Kansas Age Verification Law: SB 394 Requirements Explained

Kansas's age-verification law for adult content, Senate Bill 394, took effect July 1, 2024. It has drawn more litigation than any other state's age-verification law covered on this site, but every case so far has turned on jurisdiction or enforcement mechanics, not on whether the law itself is constitutional.

What Kansas's Age-Verification Law Requires

Senate Bill 394, enacted during Kansas's 2024 Regular Session as 2024 Kan. Sess. Laws chapter 28, took effect July 1, 2024. Its operative rule, confirmed directly against the Kansas Secretary of State's own published session laws, reads:

Any commercial entity that knowingly shares or distributes material that is harmful to minors on a website and such material appears on 25% or more of the webpages viewed on such website in any calendar month... must verify that any person attempting to access such website who is a resident of Kansas or located in Kansas at the time of attempted access is 18 years of age or older.

The 25 percent of webpages-viewed-per-month formula is a different test than the roughly one-third of total content threshold most other states use, so a site that would be covered elsewhere is not automatically covered in Kansas, and vice versa. The act cross-references Kansas's existing harmful-to-minors definition at K.S.A. 21-6402 and routes its private-action remedies through the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, K.S.A. 50-634 and 50-636.

A Citation Correction: It Is Not K.S.A. 21-6425

A specific citation for Kansas's age-verification law, K.S.A. section 21-6425, has circulated in some earlier reporting and is confirmed wrong. Checked directly against the Kansas Revisor of Statutes' own site, section 21-6425 is titled Misuse of Nonpublic Sports Information, a sports-betting and insider-information statute with no connection to age verification. SB 394's enacted session-law text does not state its own final codified section number; it is written using new-section language and cross-references to existing statutes, and the Kansas Revisor's office appears to assign the permanent codified location separately. Until that number is confirmed, this page cites the law by its session-law citation, SB 394 (2024 Kan. Sess. Laws ch. 28), rather than repeat an incorrect K.S.A. number.

Enforcement: Two Tracks

Kansas enforces SB 394 through two separate mechanisms. The Attorney General can pursue civil penalties against a noncompliant site. K.S.A. 50-636, confirmed directly on the Kansas Revisor of Statutes' own site, authorizes a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 for each violation under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, recoverable by the attorney general or a county or district attorney, the same KCPA remedies provisions this page already identifies as SB 394's enforcement route. Separately, a parent or guardian of a minor has a private right of action with statutory damages of not less than $50,000 per violation, plus actual damages, confirmed directly against the Kansas Secretary of State's published session laws.

Kansas Is the Most Litigated State in This Comparison, but the Statute Itself Has Not Lost

Kansas has drawn more filed cases against covered sites than any other state covered on this site, but none of them is a constitutional challenge to SB 394 itself. A minor, referred to as Q.R. in court filings, and a parent, represented with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation as co-counsel, sued Jerkmate.com, Superporn.com's operator Techpump Solutions, Chaturbate.com, and Titan Websites in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, alleging more than 170 visits between August and October 2024 without effective age verification.

In March 2026, according to Kansas Reflector's reporting, U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter dismissed two of those suits, against Washington-state- and Canada-headquartered defendants, for lack of personal jurisdiction, a procedural ruling about where the defendants can be sued, not a ruling on whether SB 394 is constitutional. A third defendant's similar dismissal motion was denied, and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation voluntarily dismissed a fourth suit. This research could not independently reopen Kansas Reflector's reporting on the exact procedural details, so those specifics are described here as reported rather than independently confirmed.

Separately, Attorney General Kris Kobach sued SARJ LLC in Shawnee County District Court around January 2026, alleging SB 394 violations; that case was reported as ongoing, though this research did not independently reconfirm its current status.

What the Jurisdiction Dismissals Do and Do Not Mean

The March 2026 dismissals do not mean Kansas's law was weakened or struck down. They reflect a recurring practical problem in enforcing any state's age-verification law: many adult websites are incorporated or headquartered outside the United States or outside Kansas, and a court has to have personal jurisdiction over a defendant before it can rule on the merits of a case against it. A jurisdictional dismissal ends that particular lawsuit against that particular defendant; it says nothing about whether SB 394 itself would survive a constitutional challenge, and no such challenge has succeeded, or as far as this research found, even been filed.

Verified directly against Kansas's own published session laws (Secretary of State) for SB 394's text and the Kansas Revisor of Statutes' own site for the K.S.A. 21-6425 correction, plus direct reporting from Yahoo News and KCUR on the private lawsuits, current as of 2026-08-13. The March 2026 personal-jurisdiction dismissal details and the current status of Attorney General Kobach's suit against SARJ LLC rest on reporting this research could not independently reopen and are described as reported rather than independently confirmed; recheck before treating them as settled.

Related Resources

• Age Verification Laws by State
• Texas Age Verification Law
• Indiana Age Verification Law
• Idaho Age Verification Law
• Mississippi Age Verification Law

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Last updated: 2026-08-13.