB 4412 (2026); W. Va. Code 49A-1-101 to 49A-1-106 (opens the official source in a new tab)
Wisconsin	No law	Wisconsin has no law requiring adult websites to verify age: the Legislature passed AB 105, but the Governor vetoed it on April 3, 2026 and the Assembly override failed on May 13, 2026.The finding rests on the AB 105 record; a full keyword search of Wisconsin's 2025-2026 bills was not run.	No enacted law found (opens the official source in a new tab)
Wyoming	In force	In force since July 1, 2025; it is enforced only through private lawsuits, and no court challenge was found.The litigation check was a name-based federal docket search; Wyoming state-court suits were not searched.	HB 43 (2025), Enrolled Act No. 70, 2025 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 139; Wyo. Stat. 14-3-501 to 14-3-504 (opens the official source in a new tab)

General legal information, not legal advice. Laws change, and how a rule applies depends on facts this map cannot see. Check the official source for your state, and talk to a licensed attorney in that state about your situation.

Northeast: 9 jurisdictions

New England: 6 jurisdictions

Mid-Atlantic: 3 jurisdictions

Midwest: 12 jurisdictions

Great Lakes: 5 jurisdictions

Plains: 7 jurisdictions

South: 17 jurisdictions

South Atlantic: 9 jurisdictions

East South Central: 4 jurisdictions

West South Central: 4 jurisdictions

West: 13 jurisdictions

Mountain: 8 jurisdictions

Pacific: 5 jurisdictions

Related laws that work differently

These laws are separate from the adult-website laws above and are not counted in them. App-store laws put the duty on app stores and developers; device laws put it on phones, tablets or operating systems; social-media laws cover account creation on general platforms; performer laws require sites to verify the age and consent of people shown, not visitors.

Court challenges, from Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on

Bills still moving

What this tracker does not do

It reports what each law requires of websites and whether a court has blocked it. It does not tell you whether a particular site is covered, whether a site complies, or what a visitor may lawfully do. Some sites block a state instead of verifying ages; that is a business choice, not a ban in the law.

General legal information, not legal advice. These laws and the cases about them change often. Check the official source, and talk to a licensed attorney in the state about a specific situation.

The Social-Media Family: A Separate, More Litigated Category

The six laws below are not additional rows for the adult-content table above. They regulate something different: age verification or parental consent for creating and using a social media account generally, not access to a narrow category of sexual content. Courts have treated that as a materially bigger First Amendment burden, because it can require every user, including adults, to prove their age before reaching a general-purpose platform, rather than only before reaching material that is legally obscene as to minors. That distinction is why five of these six laws have drawn serious litigation while we found no court order blocking the core requirement of any of the 27 adult-content laws above. The table is not a complete list: Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah also have social-media age-verification or parental-consent laws that are in court, and Indiana's (HEA 1408) takes effect January 1, 2027.

Georgia and Virginia each appear in both tables on this page, because each state enacted its adult-content and social-media requirements through different legal vehicles with entirely different outcomes in court, a genuinely confusing structure that most secondary coverage collapses into a single sentence. Georgia's SB 351 (2024) created both regimes in one bill, split across two chapters of Title 39 of the Georgia Code. Virginia's two laws come from separate bills passed in separate legislative sessions, SB 1515 (2023) for adult content and SB 854 (2025) for social media. Either way, the two Georgia statutes and the two Virginia statutes never share a court case, a penalty schedule, or a litigation outcome, and describing either state as having a single «age verification law» risks stating something false about one of the two.

Mississippi's HB 1126 deserves a specific note because it is the single most litigation-active fact in this entire cluster: it has been enjoined at earlier stages, twice had that injunction lifted by the 5th Circuit, and is currently enforced while the 5th Circuit's second oral argument (Feb. 3, 2026) remains under submission with no ruling. Calling it «enjoined» today describes a status the courts have already moved past.

Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: the Case That Settled the Question

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. 461 (2025), decided the constitutional question this entire cluster of state laws depends on. The Supreme Court affirmed the 5th Circuit's judgment 6-3 on June 27, 2025, in an opinion by Justice Thomas joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett; Justice Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson.

The Court held that Texas's law "triggers, and survives, review under intermediate scrutiny," not strict scrutiny, because it only incidentally burdens adults' protected speech: the statute does not ban access to the material, it conditions access on proof of age. As the majority put it, "the power to require age verification is within a State's authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content." Justice Kagan's dissent argued strict scrutiny should have applied, and did not forecast the outcome under it. She wrote that Texas "should not receive that permission if it can achieve its goal as to minors while interfering less with the speech choices of adults. And if it cannot, then Texas's statute would survive strict scrutiny, given the obvious importance of its goal." That is a conditional turning on whether a less-restrictive, equally effective alternative exists, not a prediction that the statute survives.

