On March 21, 2026, Utah enacted Senate Bill 73, imposing a 2% excise tax on online pornography — making it only the second state in the nation to directly tax adult content businesses. The law earmarks 90% of proceeds for mental health treatment, outreach, and educational programs addressing minors' exposure to harmful online material, with the remaining 10% funding enforcement.

Why It Matters

Utah's two-pronged approach — taxing adult content while simultaneously strengthening age verification enforcement — creates a template other conservative states are likely to follow. The AI-powered compliance monitoring is particularly notable as a first-of-its-kind enforcement mechanism. For adult platforms, the calculus is shifting: Aylo already chose to block Australia and multiple US states rather than implement age verification. As more states add financial penalties to access restrictions, the geographic patchwork of blocked content could expand significantly. The ironic juxtaposition with Salt Lake City's high OnlyFans spending underscores the gap between public policy and private behavior.

The legislation supplements Utah's existing 2023 age verification requirements, which companies had largely ignored. SB73 adds real teeth: fines of up to $2,500 per age verification violation, escalating to $5,000 if a company violates a court order. The Division of Consumer Protection will maintain a list of websites where at least one-third of content is pornographic, and regulators will deploy AI analysis alongside the Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to monitor compliance. Notably, the law specifies that VPN use is not an acceptable excuse for allowing minors access.

The move follows the Supreme Court's June 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which upheld Texas's age verification law and emboldened states across the country to pass similar measures. Utah has positioned itself at the vanguard of the regulatory push, coupling financial penalties with the kind of enforcement infrastructure that could force platform compliance where prior laws failed.

Adding a layer of irony: a March 22, 2026 spending analysis found Salt Lake City ranks third nationally for per-capita OnlyFans spending at $412,038 per 10,000 people annually, trailing only Atlanta and Orlando.

Sources

Update — 2026-03-23

Initial entry — story first created.

Update — 2026-05-07

The VPN-targeting provision of SB 73 took effect Wednesday, May 6, 2026, making Utah the first U.S. state to hold adult websites liable for users who access content via VPNs from Utah-based IP addresses. The provision amended Utah Code § 78B-3-1002 to define a user as "physically located in Utah" regardless of any VPN, proxy, or geolocation-masking technology, and prohibits covered websites from facilitating, encouraging, or instructing users on how to use a VPN to bypass age verification. Violations carry the same $2,500–$5,000 per-violation civil penalties as the underlying age-verification statute.

Aylo Freesites Ltd and Aylo Group Ltd — the parent of Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube — sued Utah officials in federal court (Aylo Freesites Ltd et al v. Utah Division of Consumer Protection et al, 2:26-cv-00340, U.S. District Court for the District of Utah) on April 22, 2026, filing a simultaneous motion for preliminary injunction. EFF, NordVPN, and the Free Speech Coalition publicly opposed the law in the days leading up to enforcement. EFF called the VPN provision "a liability trap" that effectively forces websites to implement global age verification or block all known VPN IP addresses to remain compliant.

The Utah law arrives the same week Apple's iOS 26.4 device-level age verification rolled out via the Aylo UK partial unblock, and represents the opposite policy lever — site-level liability versus device-level attestation — in the same age verification debate.

New Sources

Update — 2026-05-27

Aylo is taking this to trial — or at least to injunction. On May 13, 2026, the Pornhub parent company filed a motion for preliminary injunction in federal court (Aylo Freesites Ltd et al v. Utah Division of Consumer Protection et al, 2:26-cv-00340, U.S. District Court for the District of Utah), arguing the VPN provision is unconstitutional because it effectively requires global age verification for all users to account for the possibility that any Utahn might be using a VPN. The company argues Utah is attempting to legislate beyond its borders, and compliance would require verifying the ages or locations of every user worldwide — effectively making Utah law the law of the land globally.

The constitutional challenge centers on two claims: (1) the Commerce Clause prohibits states from regulating commerce outside their borders, and (2) the law creates an impossible compliance standard. EFF and NordVPN have publicly opposed the law, with EFF calling the VPN provision "a liability trap." In a practical concession, Utah and Aylo agreed to delay enforcement of the VPN-specific provisions until September 3, 2026, giving the court time to rule on the preliminary injunction before penalties kick in. The underlying age verification requirements (non-VPN) remain in force.

Meanwhile, Pornhub has now blocked access in 23 states — with Missouri becoming the latest after its age verification bill headed to the governor on May 13. Louisiana remains the only state where Pornhub allows age-verified access.

New Sources