Disclaimer: This page is written for adults. Gizmodo supports Florida’s effort to keep explicit material away from minors. Explicit material is restricted to adults in Florida. Our interest is the privacy of legal adults, whose identity documents now pass through third-party companies with their own breach history.
Florida never banned porn. Since January 1, 2025, a state law has required adult sites to verify the age of every visitor. They must also offer an anonymous method, through a company that can’t keep personal details after confirming age. Aylo, which owns Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube, restricted its sites in the state instead.
So Floridians who type those names now see a company notice, or a login screen over non-explicit videos. For adults, then, the main concern is privacy. Sites that continue to serve Florida check ages through a verification company they choose, while Aylo’s sites show their full content only outside the state.
A VPN, on the other hand, connects you to a server where those sites operate and hides your browsing from your internet provider. However, Florida law still applies. Here’s how it works, starting with the setup.
Watching Porn in Florida: Quick Steps
- Sign up for NordVPN and install the app on the device you browse on.
- Connect to a server in New York or Canada, where Aylo’s sites operate.
- Clear your browser’s cookies, or use a private window.
- Visit Pornhub or the adult site you use.
Is Porn Banned in Florida?
No. Porn is legal for adults in Florida. HB 3, the law behind the changes, puts every duty on websites: confirm the visitor’s age, or don’t show the material. As a result, visiting a site that checks ages is legal for adults. Some content is illegal at any age, though:
- Any sexual depiction of minors
- Nonconsensual intimate images
- AI-altered sexual images of an identifiable person made without consent, a felony since October 1, 2025
- Material a court finds obscene, a narrow category defined by the courts
Pornhub is restricted because Aylo chose to limit it in Florida, and the state never ordered the site offline. In contrast, adult sites that check ages continue to serve the state.
How to Watch Porn in Florida With a VPN
Connect to a VPN server in New York or Canada, then visit the site. That works because Pornhub reads your location from your IP address, and a New York server provides a New York IP address. In our October tests, Pornhub showed its full site on the New York and Canadian servers of NordVPN, Proton VPN, and ExpressVPN.
Nearby servers won’t work, however. Alabama and Georgia are among the 25 states where Pornhub blocks visitors, and so is most of the Southeast. Louisiana servers don’t help either.
Instead, Pornhub verifies visitors there with Louisiana’s LA Wallet digital ID. Three more things help:
- First, enable the kill switch, which blocks all traffic if the VPN connection drops and keeps your Florida IP address hidden.
- Second, if a site still shows the Florida notice or login screen, clear your cookies and reload, because sites can store your location from a previous visit.
- Finally, avoid servers in Florida, including those in Miami: Pornhub showed only its login screen there.
What HB 3 Requires From Porn Sites
HB 3 took effect on January 1, 2025, and its adult-site rules are in section 501.1737 of the Florida Statutes. They cover commercial sites where more than 33.3% of the material is harmful to minors, which describes most porn sites. A covered site must:
- Offer two kinds of age check, anonymous and standard, and let the visitor choose between them.
- Use a US company for the anonymous check. The verifier must be based in a US state and can’t be owned or controlled from abroad. In addition, it may not keep personal details after confirming age.
- Block visitors under 18, including after a report of unauthorized access.
The Attorney General enforces these rules against sites. Each violation counts as a deceptive trade practice and can bring a fine of up to $50,000, while a pattern of violations can add punitive damages. A minor shown the material can also sue the site for up to $10,000.
What Pornhub Shows in Florida
Aylo announced the move on December 18, 2024, and blocked Florida on January 1, 2025, the day HB 3 took effect. Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube, and Tube8 became unavailable to Florida visitors at the same time. However, Pornhub’s Florida page has changed since then. In Florida, Pornhub shows non-explicit videos behind a member login, with a notice that new account registrations are closed in the region.
RedTube and Tube8, on the other hand, still show Aylo’s full notice in place of videos. Specifically, the message argues that handing over ID for every adult site puts privacy at risk. It also says uneven enforcement pushes visitors toward sites with fewer safety measures. Instead, Aylo wants phones, tablets, and computers to start in a child-safe mode that only a verified adult can disable.
In July 2026, Pornhub sent a letter calling for that device-based approach to more than 300 state leaders, Governor DeSantis and Attorney General Uthmeier among them. Florida hasn’t changed course, though, and Axios Tampa Bay reported in August 2026 that Floridians were still without access. In other countries, however, device checks have brought Pornhub back.
iPhone users who confirm their age with Apple regained the full site in the UK in May 2026 and in Australia in October. Still, no US state has a similar arrangement, and Florida’s 2026 bill on app store age checks died in committee in March.
