Maryland
Does Maryland Have an Age Verification Law? (2026)
Independently fact-checked against primary sources (last audited August 14, 2026). · 2 primary sources cited on this page. How we verify our legal content
Maryland does not have an enacted law requiring adult websites to verify a visitor's age. Three direct bills have failed: HB 394 died in the House Judiciary Committee in 2025, and in the 2026 Regular Session HB 693 drew a hearing but no committee vote while HB 908 was withdrawn by its own sponsor.
What Happened to Maryland's Age-Verification Bills
HB 394 was read for the first time and referred to the House Judiciary Committee on January 16, 2025. The committee set a hearing for February 5, 2025, but no committee vote was recorded, and the bill received no further floor action.
As introduced, HB 394 would have required commercial entities to use reasonable age-verification methods to confirm a visitor is 18 or older, barred the entity and any third-party verification service from retaining identifying information collected during that check, and created a private right of action allowing a person to sue for damages. It exempted internet service providers, search engines, and news organizations, and would have taken effect October 1, 2025, had it passed.
The 2026 Regular Session brought two more direct bills, and the General Assembly's own history pages show neither one moved. HB 693, Civil Actions - Distribution of Obscene Material to Minors, had its first reading in the Judiciary Committee on February 2, 2026 and a hearing on March 4, 2026; the record ends there, with no committee vote. HB 908, Civil Actions - Failure to Restrict Distribution of Sexual Material Harmful to Minors, the closest Maryland has come to the Texas HB 1181 model, had a hearing the same day and was withdrawn by its sponsor on March 16, 2026. A device-level bill, HB 1179, the Application Store Accountability Act, would have pushed age verification and verifiable parental consent onto app stores rather than websites; it had a hearing on March 10, 2026 and was never reported out of the Economic Matters Committee.
Maryland's Kids Code and Privacy Act Are Not Age-Verification Laws
Maryland has two separate enacted privacy statutes that are frequently confused with each other, and neither one gates access to adult content.
The one commonly called Maryland's Kids Code is the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. Its own short-title section, Commercial Law 14-4813, reads: "This subtitle may be cited as the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act." Its operative sections impose data and design duties on covered entities offering online products that children are likely to access: acting in the best interests of children when designing, developing, and providing a product (14-4803), running data protection impact assessments, setting high-privacy defaults, and giving age-appropriate privacy information (14-4805), and limiting default profiling, precise geolocation collection, and dark patterns (14-4806). None of those sections mentions adult content, pornography, obscenity, or sexual material, and none requires a site to confirm a visitor is 18 before letting them in.
The Maryland Online Data Privacy Act is a different law, enacted as SB 541 in 2024 and codified in the preceding subtitle at Commercial Law 14-4701 et seq. It is a general consumer data privacy act governing how controllers and processors handle personal data. It is not the Kids Code, and it does not require adult websites to verify anyone's age. Summaries that treat the two statutes as one law are conflating them.
The Federal and Multistate Backdrop
No federal law requires age verification for adult content; Congress has considered child-online-safety bills like the Kids Online Safety Act, but none has been signed into law. As of August 2026, more than two dozen states have enacted their own adult-content age-verification statutes, following the Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton settling intermediate scrutiny as the applicable First Amendment standard. Maryland is not among them. See the age verification laws hub for the full state comparison and the Texas age verification law page for the controlling Supreme Court case.
What This Means for Maryland Residents
Because Maryland has no adult-content age-verification statute, adult websites have no state-law reason to block Maryland visitors or require an age check before granting access. This research did not find Maryland on any published list of states that Aylo, Pornhub's parent company, currently geo-blocks; that finding rests on secondary aggregator reporting rather than a directly confirmed primary source.
This page reflects Maryland's status as of September 2, 2026, based on the Maryland General Assembly's own bill-history records for HB 394 (2025) and HB 693, HB 908, and HB 1179 (2026), and on the statutory text of Commercial Law 14-4801 through 14-4813.
Related Resources
- Age Verification Laws by State
- Virginia Age Verification Law
- KOSA and COPPA 2.0: Federal Age-Verification Bills
Last updated: 2026-09-02.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there an age verification law in Maryland?
No. As of September 2026, Maryland has not enacted a law requiring adult websites to verify a visitor's age. HB 394 died in committee in 2025, and both 2026 attempts, HB 693 and HB 908, failed as well.
What happened to HB 394?
HB 394 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, was set for a hearing on February 5, 2025, and died without a committee vote or any further floor action.
Did Maryland try again in 2026?
Yes, and both bills failed. HB 693, Civil Actions - Distribution of Obscene Material to Minors, got a March 4, 2026 Judiciary Committee hearing and went no further. HB 908, Civil Actions - Failure to Restrict Distribution of Sexual Material Harmful to Minors, was withdrawn by its sponsor on March 16, 2026. A separate app-store bill, HB 1179, stalled after a March 10, 2026 hearing.
