Pornhub Is Now Blocked in 23 States and These 3 Countries…

To protest age-verification laws, Pornhub is blocked in almost half of the US states, as well as Australia, France, and the UK. Here’s how we got here, and how VPNs can help you connect. In an effort to keep kids away from objectionable content, a number of U…

In an effort to keep kids away from objectionable content, a number of US states and several countries—Australia being the latest—have implemented age-verification laws that require websites to confirm that their visitors are of age. Sounds simple enough, but many of us don't really want to send a video selfie or a photograph of our driver's license to all the platforms we visit, whether that's Discord or Pornhub.

To that end, Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, has blocked access to its sites (including YouPorn and Redtube) in regions with age-verification laws. Effective March 9, Aylo blocked access to its sites in Australia in protest of the Online Safety Act, about a month after it did the same in the UK. They join 23 US states and France, where Aylo sites are inaccessible without a VPN. Though Australia's law was passed in 2021, age-verification requirements went into effect today for "designated internet services," a broad category that includes websites.

"Age restrictions for pornography and other potentially harmful high-impact material are a lot like restrictions for cigarettes and alcohol, which also come with the possibility of age checks," the Australian government argues. "Age checks relating to certain products have long been used to allow the community to protect children from things which might endanger their immediate safety or may harm their long-term health and development." Aylo, however, backs device-based age verification, which would put the onus on companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft to check people's ages versus specific porn sites.

"Australia is following a similar approach to the UK, which all our evidence shows does not effectively protect minors, and instead creates harms relating to data privacy and exposure to illegal content on non-compliant platforms," an Aylo spokesperson says. "We continue to believe that device-based solutions remain the most realistic and effective way to protect minors online, and every organization in a user’s online journey plays a role." Aylo points out that Apple requires app stores to verify a user's age when creating an account to comply with a Texas law.

"We suggest Apple enable the screen time feature to limit adult websites by default, and make it such that the very same verification be required to disable it," it says. "This can ensure that only age-verified Apple devices can access adult websites." In Australia, VPN use has reportedly surged in the days leading up to the ban, The Guardian reports. Proton VPN, for example, moved from 174th to 19th place on the list of free iPhone apps in Australia while NordVPN went from 189th to 13th, according to Sensor Tower data.

The Australian law requires service providers to "take reasonable steps to prevent workarounds," which could include the integration of "VPN detection services," but that's often easier said than done. (More on VPNs below.) In the UK, Aylo said in June that it would roll out "methods recognized by regulators as being capable of highly effective age assurance" to comply with its own Online Safety Act, which requires social networks and adult sites to verify that visitors are 18+.

However, Aylo later said the OSA had "not achieved its intended goal of protecting minors, [and] made the internet more dangerous for minors and adults and jeopardized the privacy and personal data of UK citizens." As of Feb. 2, new users in the UK cannot access Aylo’s content-sharing platforms, including Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube, though "UK users who have verified their age will retain access through their existing accounts." According to Pornhub's 2025 Year in Review, the US still generated the most site visits, followed by Mexico and the Philippines.

France was No. 6, the UK was at No. 8, and Australia was No. 17. Pornhub notes that "France is often one of our top 3 countries for traffic," but the blockade changed that, so last year's stats for the country only include traffic data from the first half of 2025. Pornhub didn't break out overall traffic, but Semrush says it got 4 billion visits globally in October. Ohio also has an age-verification law, but Pornhub is not blocked there because the law doesn't apply to providers of interactive computer services, which Aylo says covers its sites.

According to the Free Speech Coalition, another 15 states have pending age-verification bills—Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—as well as Washington, D.C. In Missouri, the age-verification requirement is a regulation imposed by the attorney general, so lawmakers are now trying to make it law.

The age-verification battle in the US dates back to 2023, when Louisiana passed an age-verification bill. At the time, Pornhub complied with the law and saw its traffic drop by approximately 80% in the state. "But we know that people didn’t stop consuming porn overnight because of this new law," Pornhub says. "They just very easily moved to pirate, illegal, or other non-compliant sites that don’t ask visitors to verify their age." Pornhub argues that it has "robust Trust and Safety measures…to protect both the users viewing content on Pornhub from engaging with potentially dangerous content and provide a safe platform for creators to monetize their content and engage with fans.

"Therefore, these laws have not only failed at protecting minors, but have introduced further harm by displacing traffic to sites with few or zero Trust and Safety measures," it says. So, as more states moved to pass age-verification laws, Pornhub opted to block access in those states, starting with Utah in 2023. If you visit Pornhub in a state where the site is blocked, you're met with a message that argues the state's law is "ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous," like this one shared by CBS Austin political reporter Michael Adkison after the Texas block went into effect.

States argue that they're trying to protect children. "If a billion-dollar corporation would rather leave Missouri than verify that children are not accessing graphic sexual content, that tells you everything you need to know about its priorities," Missouri Attorney General Hanaway said in a statement. "We are proud to stand on the side of parents, families, and basic decency. Missouri will not apologize for protecting children.” The Free Speech Coalition and a group of adult platforms, including Aylo, have sued over laws in several states.

The Texas case made its way to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in Texas's favor in late June, putting a damper on the other cases; others have been dismissed or dropped. When Pornhub was blocked in Utah, we turned to VPN services and connected to servers in Virginia and Utah. Upon navigating to Pornhub, we were greeted by the blockade message. If you're affected by the ban, use the VPN app of your choice to connect to a server not in a location currently blocked by Pornhub.

(Note that while this guidance can be used to get around Pornhub's embargo, it could also be used to avoid the very age-restriction requirements Pornhub is protesting. We can't advise you on the risks of trying to circumvent the law.) When you switch on a VPN, your web traffic is routed through an encrypted connection to a server operated by the VPN company. That server could be in a different state or a different country from you.

Because your web traffic exits that server, it appears as if you are browsing the web from wherever the server is.  So, if you're in Utah, you should connect to a VPN server that's not located in Utah, and then navigate to Pornhub as usual. We recommend that you also use incognito mode while streaming pornography to prevent the URLs from showing up in your browser's history and autocomplete options.  If you don't already have a VPN service installed, you can find one that will suit you in our roundup of the best VPNs for Pornhub.

Nearly all VPN services will let you specify the country where you want your traffic to appear. Some will let you pick down to the city level. A few let you see a list of the actual servers themselves, and their locations, and make your choice that way.  US-based Pornhub viewers will probably want to use a VPN server that's located in the US. We recommend a VPN that will at least let you choose servers in a specific US state.

Do note that latency will increase and browsing speed will decrease when using a VPN, and that the impact will be more noticeable the further away the VPN server is from you. PCMag's top-rated VPN Editors' Choice winner, Proton VPN, shows the cities and specific servers available to customers. It also offers an excellent free VPN, but your server choice will be far more limited—there are servers in the US, but you can't specify which to use.

Fortunately, the free version has no time or data limit. Other Editors' Choice-winning VPNs that let you select cities include IVPN, Mullvad VPN, NordVPN, and TunnelBear VPN. Note that IVPN and Mullvad VPN use a privacy-protecting account number system that requires very little personal information, and both will accept cash sent to their respective HQs for a nearly anonymous experience.

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