Florida Age Verification Law: Two Provisions, Two Lawsuits, One AG Crackdown

Florida's House Bill 3 (2024) created two separate requirements aimed at minors online: one restricting social media accounts for minors, still contested in federal court, and one requiring adult websites to verify visitors are 18 or older, which survived its own court challenge and is now the basis for active enforcement actions by the Florida Attorney General's office.

Information last verified on 2026-10-18. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

HB 3's Two Provisions

Florida's House Bill 3, signed March 25, 2024, bundles two age-related requirements that both took effect January 1, 2025, but are legally severable and had entirely different paths through federal court. Fla. Stat. section 501.1736 restricts minors' social media accounts. Sections 501.1737 and 501.1738, a separate part of the same bill, require adult-content sites to verify visitors' ages. Treating "Florida's age-verification law" as a single thing risks describing the wrong regime, since one is still contested in federal court after the Eleventh Circuit's October 14, 2026 decision remanded it to the district court, and the other's litigation has already ended.

The Social-Media Rule: Enforced, and the Injunction Undone on Appeal

Fla. Stat. section 501.1736 prohibits minors under 14 from creating or holding social media accounts and requires parental or guardian consent before a 14- or 15-year-old can hold one. The section prescribes no age-verification method: the words "verification" and "age assurance" do not appear anywhere in it, so how a platform determines a user's age is left to the platform. It sets account-termination timelines: five business days after a user's own request, ten business days after a parent or guardian's request, and a 90-day dispute window for platform-initiated terminations, along with permanent deletion of a terminated account's personal information. The Department of Legal Affairs (the Attorney General's office) can pursue civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation plus fees and costs, along with punitive damages for a knowing or reckless pattern of violations, and the law gives minors a private right of action for up to $10,000 in damages within one year of discovering a violation.

CCIA and NetChoice sued over this provision in October 2024. A federal district court preliminarily enjoined enforcement on June 3, 2025, holding the law likely violates the First Amendment. Florida appealed, and the 11th Circuit stayed that injunction on November 25, 2025, by a 2-1 vote, finding Florida had made a "strong showing" the law is facially content-neutral and satisfies intermediate scrutiny. That let enforcement resume, and Attorney General Uthmeier's office has publicly said it is "aggressively enforcing" the requirement as of late November 2025.

The 11th Circuit then decided the appeal itself on October 14, 2026. In a published opinion by Judge Newsom, joined by Judges Luck and Tjoflat, the panel affirmed that CCIA has associational standing and that the district court did not have to abstain under Younger v. Harris, and held that although HB 3 implicates First Amendment interests, it likely passes constitutional muster because it is a content-neutral speech regulation that satisfies intermediate scrutiny. On that basis the panel reversed the preliminary injunction as to the as-applied First Amendment claim and vacated it as to the facial challenge, which the panel rejected because CCIA had not carried its burden under Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707 (2024), of showing that the law's unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh its valid ones. The panel remanded the case to the district court.

The difference between the November 2025 stay and the October 2026 opinion is worth keeping straight. The stay was a provisional order letting Florida enforce the law during the appeal. The opinion is the panel's reasoned holding on the preliminary-injunction record, which is a stronger signal about how the court sees the statute. It is still not a final judgment that section 501.1736 is constitutional: a likelihood-of-success determination at the preliminary-injunction stage leaves the merits to be litigated, and the panel sent the case back to the district court for exactly that.

The Adult-Content Rule: Litigation Closed

Fla. Stat. sections 501.1737 and 501.1738 require a commercial entity distributing material harmful to minors, where that material makes up more than 33.3 percent of a site or app's total content, to verify that users are 18 or older. Unlike some peer states, Florida requires covered sites to offer both an "anonymous" and a "standard" age-verification method and let the user choose which one to use. Bona fide news and news-gathering organizations are excluded, as are internet service providers, search engines, and cloud providers that are not liable merely for providing access to third-party content. Department of Legal Affairs penalties are similar: up to $50,000 per violation, plus punitive damages for a consistent pattern of conduct. The private right of action is narrower than the social-media provision's, though. Section 501.1737(5)(c) makes a commercial entity liable to the minor, for up to $10,000 in damages within one year of discovery, only where it violates the verification duty by failing to prohibit access, or future access, after a report of unauthorized or unlawful access.

