Age Verification Laws by State and Country: The 2026 Guide

Last updated: 15 November 2026. US state data is from the Free Speech Coalition’s tracker, Supreme Court and federal court records and law firm alerts from Wiley and Loeb & Loeb; UK, EU, French and Australian rules are from Ofcom, GOV.UK, the European Commission, the Conseil constitutionnel and the eSafety Commissioner. Court challenges move quickly, so check the status of any law before relying on it.

Short answer: As of November 2026, 27 US states require age verification for websites with a substantial share of adult content, and the Supreme Court upheld that model in June 2025. A separate wave of laws covers social media and app stores, many tied up in court. Outside the US, the UK, EU, Australia, Brazil and Malaysia now require or are moving towards robust age checks.

Key takeaways

• In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (27 June 2025) the Supreme Court applied intermediate scrutiny and upheld Texas’s adult-site age verification law, which removed the main constitutional obstacle for similar state laws.
• State social media laws are a patchwork: Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee can currently be enforced, while Virginia’s and Arkansas’s are blocked and others sit on appeal.
• App store laws are the new front. Texas’s law is enforceable pending appeal; Utah, Louisiana and Alabama start in 2027, and California’s operating system “age signal” law begins on 1 January 2027.
• Internationally, the UK has required “highly effective age assurance” for pornography since 25 July 2025, Australia’s under-16 social media minimum age has applied since 10 December 2025, and the EU has proposed a minimum age of 15 for independent accounts.

What do age verification laws actually require?

Most laws fall into three groups, and the compliance work differs for each:

• Adult content laws require sites where a set share of material is “harmful to minors” (Louisiana’s 2022 model uses one third) to verify that users are adults, usually with ID, a third-party verification service or a transactional data check.
• Social media laws set a minimum age, require parental consent for teen accounts or limit features such as feeds and time spent. Most rely on age verification or estimation to work.
• App store and device laws move the check to Apple, Google or the operating system, which then pass an age signal to app developers.

The legal risk sits mainly with platforms and publishers, not users. For a plain-English view of what is and is not illegal for adults to view online, see our guide to what is illegal to watch on the internet in the US.

Which US states require age verification for adult websites?

The Free Speech Coalition’s state tracker, kept by the adult industry trade group that brought the Supreme Court challenge, lists 27 states. All of the effective dates below have now passed.

Missouri acted through an Attorney General rule rather than a statute. Several large adult sites have chosen to block users in states with these laws rather than verify them.

What did the Supreme Court decide in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton?

Texas’s HB 1181 requires commercial sites where more than a third of content is sexual material harmful to minors to verify that users are 18 or over. The industry argued that strict scrutiny should apply, as it had in earlier internet cases. On 27 June 2025 the Court disagreed by six votes to three. Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, held that the law only incidentally burdens adults’ protected speech, so intermediate scrutiny applies, and that HB 1181 “triggers, and survives” that test. Justice Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson.

The ruling settles the position for adult content. It does not decide whether laws covering general social media, where most content is protected speech for minors too, are constitutional. That is why the social media cases below are still being fought state by state.

Which US states require age checks for social media?

More than a dozen states have passed laws requiring age verification, parental consent or time limits for minors on social media. Trade group NetChoice has challenged most of them. The status as of mid-November 2026:

We covered the Mississippi fight when the Supreme Court let the age-check law take effect. These laws run alongside a growing body of private litigation over teen harms, from the social media addiction lawsuits to the Roblox lawsuits over child safety on gaming platforms.

What are app store age verification laws?

App store laws require Apple and Google to verify ages when accounts are created, obtain parental consent before minors download apps or make purchases, and share age categories with developers. Developers then have to respect those signals.

The dates and statuses come from Wiley’s June 2026 alert, updated with the later Supreme Court order and Fifth Circuit argument. California’s law uses four brackets (under 13, 13 to 15, 16 and 17, and adults) and carries civil penalties of up to $2,500 per affected child for negligent violations and $7,500 for intentional ones.

How does the UK Online Safety Act handle age checks?

