KOSA and COPPA 2.0: Federal Age-Verification Legislation (2026)

"KOSA" and "COPPA 2.0" get used as if they were one bill working its way through Congress. As of August 13, 2026, that is not accurate. Four separate, non-identical bills are in play, none of them signed into law, each at a different stage: a House-passed package that folds in KOSA's text but not COPPA 2.0, a standalone Senate KOSA bill that just cleared committee, a standalone House KOSA bill that has been effectively superseded, and a COPPA 2.0 bill that passed the Senate months ago and has been sitting untouched in the House ever since.

This page tracks all four separately, with its own status and as-of date for each, because collapsing them into a single "KOSA is pending" sentence is the single easiest way to misstate where federal children's-online-safety legislation actually stands. Nothing described below is law. All of it is genuinely subject to change, and this page carries the highest single-vote currency risk of any page in this cluster; if you are reading this more than a few weeks after the last-updated date below, verify current status before relying on it.

The Four Bills at a Glance

H.R. 7757, the "KIDS Act": Passed the House, Stalled in the Senate

H.R. 7757 is a consolidated package of roughly 15 component bills that the House assembled into a single vehicle, and it does include the Kids Online Safety Act's text as one of those components. It passed the House 267-117 on June 29, 2026, then was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on July 13, 2026. No further Senate action on H.R. 7757 itself had been found as of August 13, 2026; the Senate Commerce Committee's most recent relevant action was a markup of the separate S. 1748 bill (below), not H.R. 7757.

As introduced, KOSA's core approach, the piece of H.R. 7757 most people mean when they say "KOSA," would impose a duty of care on covered platforms to exercise reasonable care in designing their products to prevent and mitigate certain harms to minors, and would require default privacy and safety settings for known minor users. Exact statutory language can and does shift through committee markups and floor amendments, so treat that description as the bill's general approach as introduced rather than a guarantee of its final text if it is ever enacted.

A common point of confusion: H.R. 7757 does not include COPPA 2.0. Several earlier reports described KOSA and COPPA 2.0 as bundled into one House package; that is only half right. KOSA's text was folded in. COPPA 2.0 (S. 836, below) was not, and remains an entirely separate bill.

S. 1748: the Standalone Senate KOSA Bill

S. 1748 is Senator Marsha Blackburn's standalone version of the Kids Online Safety Act in the Senate. On August 5, 2026 the Senate Commerce Committee ordered it reported favorably with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, a committee-level action, not a full Senate floor vote. The committee's written report had not been filed as of this writing. A substitute amendment at markup typically means the bill's exact text changed from what was originally introduced, so any specific provision attributed to "KOSA" should be checked against the current, post-markup text rather than the bill as first filed. No Senate floor timeline has been confirmed as of this writing.

H.R. 6484: the Standalone House KOSA Bill, Now Effectively Superseded

H.R. 6484, Representative Gus Bilirakis's standalone House version of KOSA, was forwarded by subcommittee to the full Energy and Commerce Committee by a 13-10 vote on December 11, 2025. It has not moved since. Once H.R. 7757 absorbed KOSA's text into its consolidated package for the House floor vote, H.R. 6484 became effectively superseded as the House's vehicle for this policy, though it has not been formally withdrawn.

S. 836, COPPA 2.0: Passed the Senate, Stalled in the House

S. 836, Senator Ed Markey's "Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act," known as COPPA 2.0, passed the Senate by unanimous consent on March 5, 2026, with amendments. It was received in the House on March 16, 2026 and has been "held at the desk" since, meaning the full House has not taken it up. No further action had been found as of August 13, 2026.

As introduced, COPPA 2.0's general approach would extend the original Children's Online Privacy Protection Act's protections, which currently apply to children under 13, to cover teens up to 16, ban targeted advertising directed at minors, and add a mechanism for a minor or parent to request deletion of collected personal information. As with H.R. 7757, treat this as the bill's general direction as introduced rather than confirmed final statutory language, since it has not been enacted and could still change.

