Advertising to Minors 2026: State Age-Verification Rules

Quick Answer

By 2026, advertising to minors in the United States is governed by a fast-growing patchwork of state laws rather than a single federal standard, and the common thread is restricting or banning targeted advertising to known minors plus pushing platforms toward age verification. Texas's SCOPE Act (Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment), effective September 1, 2024, requires covered digital services to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting a known minor's personal data and prohibits targeted advertising directed at minors, though a Texas federal court enjoined parts of it on First Amendment grounds in February 2025 and a separate Texas app-store age-verification law was blocked by a federal court in December 2025. Oregon's HB 2008, effective January 1, 2026, bans targeted advertising where the controller has actual knowledge or willfully disregards that a consumer is between 13 and 15. Other states have enacted similar kids' privacy and age-assurance rules, and the advocacy group NetChoice has challenged many of them — including Louisiana's Act 456 — arguing they violate the First Amendment, producing a landscape where laws are passed, partially enjoined, appealed and amended in overlapping cycles. For advertisers the practical reality is that you cannot rely on any single law being struck down, because even where one provision is enjoined others remain, federal COPPA still governs under-13 data, and platforms are independently tightening teen protections. The durable posture is to avoid intentionally targeting minors, configure campaigns to exclude under-18 audiences where targeting is restricted, treat 'actual knowledge or willful disregard' as a real standard by not building audiences you know skew to teens, lean on contextual rather than behavioral targeting for teen-adjacent products, and document your age-targeting decisions. Review US obligations in the US advertising compliance guide, check exposure with the Legal Compliance Scan, and track new state laws on the Policy Change Tracker.

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Advertising to Minors in 2026: How State Age-Verification and Targeted-Ad Bans Reshape Social Campaigns

The 2026 State Patchwork on Minors and Ads

By 2026, advertising to minors in the United States is governed by a fast-growing patchwork of state laws rather than a single federal standard. The common thread is restricting or banning targeted advertising to known minors, paired with pressure on platforms to verify age. There is no one rule to follow — there is a map to track.

Texas's SCOPE Act, effective September 1, 2024, prohibits targeted advertising to known minors and requires verifiable parental consent for collecting their data. Oregon's HB 2008, effective January 1, 2026, bans targeted advertising to 13-15 year olds on a knowledge standard. Other states have added kids' privacy provisions, and much of this is in active litigation.

In substance, the Texas SCOPE Act requires verifiable parental consent before collecting a known minor's data and restricts targeted advertising directed at known minors.

This guide maps which laws restrict targeting minors, what the First Amendment litigation does and does not change, what breaks for advertisers, and how to design teen-adjacent campaigns defensibly. Review US obligations in the US advertising compliance guide and track new laws on the Policy Change Tracker.

Which State Laws Restrict Targeting Minors

The exact thresholds differ by statute, which is the core compliance challenge — a setup that is fine in one state can be restricted in another.

Representative State Rules

Law	Effective	Core Restriction
Texas SCOPE Act	Sep 1, 2024	No targeted advertising to known minors (under 18); verifiable parental consent for data
Oregon HB 2008	Jan 1, 2026	No targeted advertising to 13-15 year olds on actual-knowledge / willful-disregard standard
Louisiana Act 456	Enacted (challenged)	Age verification of account holders; targeted-advertising ban for minors
Federal COPPA	In force	Verifiable parental consent for under-13 data; nationwide floor

Definitions of "targeted advertising," "minor" and "actual knowledge" vary, so the practical approach is to design to the strictest applicable standard for the audiences you reach. Check which of your audiences could capture minors with the Legal Compliance Scan.

The First Amendment Fight and What It Means

These laws raise First Amendment questions, and the advocacy group NetChoice has challenged many of them. But the litigation creates uncertainty, not safe harbor.

