Is AI Girlfriend Illegal? US State-by-State Legal Guide
See if AI girlfriend is illegal in your state: 18 US states with age-verification statutes mapped (Texas, Utah, Louisiana, NY, FL), plus federal 1466A red line.
Five years ago this page would have been four sentences long. AI companion apps were a small space, no state had passed an age-verification statute, and the only federal statute that mattered was the one nobody would ever cross. Then Louisiana Act 440 hit in 2022, Texas HB 1181 followed in 2023, and what was a single-state experiment became a wave: eighteen states now, more pending, plus a 6-3 Supreme Court holding that effectively green-lights every parallel bill. None of those statutes bans AI girlfriend apps for adults. All of them push the compliance burden onto the operator. The platforms in our test don't all handle this the same way.
A few have built proper age-verification flows with vendors like Yoti or Persona. Others just geo-block Texas, Utah, and Louisiana at the IP level and call it done. When our Stripchat review added Texas to its geo-block list in early 2024, we updated 14 review pages within 72 hours so readers in Austin or Houston wouldn't click a CTA that would dead-end on a 403. That's the practical shape of "legal but blocked": the product is lawful, your state didn't ban it, and the operator chose not to serve you.
This page is the state-by-state walkthrough. It catalogues which state has which statute, what the operator must do to comply, what an adult resident of that state can expect at the access gate, and how the federal floor layers over the top. The audience is the adult resident asking can I use Candy.ai from my couch in Austin, Salt Lake City, or Baton Rouge? The short answer is yes, with friction. The long answer is below.
Is AI girlfriend illegal anywhere in the United States?
No US state bans AI girlfriend apps outright for adult use. AI girlfriend platforms are legal for adults nationwide. The compliance burden sits on operators: 18 states impose age-verification duties on commercial sites publishing sexual material harmful to minors, and 18 USC § 1466A forbids AI-generated depictions of minors. Adults using compliant mainstream apps face no criminal exposure.
The federal baseline is permissive for adult use. There's no federal statute reaching adult-only AI companion services as such; the First Amendment protects sexual expression for adults under Miller v. California (1973) and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002). The state-level architecture is regulatory, not prohibitionist: each state's age-verification statute asks the platform to prove visitor age before serving adult material; none of them criminalises the adult who walks through the gate. The single state-agnostic criminal red line is 18 USC § 1466A, which forbids AI-generated representations of minors in any computer-generated, drawn, or synthetic form, and which applies in every state.
Which states require age verification for adult AI sites?
Eighteen states as of May 2026: Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, North Carolina, Idaho, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas, Florida, Nebraska, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. Civil penalties reach $10,000 per day per violation. The duty binds the platform publishing the content, not the editorial comparator that links to it.
The map below is the operator-facing view as of May 2026. Effective dates run from January 2023 (Louisiana, the first-mover) through January 2025 (Florida HB 3), with two states (Nebraska and Alabama) implementing through 2025-2026. Enforcement design varies: most states route through the Attorney General with civil penalties; a smaller subset (Texas, Utah, Mississippi) sole-source AG enforcement and forbid private rights of action; Virginia is the outlier with a meaningful private-right-of-action layer.
