Virginia SB 1515 (Adult Content)
What it does
Virginia SB 1515 creates civil liability for any commercial site where more than a third of the content is harmful to minors that fails to verify a visitor is 18. Age is proved through a commercial database or another commercially reasonable method reading government ID. A person harmed sues for damages and attorney fees.
Why it matters
Virginia leaned entirely on private lawsuits, so the deterrent is the threat of being sued rather than a fine from Richmond. The result is the same for a user: an adult site that has to check ID is an adult site that can log who showed it.
Our take
Two years before SB 854 tried to age-gate social media, Virginia had already gated adult sites with SB 1515. The state built the porn-site checkpoint first, found it survived, and came back for the rest of the internet.
Votes
- Senate — Passed (37 to 3) · February 7, 2023
- House — Passed (96 to 0) · February 23, 2023
Timeline
- May 12, 2023Signed into law
- July 1, 2023Took effect
Our coverage: all age-verification stories · Status checked July 19, 2026