Since 25 July 2025, sites and apps that allow pornography must use “highly effective age assurance” to stop children from normally encountering it. Ofcom lists methods that can meet the standard: open banking, photo ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile network operator checks, credit card checks, digital identity services and email-based age estimation. Self-declaration does not count. Fines can reach £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.

Enforcement has started. Ofcom fined AVS Group £1 million in December 2025 because its checks were not highly effective, plus £50,000 for ignoring an information request, and fined 8579 LLC £1.35 million in February 2026 for having no age checks at all.

The UK is also going further. On 15 June 2026 the government announced it would bar social media platforms from serving under-16s, following Australia’s model, using powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act. Messaging services such as WhatsApp are not intended to be covered. The government expects the rules to apply from spring 2027, and Ofcom published a rapid assessment of age assurance at 16 on 29 October 2026.

What is the EU doing on age verification?

The EU works through the Digital Services Act. The Commission’s Article 28 guidelines on protecting minors, published on 14 July 2025, recommend age verification for adult content such as pornography and gambling, and where national law sets a minimum age for social media. Lighter age estimation is recommended in other cases.

To make verification workable, the Commission built an EU age verification app that lets users prove they are over 18 without sharing other data. It became feature-ready on 15 April 2026, and the Commission has asked member states to roll it out by the end of 2026, alongside the European Digital Identity Wallets.

On 17 September 2026 the Commission proposed the EU KIDS Act. As proposed, it bans social media for under-13s, allows guardian-managed “mini accounts” for 13 and 14-year-olds, and sets 15 as the minimum age for an independent account, with age verification when new accounts are opened. It still needs agreement from the European Parliament and the Council.

National bans face legal limits. France’s parliament passed an under-15 social media ban in July 2026, but the Conseil constitutionnel struck down the ban on 14 August 2026 as a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression, noting that the law did not set safeguards for the age checks it would have required of all users.

How do Australia and other countries compare?

Australia’s minimum age applies to Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. According to the eSafety Commissioner’s March 2026 compliance update, about 4.7 million age-restricted accounts were removed or restricted by mid-December 2025, and eSafety is investigating five platforms. Platforms cannot rely on self-declaration and cannot make government ID the only way to prove age. Parliament passed legislation in September 2026 doubling the maximum penalty from A$49.5 million to A$99 million.

What should businesses do now?

• Map where users are. Obligations follow the user’s location, so a US site with UK or Australian users can face several regimes at once.
• Pick methods regulators accept. Self-declaration fails in the UK, Australia and Brazil. Document why the chosen method is accurate and proportionate.
• Minimise data. Most laws, and the US courts reviewing them, focus on privacy. Use providers that do not retain ID images, and update privacy notices.
• Track the courts. A law blocked this month can be enforceable next month, as Georgia and Texas showed in 2026.

This article is general information about age verification laws as of 15 November 2026, not legal advice. Statutes, court orders and effective dates change often; check the current position for each jurisdiction before acting.

Frequently asked questions

How many US states have age verification laws for adult websites?

The Free Speech Coalition’s tracker lists 27 states as of November 2026, from Louisiana, the first in January 2023, to Iowa and West Virginia, whose laws took effect in mid-2026.

Did the Supreme Court uphold age verification laws?

Yes, for adult content. In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on 27 June 2025, the Court upheld Texas’s HB 1181 under intermediate scrutiny by six votes to three. It did not rule on social media age verification laws.

Is the Texas app store age verification law in effect?

Yes, for now. A district court blocked it in December 2025, but the Fifth Circuit stayed that injunction in June 2026 and the Supreme Court declined to intervene on 6 July 2026. The appeal is still pending.

When did UK age checks start under the Online Safety Act?

Sites and apps that allow pornography had to have highly effective age assurance in place by 25 July 2025. Ofcom has since fined providers that failed to comply.

Is Australia’s under-16 social media ban in force?

Yes. It has applied since 10 December 2025 to 10 platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. The maximum penalty was raised to A$99 million in September 2026.

Does the EU have a minimum age for social media?

Not yet. The Commission proposed the EU KIDS Act on 17 September 2026, which would set 15 as the minimum age for an independent account, but Parliament and the Council still have to agree it.