| State | Statute | Citation | Effective | Enforcement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Louisiana | Material Harmful to Minors Act | Act 440 (2022) | Jan 2023 | Civil; LA Wallet ID; first-mover |
| Texas | Adult Content Age Verification Act | HB 1181 | Sep 2023 | Civil; AG sole-source; SCOTUS-upheld 6/27/2025 |
| Utah | Online Pornography Viewing Age Verification | SB 287 | May 2023 | Civil; AG sole-source |
| Mississippi | Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act | HB 1126 | Jul 2023 | Civil; AG sole-source |
| Virginia | Pornography Accountability Act | SB 1515 | Jul 2023 | Civil; private right of action included |
| Arkansas | Social Media Safety / AV Act | Act 612 | Aug 2023 | Civil; partly enjoined re social media |
| Montana | Material Harmful to Minors Act | SB 544 | Jan 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| North Carolina | Pornography Age Verification Act | SB 49 | Jan 2024 | Civil; AG + private right of action |
| Idaho | Material Harmful to Minors | HB 498 | Jul 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Oklahoma | Online Material Harmful to Minors Act | SB 1959 | Nov 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Kentucky | Adult-content AV | HB 278 | Jul 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Indiana | Sexual Material Harmful to Minors | SEA 17 | Jul 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Kansas | Commercial Entities AV | SB 394 | Jul 2024 | Civil; AG + private right of action |
| Florida | Online Protection for Minors | HB 3 | Jan 2025 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Nebraska | Online AV | LB 1092 | Jul 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Alabama | Sexual Material Harmful to Minors | HB 164 | Oct 2024 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Georgia | Protecting Georgia's Children on Social Media | SB 351 | Jul 2025 | Civil; AG enforcement |
| Tennessee | Protect Tennessee Minors Act | HB 1614 | Jan 2025 | Civil; AG enforcement |
The pattern across the eighteen statutes is consistent enough to summarise: a one-third rule (the platform's duty triggers when more than one-third of content is sexual material harmful to minors), civil penalties in the $5,000–$10,000-per-day band, AG-led enforcement with variable private-right-of-action layers, and a verification standard that excludes self-declaration. The Free Speech Coalition's Age Verification Tracker maintains the live version of this map and is the source we re-verify against quarterly.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Texas?
Yes for adult use. Texas HB 1181, signed June 2023 and upheld by the US Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on June 27, 2025, requires age verification on any commercial site where more than one-third of content is sexual material harmful to minors. The duty falls on the platform; Texas adults using a compliant app face no penalty. Several major platforms have geo-blocked Texas rather than deploy ID verification.
HB 1181 is the statute that produced the defining ruling. The Texas Attorney General's office is the sole enforcer; civil penalties reach $10,000 per day plus up to $250,000 per minor-access incident. The 6-3 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on June 27, 2025 applied intermediate scrutiny rather than the strict-scrutiny framework that had governed Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), substantially lowering the constitutional bar for parallel state statutes.
Practical experience for Texas residents: certain mainstream adult platforms (most prominently Pornhub) withdrew from Texas rather than verify; AI companion operators have been more inclined to deploy Incode or comparable ID-verification flows and remain available. When you load an app from a Texas IP, you'll either see a working signup, an ID-upload step, or a polite withdrawal notice. None of those outcomes makes you the one breaking the law. The choice belongs to the operator.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Utah?
Yes for adult use. Utah SB 287, effective May 2023, requires sites with more than one-third sexual material harmful to minors to verify visitor age via digitised driver's licence, government-ID document upload, or a commercially reasonable equivalent. Utah was the second state to enact a statute of this kind. Civil penalties run to $10,000 per day. Some adult platforms have withdrawn from Utah; the legal product itself is not banned for adults.
SB 287 tracks the Louisiana template closely but adds a granular preference for digitised driver's licence and credentialed government ID. The Utah Attorney General is the sole enforcer. Utah lacks a meaningful private right of action; private litigation hasn't been the primary enforcement vector here. Adults using a compliant app from Utah face no penalty. Operators who refuse verification have geo-blocked the state; that's the operator's commercial choice, not a Utah-imposed user ban.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Louisiana?
Yes for adult use. Louisiana Act 440 of 2022 was the first-mover statute and remains in force. Verification runs through the LA Wallet digital ID app, a state-issued ID wallet linked to a driver's licence or REAL ID. Penalties include civil damages and an actual-damages floor. Adults using a compliant app face no criminal exposure; the operator carries the verification burden.
Act 440 opened the wave. The reliance on LA Wallet (a state-developed digital ID app) is the Louisiana-specific feature; other states accept a wider range of vendor-mediated verification methods. Louisiana's enforcement design includes both AG action and private remedies. The state has produced the longest practical track record of state-level adult-content age verification in the US and is the benchmark other states drafted against.
Is AI girlfriend legal in New York?
