Social Media Age Limits and Child Protection Laws — Country Tracker

Governments worldwide are rewriting the rules for how social media platforms can interact with minors. The pace has accelerated sharply since Australia became the first country to enforce a blanket under-16 ban in December 2025. Several EU member states have followed with under-15 laws, and the EU itself is layering on the Digital Services Act, the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act, and a bloc-wide age verification app.

This page tracks the current state in every country we cover — sortable by status, age limit, or year. It is updated monthly. See our methodology for how status fields are sourced and verified.

How to read the status

• Enforced — the law is in force and platforms can be fined for non-compliance.
• Passed — legislation has been adopted but is not yet in active enforcement (transition period or implementation gap).
• In Progress — bill is under active legislative debate, public consultation, or government drafting.
• Guidelines — no dedicated social-media age law exists; child protection runs through general youth-protection statutes or platform-level rules.

Status is country-specific and reflects social-media age-restriction laws, not broader privacy or content-moderation regimes. Several countries have multiple overlapping frameworks — for example, the EU’s GDPR sets a digital-consent age (13–16, varying by member state) while individual member states are now adding social-media-specific bans on top.

The shape of the regulatory wave

Three patterns repeat across the dataset:

Under-15 / under-16 bans. Australia (16), Indonesia (16), Brazil (12, with content rules), and a growing list of EU member states (DK, FR, GR, CY) cluster around the under-15 / under-16 mark. The argument from regulators is that adolescent development — particularly executive function and emotional regulation — is incompatible with platforms whose business model rewards compulsive use.

Platform-design enforcement. The EU’s Digital Services Act is the first regime to treat platform design (infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, recommender systems) as a regulated category in its own right, not just the content the design amplifies. The preliminary finding against TikTok (February 2026) is the first test case.

Age verification infrastructure. The EU’s age verification app (technically ready April 2026; pilots in DK, FR, GR, IT, ES, CY, IE summer 2026) is the first credible enforcement layer for under-15 bans. Without it, age limits are guesses; with it, the rules become operational.

Read the country deep-dives

• 🇦🇺 Australia — Online Safety Amendment Act, world’s first under-16 ban
• 🇫🇷 France — under-15 social media ban
• 🇬🇷 Greece — under-15 ban announced for January 2027
• 🇨🇾 Cyprus — under-15 ban + EU age verification integration
• 🇩🇰 Denmark — under-15 ban + host of the May 2026 EU summit
• 🇹🇷 Turkey — under-15 ban, with surveillance-state concerns
• 🇩🇪 Germany — debate over a national social-media age limit

For a synthesis across all the EU member states with under-15 laws, see our comparative analysis of EU social media bans.

For background on the EU-level framework that ties these national laws together, see:

• The EU’s Digital Fairness Act and the case against addictive design
• The EU age verification app — what it does and when it arrives
• Global overview of 2026 child protection laws

Update cadence

Status fields are reviewed monthly against primary sources (legislative texts, regulator press releases, national parliament records). When a status changes — a bill passes, a transition period ends, an enforcement decision lands — the table is updated within 48 hours and the “Last reviewed” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent audit.

To flag an inaccuracy or report a new development, email service@agiliton.eu with the country and a link to the primary source.