That holding, decided under intermediate scrutiny rather than the stricter standard, is now the reference point every other state's adult-content age-verification statute is measured against, and it is the main reason we found no court order blocking the core requirement of any adult-content law in the 27-state table above. The September 2026 Utah injunction did not reach Utah's verification duty at all: it rested on the dormant Commerce Clause and covered only the 2026 actual-location provision. It is not, however, the standard courts have applied to the social-media family in the table above; those laws are being evaluated separately, and several courts have found they regulate too much protected speech to survive review even under a Paxton-adjacent framework.

What Actually Happens When a State Requires Verification

A state age-verification law does not remove content from the internet and does not prevent an adult from viewing it. It requires a covered site to confirm a visitor is 18 or older, usually through a digital ID check, a government-issued ID, or a commercially reasonable method using transactional data, before granting access.

Once that requirement takes effect, platforms make their own business decision about how to respond, and they have not all made the same one. Some, including Pornhub's parent company Aylo, have chosen to geo-block an entire state's traffic rather than build a compliant verification flow in most states with this kind of law, a decision Aylo has publicly framed as an objection to how ID-based verification is implemented and its privacy implications, not to age verification as a general concept. Louisiana is a documented exception: Pornhub verifies Louisiana visitors through the state's own LA Wallet digital-ID app rather than blocking the state outright, and has said publicly that Louisiana traffic fell roughly 80 percent after the requirement took effect, which it has framed as users migrating elsewhere on the internet rather than simply stopping.

Ohio runs the opposite pattern from most of the country: Ohio's law exempts providers of an "interactive computer service" as defined in federal Section 230 (Ohio Rev. Code 1349.10(D)), and reporting indicates that exemption has let most major adult platforms keep operating in Ohio without verifying anyone's age, the reverse of the geo-block response seen in states like Georgia, Florida, Missouri, and Virginia. An Ohio Attorney General review reportedly found only 1 of the 20 most-visited adult sites complying as of October 2025.

Either way, describing any of this as a state "banning porn" mischaracterizes what happened. The state set a verification requirement. What a given platform did next, verify, geo-block, or in Ohio's case, apparently neither, was that platform's own choice, not a legal prohibition on the underlying content.

Federal Legislation: Still Pending, Not Law

Two federal bills get frequently searched alongside these state laws, KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) and COPPA 2.0, and neither is currently law. As of August 13, 2026, the picture is genuinely fragmented across four separate, non-identical bills rather than one bill moving through both chambers: H.R. 7757, a consolidated House package that folds in KOSA's text, passed the House 267-117 on June 29, 2026 and has sat in Senate Commerce since a July 13, 2026 referral with no further action; the standalone Senate KOSA bill, S. 1748, only cleared Senate Commerce Committee markup on August 5, 2026, with no floor vote; and COPPA 2.0, S. 836, passed the Senate by unanimous consent back in March 2026 but has been "held at the desk" in the House since March 16, 2026, a separate bill from H.R. 7757 that is not included in it. The full breakdown, including what each bill would actually require and a newsroom-watch note for this fast-moving status, lives on the dedicated KOSA and COPPA 2.0 federal legislation page.

The FTC, separately, has not brought any enforcement action specific to adult-content age verification. Its only relevant 2026 activity is a policy statement, issued February 25, 2026, saying the agency will not bring COPPA Rule enforcement against general or mixed-audience operators using age-verification technology solely to determine a user's age, subject to several conditions. That is a forward-looking safe-harbor statement, not a new law or an enforcement case.

Georgia's social-media row was rechecked against the Eleventh Circuit's October 15, 2026 published opinion on October 18, 2026. The Utah, Missouri, Tennessee, and Illinois entries and the Texas app-store stay were rechecked against primary sources on September 28, 2026; the rest of this page was verified against the primary sources cited on it and cross-checked against each linked state page's own citations as of August 13, 2026. The enacted-state count (27) and the social-media table (6) are the most volatile numbers on this page; the litigation postures above, particularly Mississippi's HB 1126, Virginia's social-media appeal, and Georgia's case after the Eleventh Circuit's remand, remain genuinely open and should be reconfirmed before this page is relied on for a time-sensitive purpose.