Yes for adult use. New York has no equivalent of Texas HB 1181 yet, but the state's SAFE for Kids Act and related companion-AI proposals filed in 2025 are tracking through the legislature. Adult use of mainstream AI girlfriend apps from New York is lawful as of May 2026. Watch the Free Speech Coalition tracker for status changes once the 2026 session closes.
New York is one of the largest US adult-content markets without an active age-verification statute on AI companion services as of May 2026. The legislative pressure is real (the SAFE for Kids Act regulates social media features for minors and related companion-AI bills have been filed in both chambers), but no statute reaching adult AI girlfriend platforms has been signed into law. Operators serving New York currently default to self-declaration age gates, the same baseline that's been the US norm since the late 1990s. If you live in NYC and use Candy.ai or any mainstream companion app today, you're on the same legal footing as a user in California. Federal § 1466A is the only criminal floor.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Florida?
Yes for adult use. Florida HB 3, effective January 2025, requires age verification on commercial sites where more than 33.3% of content is harmful to minors. The statute survived an early constitutional challenge in 2024 and now governs operator behaviour. Adults are not penalised for using compliant apps; platforms that fail to verify face civil enforcement by the Florida Attorney General.
HB 3 combines a social-media minor-protection regime with the standard adult-content one-third-content age-verification duty. Civil penalties reach $50,000 per violation under the social-media provisions and the standard $10,000-per-day band under the adult-content provisions. The Attorney General's office is the primary enforcer. Florida is also where the Paxton holding has informed the most recent state defences against constitutional challenge.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Mississippi?
Yes for adult use. Mississippi's Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act (HB 1126), effective July 2023, imposes the now-standard one-third-content age-verification duty plus a parental-consent regime for some social services. Penalties reach $10,000 per day per violation. As elsewhere, the duty falls on the operator. Some platforms geo-block Mississippi rather than deploy ID verification.
HB 1126 is named after a Mississippi teenager whose death by sextortion was the public-record catalyst for the bill. The statute layers a parental-consent regime over the adult-content age-verification mandate. The state's enforcement design is AG-led; the AG has been an active member of the multi-state coalition that filed briefs in Paxton.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Virginia?
Yes for adult use. Virginia SB 1515, the Pornography Accountability Act, took effect July 2023 and tracks the one-third-content threshold. Enforcement runs through a private right of action plus AG involvement. The Virginia Attorney General has been active in adult-platform enforcement. Adults using compliant apps are not penalised.
SB 1515 is one of the few state statutes in the wave that includes a meaningful private right of action; the practical effect has been that class-action plaintiffs' firms in Virginia have brought several non-compliance suits in parallel with the Attorney General's office. For an operator weighing geo-block versus verification deployment in Virginia, the litigation calculus is heavier than in AG-sole-source states.
Does the Supreme Court ruling on Texas HB 1181 apply to other states?
Functionally yes. The 6-3 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on June 27, 2025 applied intermediate scrutiny and rejected the strict-scrutiny framework of Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004). That holding green-lights the parallel state statutes in Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, and the rest of the eighteen. New state bills filed in 2026 are now constitutionally more defensible than they were before Paxton.
The Paxton opinion is the central adult-platform ruling of the decade. The Court held that age-verification statutes burden expression incidentally rather than directly, justifying intermediate rather than strict scrutiny. The majority distinguished Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004) as resting on a different statutory architecture and on the technological state of 2004. Practical effect: state Attorneys General defending parallel statutes now operate from a stronger constitutional base, and operators challenging new statutes face a steeper climb. The 2026 legislative session has produced new bills in roughly a dozen additional states tracking the Texas template; whether all enact depends on session calendars and gubernatorial priorities.
What federal laws apply to AI girlfriends in every state?
Three federal frameworks bind every US operator regardless of state. 18 USC § 1466A criminalises obscene AI-generated representations of the sexual abuse of children with up to 30 years imprisonment. 18 USC § 2257 imposes record-keeping for performers in sexually explicit content. The FTC's amended Negative Option Rule (click-to-cancel, October 2024) governs subscription cancellation. Section 230 immunity is narrower than commonly assumed and does not cover § 1466A or platform-authored AI output.