Whether S. 836 gets a House floor vote on its own, gets folded into a future House vehicle, or continues to sit at the desk indefinitely is genuinely unresolved. It is worth restating plainly: S. 836 is not part of H.R. 7757. The two bills cover overlapping policy territory, children's online safety, but they are legally distinct pieces of legislation moving on separate, uncoordinated tracks.

The FTC's Role: A Policy Statement, Not Enforcement or New Law

Separately from any of the four bills above, the Federal Trade Commission has taken one relevant action in this space, and it is not an enforcement case. On February 25, 2026, the Commission issued a policy statement, voted 2-0, saying it will not bring an enforcement action under the existing COPPA Rule against a general-audience or mixed-audience operator that collects, uses, or discloses personal information solely to determine a user's age through age-verification technology, provided the operator meets several conditions: the data is used only for age determination, not retained longer than necessary, disclosed only to third parties with adequate safeguards, accompanied by clear notice, protected with reasonable security, and produced by a reasonably accurate method. That statement followed an FTC workshop on age-verification technologies held January 28, 2026, and the Commission has separately signaled an upcoming review of the COPPA Rule itself. None of this creates a new federal age-verification mandate or enforcement case; it is a forward-looking safe harbor describing when the FTC will decline to act under the rule that already exists.

Looking for State-Level Rules Instead?

If you landed here searching for a state's own children's-privacy or age-verification requirements rather than pending federal legislation, several states already regulate this area directly. The state adult-content age-verification laws are covered on the main age-verification hub, and a state's broader consumer data-privacy law, which often includes separate provisions for minors' data, is covered on that state's own data-privacy page, including Texas, Ohio, and Mississippi. Those are enacted, present-tense state laws, unlike the pending federal bills on this page.

Information current as of August 13, 2026. This is the highest currency-risk page in this cluster: all four bills' statuses can change with a single committee vote, floor schedule decision, or procedural motion, several of which move on timelines Congress does not always announce in advance. Confirm current status directly against congress.gov before relying on this page, particularly if reading it more than a few weeks after the last-updated date below.

Related Resources

• Age Verification Laws by State
• App Store Age Verification Laws
• Texas Data Privacy Laws
• Ohio Data Privacy Laws
• Mississippi Data Privacy Laws

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Last updated: 2026-08-13.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is KOSA law?

No. As of August 13, 2026, none of the four federal bills addressing this policy area, H.R. 7757, S. 1748, H.R. 6484, or S. 836, has been signed into law. KOSA's text is currently moving through Congress in two separate forms: folded into the House-passed H.R. 7757, and as a standalone Senate bill, S. 1748, that has only cleared committee.

Is COPPA 2.0 the same bill as KOSA?

No. COPPA 2.0 (S. 836) and KOSA are separate bills addressing related but distinct policy areas. A common point of confusion is that H.R. 7757, the House-passed "KIDS Act," includes KOSA's text but does not include COPPA 2.0.

Did COPPA 2.0 pass Congress?

It passed the Senate by unanimous consent on March 5, 2026, but has not passed the House. It has been "held at the desk" in the House since March 16, 2026, with no further action confirmed as of August 13, 2026. A bill must pass both chambers in identical form and be signed by the President to become law; COPPA 2.0 has not reached that point.

What would KOSA actually require if it passed?

As introduced, KOSA's general approach would impose a duty of care on covered platforms to design their products to prevent and mitigate certain harms to minors, and would require default privacy and safety settings for known minor users. The bill's exact language has already changed once through a Senate Commerce Committee markup and could change further before any final version is enacted.

Does the FTC require age verification under federal law?

No. The FTC has not created a new age-verification mandate. It issued a policy statement on February 25, 2026, saying it will not bring COPPA Rule enforcement action against general-audience operators that use age-verification technology solely to determine a user's age, subject to several conditions. That is a safe-harbor statement about existing law, not a new requirement.

Which chamber of Congress needs to act next on KOSA?

It depends which version. S. 1748 needs a full Senate floor vote after clearing committee on August 5, 2026. H.R. 7757, which includes KOSA's House text, needs further Senate Commerce Committee action beyond its July 13, 2026 referral, or a discharge to the floor. Neither timeline is confirmed as of this writing.