Tennessee
Tennessee Age Verification Law: Protect Tennessee Minors Act Explained
Tennessee's Protect Tennessee Minors Act requires covered websites to verify a visitor's age before granting access to adult content, and it has been in continuous effect since January 2025 while a First Amendment challenge remains unresolved on appeal.
What Tennessee's Protect Tennessee Minors Act Requires
Senate Bill 1792, the Protect Tennessee Minors Act, is codified at Tennessee Code Annotated Section 39-17-911 et seq. and is designed to restrict minors' access to adult content online by requiring covered websites to verify a visitor's age before granting access to material of that kind. The law took effect January 1, 2025.
The Sixth Circuit Stayed an Injunction in January 2025, Not 2026
A First Amendment challenge to the PTMA, Free Speech Coalition, Incorporated, et al. v. Jonathan Thomas Skrmetti, No. 24-6158, reached the Sixth Circuit after a district court preliminary injunction blocked the law. The State asked the Sixth Circuit for an emergency stay of that injunction, and the court granted it on January 13, 2025, allowing the PTMA to remain in effect while the appeal proceeds. Tennessee's own Attorney General's office announced the stay directly.
A stay pending appeal is not the same thing as a final ruling upholding the law. The Sixth Circuit's stay order noted only that its initial review suggested the district court's First Amendment analysis was lacking, a likelihood-of-success signal rather than a final holding. As of this writing, no decision resolving the underlying appeal on the merits has been located; the constitutional question remains formally open even though the law has been continuously enforceable since the stay.
How Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton Affects Tennessee's Appeal
The Sixth Circuit's stay of the PTMA injunction predates the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, which upheld a nearly identical Texas age-verification law and held that this category of statute triggers, and survives, intermediate scrutiny rather than the stricter standard some challengers argued for. Paxton was decided while Tennessee's own appeal, involving the same lead plaintiff organization and a materially similar law, was still pending before the Sixth Circuit.
Whether the Sixth Circuit has since resolved, remanded, or held the Tennessee appeal in light of Paxton was not confirmed in this research. It is a reasonable expectation that Paxton's holding narrows the constitutional question still open in Tennessee's case, but that is an inference from the timeline, not a confirmed docket outcome, and should be checked directly before the appeal's current status is described as settled.
Two Different Skrmetti Cases: Do Not Confuse Them
Tennessee is a defendant in more than one age-verification-adjacent lawsuit, and search results for "Tennessee Skrmetti age verification" can easily conflate two genuinely separate cases. Free Speech Coalition v. Skrmetti, No. 24-6158, is the case described above, challenging the PTMA's adult-content age-verification requirement.
NetChoice v. Skrmetti is a different case entirely, challenging Tennessee's Protecting Children from Social Media Act, a separate statute governing parental consent and age verification for social media platforms rather than adult content. That case had a Sixth Circuit oral argument in February 2026. The two cases involve the same Tennessee Attorney General as a named defendant and a similar-sounding case name, but they concern different statutes with different subject matter, and a source describing one should not be read as describing the other.
Verified directly against the Tennessee Attorney General's own press release announcing the Sixth Circuit's stay, opened this session, current as of 2026-08-13. The absence of a subsequent merits ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Skrmetti was checked via search review, not a full docket open, so it is reported as «none located» rather than «confirmed none exists»; recheck closer to publication given that Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton's June 2025 Supreme Court ruling may have affected how this appeal proceeds.
Related Resources
- Age Verification Laws by State
- Texas Age Verification Law
- Mississippi Age Verification Law
- KOSA and COPPA 2.0
Last updated: 2026-08-13.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is porn banned in Tennessee?
No. The Protect Tennessee Minors Act requires covered websites to verify a visitor's age before granting access to adult content; it does not prohibit adults from viewing the material once verified.
What law requires age verification in Tennessee?
The Protect Tennessee Minors Act, enacted as SB 1792 and codified at Tenn. Code Ann. Section 39-17-911 et seq., effective January 1, 2025.
Has Tennessee's age-verification law been struck down?
No. A district court preliminary injunction against the law was stayed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 13, 2025, meaning the law has remained in effect since then. The underlying constitutional appeal has not been finally decided.
Did the Sixth Circuit rule Tennessee's age-verification law constitutional?
Not on the merits. The Sixth Circuit stayed a lower-court injunction pending appeal, which is a likelihood-of-success signal, not a final holding. No merits decision has been located as of this writing.
Is NetChoice v. Skrmetti about the same Tennessee law as Free Speech Coalition v. Skrmetti?
No. NetChoice v. Skrmetti challenges a separate Tennessee statute, the Protecting Children from Social Media Act. Free Speech Coalition v. Skrmetti concerns the Protect Tennessee Minors Act's adult-content age-verification requirement. The two cases are frequently confused because they share a defendant's name.
When did Tennessee's age-verification law take effect?
January 1, 2025.
Updates
Independently fact-checked against the cited primary sources