Age-Verification Rules in Every State

Every state now has a dedicated guide, including states with no age-verification law, where the guide documents that negative and what applies instead:

Alabama · Alaska · Arizona · Arkansas · California · Colorado · Connecticut · Delaware · District of Columbia · Florida · Georgia · Hawaii · Idaho · Illinois · Indiana · Iowa · Kansas · Kentucky · Louisiana · Maine · Maryland · Massachusetts · Michigan · Minnesota · Mississippi · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada · New Hampshire · New Jersey · New Mexico · New York · North Carolina · North Dakota · Ohio · Oklahoma · Oregon · Pennsylvania · Rhode Island · South Carolina · South Dakota · Tennessee · Texas · Utah · Vermont · Virginia · Washington · West Virginia · Wisconsin · Wyoming

Related Resources

• App Store Age Verification Laws
• KOSA and COPPA 2.0: Federal Age-Verification Legislation
• SCOTUS Allows Texas to Enforce App Store Age-Verification Law
• Texas App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420)
• Iowa Age-Verification Law (HF 864) Takes Effect
• Illinois Social Media Age-Verification Law (HB 5511)
• Nebraska Social-Media Age-Verification Law Blocked

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Last updated: 2026-10-18.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is porn banned in any U.S. state?

No. No state has banned adult content outright. Twenty-seven states require commercial adult-content websites to verify a visitor's age before granting access. Some platforms chose to geo-block certain states rather than build a verification system, which is that platform's own business decision, not a government ban.

Which states require age verification for porn sites?

As of August 13, 2026, 27 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. See the table above for each state's citation, effective date, and current status.

Is age verification for adult websites constitutional?

Yes. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. 461 (2025), that a state may require online age verification for websites where more than one-third of the content is sexual material harmful to minors, applying intermediate scrutiny. That 6-3 decision is the controlling precedent for every state law in the table above.

Which states' age-verification laws have actually been blocked by a court?

We found no court order blocking the core requirement of any of the 27 adult-content laws in the main table above. Two narrower parts are blocked. A September 24, 2026 preliminary injunction blocks Utah's 2026 actual-location provision covering visitors physically in Utah who mask their location with a VPN; Utah's original verification duty still applies. In Texas, the injunction from the original Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton case still covers the law's health-warning notices, while the age-verification requirement itself is enforced. The social-media laws in the second table that are enjoined in whole or in part, in Louisiana, Virginia, and Nebraska, belong to a separate category: social-media age-verification and parental-consent laws, which regulate general platform access rather than adult content specifically. On October 15, 2026 the 11th Circuit vacated the injunction against Georgia's social-media law and remanded the case. See the social-media family table above.

Is Mississippi's age-verification law enjoined?

Mississippi's adult-content law, SB 2346, has never been enjoined. Mississippi's separate social-media law, HB 1126, was enjoined at earlier stages of litigation, but the 5th Circuit has twice lifted that injunction, and the law is currently enforced while a second appeal remains under submission. The accurate current description is «enforced, pending appeal,» not «enjoined.»

Do California or New York require age verification for adult websites?

No. Neither state has an enacted adult-content age-verification law as of August 13, 2026. California's adult-site bill, AB 3080, ended the 2023-2024 session without being enacted, and New York's S.3591 was defeated in a Senate committee on May 5, 2025 and again on May 21, 2026, while its Assembly companion, A.3946, remains in committee. Search volume for «age verification law» from these states is very likely confusion with a different legal category, the Age-Appropriate Design Code / child-privacy-design laws, not evidence of an enacted porn-site AV law.

What is the App Store Accountability Act?

It is a different, newer layer of age-verification law that regulates Apple's and Google's app stores directly rather than individual websites. Four states, Utah, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama, have enacted one. Texas's version is currently enforceable under a Fifth Circuit stay, and on July 6, 2026 the U.S. Supreme Court denied an application to vacate that stay; the Fifth Circuit heard oral argument on the underlying merits appeal August 4, 2026. See the dedicated App Store Age Verification Laws page for each state's requirements and litigation status.

Is KOSA the law now?

No. As of August 13, 2026, none of the federal bills addressing children's online safety, KOSA, COPPA 2.0, or the consolidated KIDS Act (H.R. 7757), has been signed into law. See the dedicated KOSA and COPPA 2.0 page for the current status of each bill.

What happens if I try to visit a site covered by one of these laws without verifying my age?

It depends on the site's own compliance choice, not the state law itself. A compliant site will prompt for age verification before granting access. A site that chose to geo-block the state entirely, a common response among major adult platforms, will simply be unreachable from that state regardless of the visitor's actual age.