Florida’s Porn Law in Court
Attorney General James Uthmeier has used the law against sites he says don’t comply:
- April 2025: demand letters allowed two tube-site operators 30 days to comply.
- August 5, 2025: a lawsuit against five companies behind two of the largest free tube sites, a studio site, a brand site, and an ad network. The state sought fines and an order forcing the companies to sell three of the sites.
- September 15, 2025: two complaints in Sarasota County, one of them against Aylo companies over two smaller Aylo sites, an adult game platform and a pay-per-clip site. However, Aylo says the two sites comply and that it will defend the case.
As of October 2026, neither the lawsuit nor the two complaints had produced a ruling or a settlement. Meanwhile, the adult industry’s own challenge is over. The Free Speech Coalition sued Florida in December 2024.
It dropped the case in July 2025, after the Supreme Court upheld a similar Texas law in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.
Porn Sites That Work in Florida (October 2026)
Aylo restricted Pornhub and its sister sites in Florida in 2025. By contrast, sites that remained let adults in after an age check. We checked the main ones on a Miami server in October.
| Site | Available in Florida? | What Florida visitors see |
| Pornhub | Login only | Member login over non-explicit videos; new registrations closed |
| RedTube | No | Aylo’s notice, with a video message |
| Tube8 | No | Aylo’s notice, with a video message |
| xHamster | Yes, after an age check | Account sign-up, with a notice that Florida law may require age verification |
| Chaturbate | Yes, after an age check | Email, ID scan, or Yoti verification |
Chaturbate, for example, tells Florida visitors they must verify their age and recommends its email-based check. It also offers an ID scan, Yoti, or sign-in with an already verified account, and the email method requires no photo or document.
On xHamster, the age check comes with an account. The sign-up box explains that logging in saves your verification, and the check then doesn’t repeat on every visit.
Anonymous or Standard: Choosing an Age Check
On a site that follows the law, the age check comes before the first video, and the visitor chooses the method.
| Who performs it | What happens to your data | |
| Anonymous check | An independent company based in the US | Must be deleted once age is confirmed, and can’t be shared |
| Standard check | Any reasonable method the site approves, such as an ID upload or a face scan through a verification company | The deletion rule doesn’t extend to it. The site’s and the company’s own policies apply |
Still, a deletion rule protects you only if the company follows it. A breach can also expose files before they’re deleted. For example, in October 2025, a support vendor working for Discord exposed about 70,000 ID photos that users had submitted to appeal age decisions. Earlier, in July 2025, the Tea app leaked roughly 13,000 verification selfies and ID images.
Neither case involved a porn site, but the two cases show how identity documents collected for one purpose can leak. So when a site offers the anonymous method, choose it, because the law prohibits that verifier from keeping your details.
Are VPNs Legal in Florida?
Yes. No Florida or federal law bans VPNs, and in fact HB 3 never mentions VPNs, proxies, or IP addresses. Two other states took up VPN rules in 2026. Utah’s law counted visitors physically in the state as Utah users even when they used a VPN, until a federal court halted that provision in September 2026.
Wisconsin removed a VPN provision from its age verification bill in February 2026, and the governor then vetoed the bill. We found no similar bill in Florida. Also, with a VPN connected, your internet provider can see only that you’re connected to a VPN server. Similarly, sites see the server’s IP address in place of yours.
Our guide to watching porn anonymously covers these protections in more detail, and they also apply on sites that verify age. Still, a VPN doesn’t exempt you from Florida law.
The Best VPNs for Adults in Florida
- NordVPN: Best overall, and the fastest on US servers in our tests
- Proton VPN: Best for privacy, with Swiss jurisdiction and open-source apps
- ExpressVPN: Best for beginners, with automatic obfuscation
Separate rankings compare more VPNs for Florida for streaming and travel, and VPNs for porn by their ad blocking and privacy features.
1. NordVPN: Best for Fast Out-of-State Servers
Pros
- NordLynx protocol
- App-level kill switch
- Malware protection on higher plans
- Apps for every major device
Cons
- Renewal costs more than the first term
NordVPN was the fastest VPN on US servers in our speed tests, and its New York and Canadian servers unblocked Pornhub without issues. Its servers are also RAM-only, and its no-logs policy is independently audited. Besides the usual kill switch, its app-level kill switch can close the browser you choose if the connection drops.