The federal floor is uniform across the fifty states. The four hard rules:
- 18 USC § 1466A is the absolute red line. The statute criminalises obscene visual representations of minors in any form, including drawn, sculpted, computer-generated, and AI-generated. Production carries up to 30 years; receipt or distribution a 5-year mandatory minimum. The statute applies regardless of whether any real child was harmed. No adult, operator, or state can opt out of this rule.
- 18 USC § 2257 requires record-keeping for performers in sexually explicit material. Originally drafted for camera-captured content; whether and how it applies to fully-synthetic AI-generated content is currently the subject of regulatory rulemaking and academic debate. The conservative compliance posture is to treat any platform with cam-style or model-uploaded content as in-scope.
- FTC Negative Option Rule (click-to-cancel), finalised October 2024. Requires that any subscription cancellation method be at least as easy as the signup method. Took effect in stages through 2025. Violations expose operators to civil penalties up to $51,744 per violation as of 2025.
- 47 USC § 230, Section 230. Provides limited immunity for third-party user-generated content. Does not shield operators from § 1466A, intellectual-property claims, FOSTA-SESTA sex-trafficking exposure, or platform-authored output. Anderson v. TikTok (3rd Cir. 2024) narrowed § 230 further by limiting its application to algorithmic curation choices.
Can an adult be charged for using a legal AI girlfriend app?
No, not for ordinary use of a compliant mainstream app. The duty under state age-verification statutes binds the platform, not the visitor. Civil penalties target operators. Adults remain criminally liable for one universal red line: requesting, generating, or storing AI-generated content involving minors, which is a federal felony under 18 USC § 1466A regardless of state.
The distinction matters because it's the question every reader asks first. State age-verification statutes are operator-side regulation: the platform must verify your age before serving adult content. The reader walks through the gate, completes the verification, uses the service. There's no statutory mechanism by which the adult resident of Texas, Utah, Louisiana, or any other AV state acquires criminal exposure by ordinary lawful use. The single universal red line that does cross state lines is 18 USC § 1466A, and § 1466A turns on the content (any AI-generated representation of minors), not on which state the user is sitting in.
The two real risks adults face are commercial rather than criminal: subscription dark patterns (now reachable under the FTC click-to-cancel rule and state UDAP statutes) and privacy harms when an operator suffers a breach. Neither risk turns on which state you reside in; both turn on which platform you trust with your data and payment information. Most reviewers in this space won't tell you that the legal risk is overwhelmingly carried by the operator. We will.
What about the EU and the UK?
AI girlfriend apps are legal for adults across the EU and UK with substantial regulatory overlay. The UK Online Safety Act 2023 requires highly effective age assurance on adult services, with fines up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue. The EU AI Act Article 50 (application August 2026) mandates AI-interaction disclosure. The EU DSA imposes proportionate minor-protection measures. Operators face the perimeter; adult users are not penalised for use.
The non-US horizon matters because the regulatory architecture is converging. The UK Online Safety Act 2023 requires "highly effective age assurance" excluding self-declaration. Most AI companion operators serving the UK have integrated third-party verification providers (Yoti, Persona, VerifyMy, Incode). The EU Digital Services Act layers Article 28 minor-protection duties over the same operators. The EU AI Act Article 50 (application August 2026) requires the platform to disclose to users that they're interacting with an AI and to machine-readably label AI-generated audiovisual content. None of these is a ban; all of them are operator perimeter that mainstream platforms have adapted to. Our legal pillar walks through each in detail.
For Canadian readers, Bill S-210 tracks a parallel age-verification regime; Quebec Law 25 adds GDPR-grade privacy duties. For Australian readers, the eSafety Commissioner enforces under the Online Safety Act 2021 with civil penalties up to AUD $782,500 per contravention.
Where can I find authoritative state-by-state updates?
