Does New York Have an Age Verification Law? (2026)

New York has no enacted law requiring age verification to access adult content online. The bill that would have created one, S.3591, has been defeated in committee twice, and its Assembly companion has never received a floor vote either.

S.3591: Defeated in Committee Twice

Senate Bill S.3591, sponsored by Sen. Ashby, would have required age verification for internet pornography websites operating in New York, with civil penalties reaching $50,000 per day of violation, an exemption for news organizations, and an alternative path allowing a password-protected account with monthly re-verification instead of per-visit ID checks.

The bill has not advanced. The Senate's Internet and Technology Committee defeated it on May 5, 2025 by a vote of 3 aye to 4 nay, and defeated it again on May 21, 2026 by a vote of 2 aye to 4 nay with one member voting aye-with-reservations. Neither vote sent the bill to the floor. Its Assembly companion, A.3946, sponsored by Assembly Member Walsh and carrying the same substantive requirements and $50,000-per-day penalty, was held for consideration in the Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee on May 19, 2025 and re-referred to committee on January 7, 2026, also without a floor vote.

Do Not Confuse This With the SAFE for Kids Act

New York does have an enacted online-safety law, but it is not an adult-content age-verification statute, and the two are frequently and incorrectly conflated. The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act, signed by Governor Hochul in June 2024, restricts algorithmically personalized content feeds and nighttime notifications, between midnight and 6 a.m., for users under 18 absent parental consent. It requires covered platforms to verify or reasonably estimate whether a user is a minor for that purpose, and it is enforced by the New York Attorney General with civil penalties up to $5,000 per violation. Its final implementing regulations were published in the State Register on July 29, 2026 and take effect January 25, 2027, 180 days after publication.

The SAFE for Kids Act applies to 'Addictive Online Platforms,' defined around algorithmic feeds capturing a significant share of user time, not to adult-content websites. A reader searching for New York's age-verification law is far more likely looking for this statute, or for general child-privacy coverage, than for a nonexistent pornography-site mandate.

The Federal Backdrop

No federal law requires adult-content age verification either. The Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton upheld Texas's age-verification statute under intermediate scrutiny, but the ruling only settles that a state may enact this kind of law without automatically violating the First Amendment. It does not itself require New York, or any other state, to pass one. Congress has not filled the gap either: the Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA 2.0 remain separate, unenacted bills as of 2026.

What This Means for New York Residents

Because New York has no enacted adult-content age-verification trigger, adult sites generally do not restrict access from New York visitors. A visitor accessing adult content from a New York IP address is not, under current New York law, required to submit identification or complete a state-mandated age-verification step before viewing that content.

Researched directly against the New York State Senate's own bill page for S.3591 and the New York State Assembly's own bill-tracking page for A.3946, current as of 2026-08-13. The May 21, 2026 committee defeat updates earlier reporting that only knew of the 2025 vote; always verify a New York bill's current status against nysenate.gov or assembly.state.ny.us directly rather than a third-party bill tracker.

Related Resources

• Age Verification Laws by State
• Texas Age Verification Law
• KOSA and COPPA 2.0: Federal Age-Verification Bills Explained

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Last updated: 2026-08-13.