Why You Cannot Rely on Injunctions

Injunctions are partial: Courts often enjoin speech-restricting provisions while leaving data and parental-consent duties intact.
They are jurisdiction-specific: A ruling in one state does not erase parallel laws elsewhere.
They are appealable: Rulings can be narrowed, reversed or mooted by amended statutes.
COPPA persists: Federal under-13 protections continue regardless of any state-law injunction.

A Texas court enjoined parts of the SCOPE Act in February 2025, and a Texas app-store age-verification law was blocked in December 2025 — yet neither clears advertisers to behaviorally target minors. Building strategy on a law staying blocked is fragile. Track the shifting status on the Policy Change Tracker.

What Breaks for Advertisers Reaching Teens

The restrictions concentrate on behavioral targeting of minors, while contextual advertising tied to content is treated very differently.

Where Campaigns Are Exposed

Behavioral audiences: Interest, custom and lookalike audiences that capture known minors are the primary exposure under SCOPE-style laws.
Young-skewing placements: Content categories, creators and interests that predictably skew to teens raise willful-disregard risk under knowledge-based laws like HB 2008.
Data collection: Collecting minors' personal data without verifiable parental consent breaches both COPPA and state rules.
Age-restricted products: Adult-oriented or age-restricted offers must exclude under-18 audiences, not merely avoid naming them.

Contextual targeting — ads matched to content rather than to a minor's tracked behavior — remains the safer path for teen-adjacent products. Screen creative aimed at younger demographics with the AI Compliance Audit, and review platform rules in the Meta ad policies guide.

A Compliant Approach to Teen-Adjacent Campaigns

The resilient strategy is to comply with the strictest applicable standard for the audiences you actually reach, so you are covered regardless of how litigation resolves.

Five Practical Steps

1. Exclude under-18 where appropriate: Use platform age-exclusion controls and prefer 18+ targeting for age-restricted products.
2. Prefer contextual over behavioral: For teen-adjacent products, match ads to content rather than profiling individuals.
3. Scrutinize young-skewing audiences: Avoid pushing behavioral ads into interests, creators or placements that predictably skew to younger teens.
4. Honor COPPA for under-13: Treat under-13 data as off-limits without verifiable parental consent.
5. Document diligence: Keep records of targeting settings, age exclusions and audience rationale to show reasonable care under knowledge-based laws.

The aim is to move from "we didn't mean to" to "we took reasonable, documented steps not to target or knowingly reach minors." Map exposure with the Legal Compliance Scan and define key terms in the compliance glossary.

Minor-Targeting Compliance Checklist

[ ] Strictest applicable state standard identified for every audience you reach
[ ] Under-18 audiences excluded from behavioral campaigns where required
[ ] 18+ targeting enforced for age-restricted and adult-oriented products
[ ] Contextual targeting used in place of behavioral profiling for teen-adjacent products
[ ] Young-skewing interests, creators and placements reviewed for willful-disregard risk
[ ] No collection of under-13 data without COPPA-grade verifiable parental consent
[ ] Oregon HB 2008 13-15 band excluded from targeted advertising
[ ] Texas SCOPE "known minor" exposure assessed for behavioral targeting
[ ] Targeting settings, age exclusions and rationale documented
[ ] New and amended state laws tracked; baseline updated on change

Check exposure with the Legal Compliance Scan, ground your baseline in the US advertising compliance guide, and track developments on the Policy Change Tracker.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which states currently restrict targeted advertising to minors in 2026?