The Free Speech Coalition's Age Verification Tracker maintains a live state-by-state status map, including pending bills. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's legislative tracker covers age-verification, platform liability, and AI-content statutes. State Attorney General websites publish enforcement actions. We re-verify our state list quarterly and the next refresh is logged in our update log below.
The four sources we recommend for live state-by-state tracking:
- Free Speech Coalition, Age Verification Tracker, the canonical live map of enacted and pending state statutes.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Speech tracker, broader coverage including platform-liability and AI-content statutes; useful for catching adjacent bills that affect AI girlfriend platforms.
- State Attorney General press pages: most enforcement actions are announced via AG press releases first.
- Ballotpedia's state age-verification bills index: useful neutral aggregation of bill status and constitutional-challenge filings.
We re-verify our state list at the close of each US legislative session quarter; the next refresh date is logged in the update log at the foot of this page.
When this page does not apply
This page covers US state law for adult AI girlfriend platforms as of May 2026. It does not cover: minor users (always illegal regardless of state, see our minor-protection pillar), AI-generated content involving minors (a federal felony under § 1466A everywhere), commercial operators evaluating compliance design (consult a qualified regulatory attorney), or readers in jurisdictions outside the US (see our legal pillar for EU/UK/Canada/Australia coverage).
The state-by-state landscape changes faster than any annual editorial cycle can track. We re-verify quarterly; readers depending on the page for compliance decisions should treat it as a starting point and consult a qualified attorney for the specific question they face.
Sources
- [Source: 18 USC § 1466A, Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: 18 USC § 2257, Record-keeping requirements · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: 47 USC § 230, Communications Decency Act safe harbor · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (US Supreme Court, 2025) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Miller v. California (US Supreme Court, 1973) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (US Supreme Court, 2004) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (US Supreme Court, 2002) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: FTC Negative Option Rule (final 2024) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: UK Online Safety Act 2023 · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: EU Digital Services Act (Regulation 2022/2065) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Canadian Bill S-210 · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: eSafety Commissioner (Australia) · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Free Speech Coalition, Age Verification Bill Tracker · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Speech tracker · verified 2026-05-26]
- [Source: LA Wallet, Louisiana digital ID · verified 2026-05-26]
Cite this page
Joly, A. (2026). Is AI girlfriend illegal? US state-by-state legal guide. bestgirlfriend.ai. Retrieved from https://bestgirlfriend.ai/safety/is-ai-girlfriend-illegal-state-by-state
Frequently asked questions
Is AI girlfriend illegal anywhere in the United States?
No US state bans AI girlfriend apps outright for adult use. AI girlfriend platforms are legal for adults nationwide. The compliance burden sits on operators: 18 states impose age-verification duties on commercial sites publishing sexual material harmful to minors, and 18 USC § 1466A forbids AI-generated depictions of minors. Adults using compliant mainstream apps face no criminal exposure.
Which states require age verification for adult AI sites?
Eighteen states as of May 2026: Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, North Carolina, Idaho, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas, Florida, Nebraska, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. Civil penalties reach $10,000 per day per violation. The duty binds the platform publishing the content, not the editorial comparator that links to it.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Texas?
Yes for adult use. Texas HB 1181, signed June 2023 and upheld by the US Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on June 27, 2025, requires age verification on any commercial site where more than one-third of content is sexual material harmful to minors. The duty falls on the platform; Texas adults using a compliant app face no penalty. Several major platforms have geo-blocked Texas rather than deploy ID verification.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Utah?
Yes for adult use. Utah SB 287, effective May 2023, requires sites with more than one-third sexual material harmful to minors to verify visitor age via digitised driver's licence, government-ID document upload, or a commercially reasonable equivalent. Utah was the second state to enact a statute of this kind. Civil penalties run to $10,000 per day. Some adult platforms have withdrawn from Utah; the legal product itself is not banned for adults.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Louisiana?
Yes for adult use. Louisiana Act 440 of 2022 was the first-mover statute and remains in force. Verification runs through the LA Wallet digital ID app, a state-issued ID wallet linked to a driver's licence or REAL ID. Penalties include civil damages and an actual-damages floor. Adults using a compliant app face no criminal exposure; the operator carries the verification burden.