The Free Speech Coalition sued over this provision in December 2024 on First Amendment grounds. After the U.S. Supreme Court's June 27, 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upheld a nearly identical Texas law, the Florida claim became untenable. The plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on July 8, 2025, and the presiding judge formally closed the case the following day. No pending challenge to this section has surfaced in this research.

Active Enforcement: AG Uthmeier's Complaints Against Noncompliant Sites

Because the adult-content provision's litigation is closed, Florida's Attorney General has moved to active enforcement. In August 2025, AG James Uthmeier's office filed complaints against site operators alleging violations of section 501.1737, including against Webgroup Czech Republic, NKL Associates, Sonesta Technologies, and GGW Group, entities associated with running XVideos.com, XNXX.com, BangBros.com, and GirlsGoneWild.com, and separately against Gethins Limited, Toccata, and Segpay entities. This is real enforcement against named operators, not merely a statute sitting unused on the books. Pornhub, for its part, chose to block Florida visitors entirely rather than build a compliant verification system.

What This Means If You Live in Florida or Run a Site There

If you operate a covered adult-content site, Florida's verification requirement has been in force since January 2025, its underlying court challenge is closed, and the Attorney General's office has already brought enforcement actions against noncompliant operators. If you operate a social media platform, the minors' account restrictions are currently enforceable: the 11th Circuit stayed the injunction against them in November 2025 and then, on October 14, 2026, reversed it as to the as-applied claim and vacated it as to the facial challenge. The underlying constitutional question is not finally resolved, because the panel ruled on a preliminary-injunction record and remanded the case to the district court, but there is no longer a court order holding the statute back. For Florida's broader data-privacy framework, see Florida data privacy laws.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Florida's age-verification statutes. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The social-media provision's case is back before the district court on remand and its outcome could change the enforceable status described above; verify current status with the Florida Attorney General's office, the court dockets, or a licensed Florida attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

Related Articles

• Age Verification Laws by State
• Georgia Age Verification Law
• Virginia Age Verification Law
• Florida Data Privacy Laws

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Last updated: 2026-10-18.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Florida's social media law for minors currently enforceable?

Yes. The 11th Circuit stayed the injunction against it on November 25, 2025, letting Florida resume enforcement, and on October 14, 2026 it decided the appeal, holding that the law likely satisfies the First Amendment as a content-neutral regulation under intermediate scrutiny. The panel reversed the injunction in part, vacated it in part, and remanded. That is a preliminary-injunction ruling rather than a final judgment, so the case remains open in the district court.

Is Florida's adult-content age-verification law still being challenged in court?

No. The Free Speech Coalition voluntarily dismissed its challenge in July 2025 after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar Texas law, and the case was formally closed.

Has Florida sued any porn sites for not verifying ages?

Yes. In August 2025, Attorney General James Uthmeier's office filed complaints against operators of sites including XVideos.com, XNXX.com, and BangBros.com, alleging violations of Florida's age-verification statute.

What happens if a site doesn't comply with Florida's adult-content law?

The Department of Legal Affairs can pursue civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation plus fees and costs, and punitive damages for a consistent pattern of conduct. A minor also has a private right of action for up to $10,000 in damages within one year of discovery, but only where the site failed to prohibit access, or future access, after a report of unauthorized or unlawful access.

Can minors sue under Florida's social media law?

Yes, the law includes a private right of action allowing minors to seek up to $10,000 in damages within one year of discovering a violation, separate from the Attorney General's civil-penalty authority.

Is Pornhub blocked in Florida?

Reporting indicates Pornhub chose to block access to Florida visitors rather than build a compliant age-verification system, the same pattern seen in Georgia, Missouri, and Virginia.