By 2026, a growing set of US states restrict targeted advertising to minors, and because there is no single federal targeted-advertising-to-teens statute, advertisers face a patchwork that must be tracked state by state. The most prominent example is Texas, whose SCOPE Act took effect on September 1, 2024 and prohibits covered digital services from displaying targeted advertising to known minors, alongside requiring verifiable parental consent before collecting a known minor's personal data. Oregon added to the patchwork with HB 2008, effective January 1, 2026, which bans targeted advertising where the controller has actual knowledge of, or willfully disregards, that a consumer is between 13 and 15 years old — notably tying the restriction to a knowledge standard rather than requiring blanket age verification of everyone. Beyond these, a number of states have enacted kids' and teens' privacy provisions within broader consumer-privacy laws or standalone age-assurance statutes, many of which include limits on profiling minors for advertising, restrictions on selling minors' data, and data-minimization duties for minors' information. The exact thresholds differ: some laws focus on under-13, some on under-16, some on the 13-15 band, and some on all minors under 18, and the definitions of 'targeted advertising,' 'minor' and 'actual knowledge' vary by statute. This variation is the core compliance challenge — a campaign setup that is fine in one state can be restricted in another. Because the list is actively expanding and several laws are in litigation, advertisers should not treat any snapshot as final; the practical approach is to design campaigns to the strictest applicable standard for the audiences you reach and to monitor for new enactments. Track new and amended state laws on the Policy Change Tracker, and review the federal-plus-state picture in the US advertising compliance guide. The organizing principle is that multiple states — led by Texas's SCOPE Act and Oregon's HB 2008 — now restrict targeted advertising to minors, with varying thresholds, so advertisers must track a state-by-state patchwork.

Does the Texas SCOPE Act ban all advertising to teenagers?

No — the SCOPE Act does not ban all advertising to teenagers; it restricts targeted advertising to known minors and imposes data and parental-consent duties, and understanding that distinction is essential to compliant campaign design. The SCOPE Act, effective September 1, 2024, applies to digital service providers and is built around protecting 'known minors' — users the service knows or should know are under 18. Its core advertising restriction is on targeted advertising directed at those known minors, meaning advertising selected based on the minor's personal data, browsing or profile rather than contextual advertising tied to the content being viewed. It also requires verifiable parental consent before collecting, using or sharing a known minor's personal data, and imposes duties to limit data collection and to give parents tools to manage their child's experience. What it does not do is prohibit a minor from ever seeing an ad: contextual advertising — ads matched to the content or context rather than to the individual's tracked behavior — is treated very differently from behavioral targeting that profiles the minor. For advertisers, the practical implications are that you should not build or run audience-based, behaviorally targeted campaigns aimed at users known to be minors in Texas, and you should be cautious with lookalike or interest-based audiences that could capture known minors. It is worth noting that the SCOPE Act has been subject to litigation: a Texas federal court enjoined parts of it on First Amendment grounds in February 2025, and a separate Texas app-store age-verification law was blocked by a federal court in December 2025. Those rulings affect specific provisions and do not give advertisers a green light to target minors, both because portions of the regime remain operative and because other states and federal COPPA independently restrict minors' data use. The defensible reading is that contextual advertising remains available while behavioral targeting of known minors is what the law restricts. Assess where your campaigns might capture minors with the Legal Compliance Scan, and review platform-level rules in the Meta ad policies guide. The organizing principle is that the SCOPE Act restricts behavioral targeting of known minors and imposes data and consent duties, not a blanket ban on all advertising teens might see.

How does Oregon's HB 2008 change targeting for 13-15 year olds?