Is AI girlfriend legal in New York?
Yes for adult use. New York has no equivalent of Texas HB 1181 yet, but the state's SAFE for Kids Act and related companion-AI proposals filed in 2025 are tracking through the legislature. Adult use of mainstream AI girlfriend apps from New York is lawful as of May 2026. Watch the Free Speech Coalition tracker for status changes once the 2026 session closes.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Florida?
Yes for adult use. Florida HB 3, effective January 2025, requires age verification on commercial sites where more than 33.3% of content is harmful to minors. The statute survived an early constitutional challenge in 2024 and now governs operator behaviour. Adults are not penalised for using compliant apps; platforms that fail to verify face civil enforcement by the Florida Attorney General.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Mississippi?
Yes for adult use. Mississippi's Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act (HB 1126), effective July 2023, imposes the now-standard one-third-content age-verification duty plus a parental-consent regime for some social services. Penalties reach $10,000 per day per violation. As elsewhere, the duty falls on the operator. Some platforms geo-block Mississippi rather than deploy ID verification.
Is AI girlfriend legal in Virginia?
Yes for adult use. Virginia SB 1515, the Pornography Accountability Act, took effect July 2023 and tracks the one-third-content threshold. Enforcement runs through a private right of action plus AG involvement. The Virginia Attorney General has been active in adult-platform enforcement. Adults using compliant apps are not penalised.
Does the Supreme Court ruling on Texas HB 1181 apply to other states?
Functionally yes. The 6-3 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton on June 27, 2025 applied intermediate scrutiny and rejected the strict-scrutiny framework of Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004). That holding green-lights the parallel state statutes in Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, and the rest of the eighteen. New state bills filed in 2026 are now constitutionally more defensible than they were before Paxton.
What federal laws apply to AI girlfriends in every state?
Three federal frameworks bind every US operator regardless of state. 18 USC § 1466A criminalises obscene AI-generated representations of the sexual abuse of children with up to 30 years imprisonment. 18 USC § 2257 imposes record-keeping for performers in sexually explicit content. The FTC's amended Negative Option Rule (click-to-cancel, October 2024) governs subscription cancellation. Section 230 immunity is narrower than commonly assumed and does not cover § 1466A or platform-authored AI output.
Can an adult be charged for using a legal AI girlfriend app?
No, not for ordinary use of a compliant mainstream app. The duty under state age-verification statutes binds the platform, not the visitor. Civil penalties target operators. Adults remain criminally liable for one universal red line: requesting, generating, or storing AI-generated content involving minors, which is a federal felony under 18 USC § 1466A regardless of state.
What about the EU and the UK?
AI girlfriend apps are legal for adults across the EU and UK with substantial regulatory overlay. The UK Online Safety Act 2023 requires highly effective age assurance on adult services, with fines up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue. The EU AI Act Article 50 (application August 2026) mandates AI-interaction disclosure. The EU DSA imposes proportionate minor-protection measures. Operators face the perimeter; adult users are not penalised for use.
Where can I find authoritative state-by-state updates?
The Free Speech Coalition's Age Verification Tracker maintains a live state-by-state status map, including pending bills. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's legislative tracker covers age-verification, platform liability, and AI-content statutes. State Attorney General websites publish enforcement actions. We re-verify our state list quarterly and the next refresh is logged in our update log below.
Related reading
Parent guide: AI Companion Legal & Jurisdictional Guide, the topic-pillar covering federal § 1466A, EU DSA, EU AI Act, UK OSA, Canadian Bill S-210, Australian eSafety.
Related safety reading: Are AI Companions Safe? • AI Companion Privacy & Data • AI Companion Minor Protection • AI CSAM Laws Explained.
Operator practice: Editorial methodology • Affiliate disclosure • Errata log.
Last verified 2026 · See errata log for any post-publish corrections · Editor: Alexandra Joly · Methodology · Editorial process · Affiliate disclosure
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