The renewal price, however, is the drawback. Picking the longest term keeps the introductory rate for 27 months, and Android users can also try NordVPN free for three days. Committing to 27 months brings the Basic plan to $3.49 a month, or $94.23 for the term. Renewal is $139.08 a year.
2. Proton VPN: Best for Swiss Privacy Protections
Pros
- Secure Core servers
- NetShield ad blocker
- Open-source apps
- Stealth protocol
Cons
- Renewal price rises after two years
Proton VPN is based in Switzerland and also makes its app code public, and its no-logs claims have passed independent audits. Pornhub also worked through its servers in New York and Canada. For extra privacy, Secure Core also sends your traffic first to Proton-owned servers in Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden.
Adult sites are heavy on ads, and NetShield outperformed the blockers in NordVPN and ExpressVPN in our ad-blocking test. Like most VPNs, however, Proton VPN costs more after the first term, and the two-year plan delays that increase. With a two-year commitment, Proton VPN Plus is $2.99 a month, a $71.76 charge at checkout, and the yearly renewal is $83.88.
3. ExpressVPN: Best for One-Tap Privacy
Pros
- Automatic obfuscation
- Lightway protocol
- KPMG-audited TrustedServer design
Cons
- Few advanced settings
- Expensive renewals
ExpressVPN connects almost instantly, and the full Pornhub site worked through its New York and Canadian locations. Its automatic obfuscation also makes VPN traffic look like regular web traffic, with nothing to configure. In addition, KPMG audited its TrustedServer design, under which servers store nothing on hard drives. On the downside, there’s little to adjust beyond protocols and the kill switch.
Most people can keep the default settings, though advanced users may want more control. Renewal is also expensive, and choosing the 28-month plan pushes that back the furthest. ExpressVPN costs $2.99 a month on its 28-month Basic plan. Expect $83.72 at checkout and $99.95 a year at renewal. The latest ExpressVPN coupon may lower that further.
Free VPNs in Florida: Do They Work?
Yes, though free plans limit which servers you can use. Proton VPN Free, for example, has no data cap and assigns one of ten countries at random. When it assigned us a Dutch server, Pornhub worked. A US server is possible too, though, and Pornhub blocks several of the states where those servers are.
Hide.me‘s free version offers a Netherlands server, where Pornhub also worked, but its speeds are slower than paid VPNs. Our best free VPNs list covers other free plans.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Florida’s law places the burden on websites, and adults who watch legal porn break no law. Aylo chose to restrict its sites in the state, while other adult sites that serve Florida check ages, and the anonymous method limits what the verifier can keep. For Pornhub and its sister sites, though, connect to a VPN server in New York or Canada.
NordVPN was the fastest on US servers in our tests, and its app-level kill switch can close your browser if the connection drops. The same New York and Canadian servers also worked on Proton VPN and ExpressVPN. Whichever you choose, Florida’s rules on illegal content still apply.
Porn in Florida FAQ
Is porn banned in Florida?
No. Florida's age verification law sets rules for adult websites, and adults can watch legal porn in the state. Sites that serve Florida must confirm each visitor's age first.
Is Pornhub banned in Florida?
No. Aylo, Pornhub's owner, restricts the site in Florida: visitors see a member login and non-explicit videos, and new accounts can't be created. The state never ordered Pornhub offline.
What porn sites work in Florida?
Chaturbate and xHamster serve Florida visitors after an age check, and state law requires such sites to offer an anonymous method. Pornhub shows only a login, while RedTube and Tube8 block Florida.
Why can't I watch porn in Florida?
Aylo restricted its sites in Florida, and other adult sites must confirm a visitor's age under state law. Even so, porn remains legal for adults in the state.
Is it illegal to watch porn in Florida?
No. Adults commit no offense by viewing legal porn in Florida. Sexual depictions of minors, nonconsensual intimate images, and nonconsensual AI-made sexual images of identifiable people are illegal at any age.
Are VPNs legal in Florida?
Yes. VPN use is legal in Florida and across the US, and the state's age verification law doesn't mention VPNs. Florida law applies the same way to VPN users.
What is anonymous age verification in Florida?
It's an age check conducted by an independent US company that must delete the personal details after confirming age. Florida requires adult sites to offer it alongside a standard check, and visitors choose.