Oregon's HB 2008, effective January 1, 2026, sharpens the rules for the 13-15 age band by banning targeted advertising where the controller has actual knowledge or willfully disregards that a consumer is between 13 and 15, and that 'knowledge or willful disregard' standard is what makes it operationally important for advertisers. Unlike a law that requires verifying everyone's age, HB 2008 ties its restriction to what the controller knows or deliberately ignores. That means an advertiser or platform cannot escape the rule by avoiding age checks while continuing to serve targeted ads to audiences it has good reason to believe include 13-15 year olds. The phrase 'willfully disregards' is designed to prevent willful blindness: if the signals strongly suggest a user is in that age band — for example, self-reported age, age-gated content, or audience characteristics that clearly skew to younger teens — choosing not to act on that knowledge does not provide a defense. For advertisers, the practical consequences are concrete. First, do not deliberately build audiences that target 13-15 year olds in Oregon, and use available controls to exclude that age band from behavioral targeting. Second, be careful with interest categories, content placements and lookalike audiences that predictably skew to younger teens, because serving targeted ads into them despite that knowledge is exactly what the statute reaches. Third, recognize that the knowledge standard puts a premium on what your campaign signals reveal: if your own setup demonstrates you knew or should have known the audience included 13-15 year olds, that record cuts against you. The broader lesson is that knowledge-based standards are becoming common in kids' privacy law, so the safe design is to avoid configurations that put you in a position of knowing you are targeting young teens. Map which of your audiences could fall into this band with the Legal Compliance Scan, and track related state enactments on the Policy Change Tracker. The organizing principle is that HB 2008 bans targeted advertising to 13-15 year olds on an actual-knowledge-or-willful-disregard standard, so advertisers must avoid setups that target or predictably reach that age band.

Why do courts keep blocking these laws, and can advertisers rely on that?

Courts keep partially blocking state minors' laws primarily on First Amendment grounds, but advertisers cannot treat those rulings as a reason to ignore the rules, because injunctions are typically partial, jurisdiction-specific, subject to appeal, and surrounded by other laws that remain in force. The recurring legal theme is that laws regulating minors' access to social media and restricting certain speech-related practices raise First Amendment questions, and the advocacy group NetChoice — which represents major internet and social-media companies — has challenged many of them. NetChoice secured an injunction against parts of the Texas SCOPE Act in February 2025, challenged Louisiana's Act 456 in March 2025 over its age-verification and targeted-advertising-ban requirements, and has filed a variety of challenges to other state kids' privacy laws; a Texas app-store age-verification law was separately blocked in December 2025. From a distance this can look like the laws are being uniformly struck down, but that impression is misleading for several reasons. First, courts often enjoin specific provisions — frequently the content-moderation or speech-restricting parts — while leaving data-protection and parental-consent provisions intact, so a partial injunction rarely clears advertisers to behaviorally target minors. Second, injunctions apply in particular jurisdictions and to particular defendants, and do not erase parallel laws in other states. Third, these rulings are appealed and can be narrowed, reversed or mooted by amended statutes, so the legal status can change again. Fourth, federal COPPA continues to govern the collection of personal data from children under 13 regardless of any state-law injunction. For advertisers, the prudent reading is that the litigation creates uncertainty, not safe harbor: building a campaign strategy on the assumption that a given law will stay blocked is fragile, because the very next ruling, appeal or new statute can change the answer. The resilient approach is to comply with the strictest applicable standard for the audiences you actually reach, so you are covered regardless of how the litigation resolves. Track the shifting status of these laws on the Policy Change Tracker, and ground your baseline in the US advertising compliance guide. The organizing principle is that injunctions are partial, local and appealable while other laws and COPPA persist, so advertisers cannot rely on litigation to excuse targeting minors.

What should advertisers do if they don't intentionally target minors but still reach them?