Does Maryland's data privacy law require age verification for adult sites?
No, and two different laws get mixed up here. Maryland's Kids Code is the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, Commercial Law 14-4801 et seq.; it sets data and design duties for online products children are likely to use, and nothing in its text addresses adult content or requires an age check before access. The Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, Commercial Law 14-4701 et seq., is a separate general consumer data privacy law and is not an age-verification statute either.
Is porn banned in Maryland?
No, and there is no age-verification requirement either. Adult content remains accessible in Maryland the same way it is in any other state without an enacted age-verification statute.
Updates
Corrected this page to name the Maryland Kids Code properly as the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, separate from the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, and to cover the 2026 bills HB 693, HB 908, and HB 1179, all of which failed.
Independently fact-checked against the cited primary sources
The Law Behind This Article
This article rests on the statutory provisions below, held in our own legal record and retrieved from the official source. Tap a section to read the operative text.
Maryland Code, Commercial Law Article
§ 14-4813In force
§14–4813. This subtitle may be cited as the Maryland Age–Appropriate Design Code Act.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at mgaleg.maryland.gov
§ 14-4803In force
§14–4803. It is the intent of the General Assembly that: (1) Children should be afforded protections not only by online products specifically directed at them, but by all online products they are reasonably likely to access; (2) Covered entities that develop and provide online products that children are reasonably likely to access shall ensure the best interests of children when designing, developing, and providing those online products; (3) All covered entities that operate in the State and process children’s data in any capacity shall do so in a manner consistent with the best interests of children; (4) If a conflict arises between commercial interests and the best interests of children, covered entities that develop online products likely to be accessed by children shall prioritize the privacy, safety, and well–being of children; (5) Nothing in this subtitle may be construed to require a covered entity to monitor or censor third–party content or otherwise impact the existing rights and freedoms of any person; and (6) Nothing in this subtitle may be construed to discriminate against children on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, disability, gender…
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at mgaleg.maryland.gov
§ 14-4805In force
§14–4805. A covered entity required to complete a data protection impact assessment under § 14–4804 of this subtitle shall: (1) Maintain documentation of the assessment for as long as the online product is likely to be accessed by children; (2) Review each data protection impact assessment as necessary to account for material changes to processing pertaining to the online product within 90 days of such material changes; (3) Notwithstanding any other law, configure all default privacy settings provided to children by the online product to offer a high level of privacy, unless the covered entity can demonstrate a compelling reason that a different setting is in the best interests of children; (4) Provide any privacy information, terms of service, policies, and community standards concisely, prominently, and using clear language suited to the age of children likely to access the online product; and (5) Provide prominent, accessible, and responsive tools to help children or their parents or guardians, if applicable, exercise their privacy rights and report concerns.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at mgaleg.maryland.gov
§ 14-4806In force
§14–4806. (a) A covered entity that provides an online product that is accessed or reasonably likely to be accessed by children may not: (1) Process the personal data of a child in a way that is inconsistent with the best interests of children reasonably likely to access the online product; (2) Profile a child by default, unless: (i) The covered entity can demonstrate that the covered entity has appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that profiling is consistent with the best interests of children who access or are reasonably likely to access the online product; and (ii) 1. Profiling is necessary to provide the requested online product, and is done only with respect to the aspects of the online product that the child is actively and knowingly engaged with; or 2.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-29 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at mgaleg.maryland.gov
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Sources and References
- HB 394 (2025), Maryland General Assembly, Bill History and Status(billtrack50.com)
- Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. 461 (2025), Opinion of the Court(supremecourt.gov).gov
- Maryland HB 394 bill status, Maryland General Assembly(mgaleg.maryland.gov).gov
- Maryland HB 693 (2026), Civil Actions - Distribution of Obscene Material to Minors, bill status(mgaleg.maryland.gov)
- Maryland HB 908 (2026), Civil Actions - Failure to Restrict Distribution of Sexual Material Harmful to Minors, withdrawn by sponsor(mgaleg.maryland.gov)
- Maryland HB 1179 (2026), Consumer Protection - Application Store Accountability Act, bill status(mgaleg.maryland.gov)
- Md. Code, Commercial Law 14-4813, short title of the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act(mgaleg.maryland.gov)
- Md. Code, Commercial Law 14-4803, best interests of children in online product design(mgaleg.maryland.gov)
- Md. Code, Commercial Law 14-4806, limits on processing children's data, profiling, and dark patterns(mgaleg.maryland.gov)
- Maryland SB 541 (2024), Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, Chapter 455(mgaleg.maryland.gov)