Advertisers who do not intend to target minors but whose campaigns still reach them should focus on demonstrable diligence — using available age controls, avoiding configurations that predictably capture minors, and documenting their choices — because several of the new laws turn on knowledge and reasonable care rather than pure intent. Incidental reach of minors is common: broad-interest campaigns, popular content placements and lookalike audiences can all sweep in teen users even when the product is aimed at adults. The laws respond to this in different ways. Knowledge-based statutes like Oregon's HB 2008 reach 'actual knowledge or willful disregard,' which means the question is not only whether you meant to target minors but whether you knew or deliberately ignored that you were reaching them. Texas's SCOPE Act centers on 'known minors,' again tying duties to what the service knows. The practical implication is that good-faith advertisers should take concrete steps to reduce both actual targeting and the appearance of willful disregard. First, use platform age-exclusion controls to remove under-18 audiences from behavioral campaigns wherever the product or jurisdiction makes that appropriate, and prefer 18+ targeting for age-restricted or adult-oriented products. Second, favor contextual targeting over behavioral profiling for anything teen-adjacent, since contextual ads tied to content are treated very differently from ads built on a minor's personal data. Third, scrutinize audiences that predictably skew young — certain interests, creators or content categories — and avoid pushing behavioral ads into them. Fourth, keep records: document your targeting settings, age exclusions and the rationale for your audience choices, so you can show diligence if questioned. Fifth, monitor platform tools, since the major platforms are independently restricting teen ad targeting and adding youth protections that change what is even possible to configure. The goal is to move from 'we didn't mean to' to 'we took reasonable, documented steps not to target or knowingly reach minors,' which is a far stronger position under knowledge-based laws. Assess which audiences could capture minors with the Legal Compliance Scan, and screen creative aimed at younger demographics with the AI Compliance Audit. The organizing principle is that good-faith advertisers should use age exclusions, prefer contextual targeting, avoid audiences that predictably skew young, and document diligence to meet knowledge-based standards.

How do federal COPPA rules interact with the new state laws?

Federal COPPA and the new state minors' laws operate as overlapping layers rather than alternatives, and advertisers must satisfy both because COPPA sets a nationwide floor for under-13 data while the state laws add further restrictions — often extending to older teens and to targeted advertising specifically. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act governs the online collection of personal information from children under 13 and requires verifiable parental consent before such data is collected, used or disclosed, with limits on how children's data can be used for advertising. It applies nationwide and is enforced by the FTC, and it is unaffected by state-law injunctions — so even when a court enjoins part of a state statute, COPPA's under-13 protections continue to bind. The state laws then build on top of this floor in two main ways. First, they frequently extend protections to older minors than COPPA covers: where COPPA stops at under-13, laws like Texas's SCOPE Act address known minors under 18 and Oregon's HB 2008 specifically addresses 13-15 year olds, capturing an age band COPPA does not. Second, several state laws restrict targeted or behavioral advertising to minors directly, an angle COPPA approaches more through its data-collection and consent framework than through an explicit targeted-advertising ban for teens. The combined effect for advertisers is a layered obligation: you must meet COPPA's verifiable-parental-consent and data-use limits for anything reaching under-13 audiences, and simultaneously meet the applicable state restrictions on targeting and data use for the broader minor population in the states that have them. Because the layers differ in scope and definitions, the workable strategy is to design to the strictest applicable combination for the audiences you reach — treat under-13 data as off-limits without COPPA-grade parental consent, avoid behavioral targeting of minors generally, and apply state-specific rules where they add requirements. This layered compliance also future-proofs against the expanding state patchwork, since a conservative baseline tends to satisfy new laws as they arrive. Ground your baseline in the US advertising compliance guide, and define terms like 'targeted advertising' and 'verifiable parental consent' in the compliance glossary. The organizing principle is that COPPA sets a nationwide under-13 floor while state laws add restrictions for older teens and targeting, so advertisers must satisfy both layers at once.

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#Kids & Teens#Age Verification#COPPA#Targeted Advertising#Data Privacy#Ad Compliance#Content Moderation#Compliance Guide 2026#2026 Policy#Advertisers#United States

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Advertising to Minors in 2026: How State Age-Verification and Targeted-Ad Bans Reshape Social Campaigns

The 2026 State Patchwork on Minors and Ads

Which State Laws Restrict Targeting Minors

Representative State Rules

The First Amendment Fight and What It Means

Why You Cannot Rely on Injunctions

What Breaks for Advertisers Reaching Teens

Where Campaigns Are Exposed

A Compliant Approach to Teen-Adjacent Campaigns

Five Practical Steps

Minor-Targeting Compliance Checklist

Frequently Asked Questions

Don't miss the next policy change.

Report Keywords — Run AI Compliance Audit

Share This Report

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