State legislatures across the United States have enacted 58 bills regulating artificial intelligence deepfakes so far in 2026, according to a report released by Ballotpedia.
The figure represents a slight drop from the 64 deepfake-related bills passed by the same date in 2025. Despite the slight decrease in overall bill volume, state-level regulations have expanded total nationwide coverage in key areas, particularly surrounding sexually explicit content and political campaign materials.
As of July 23, 2026, the number of states with statutes addressing sexually explicit deepfakes reached 48, up from 46 at the start of the year.
These laws target the nonconsensual creation and distribution of adult intimate media as well as computer-generated child sexual abuse material, with 36 states currently maintaining laws that cover both categories.
Meanwhile, 33 states now maintain laws regulating political deepfakes, up from 28 in January. Most of these state statutes permit the distribution of altered political media if it includes a clear disclosure statement, though four states passed outright prohibitions without disclosure exemptions.
Legal challenges to these measures remain ongoing; a U.S. district judge struck down California’s political deepfake regulation in 2025, a decision the state has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The report highlights distinct trends in legislative sponsorships and topic focus for 2026:
- Primary Focus Areas: Of the 58 enacted bills, sexually explicit deepfakes accounted for the largest share with 33 measures, followed by political communications (9 bills), tech entity regulations (8 bills), consumer protection and fraud (7 bills), and criminal penalties (7 bills).
- Partisan Breakdown of Enactments: Bipartisan coalitions sponsored 27 of the enacted measures, while 16 were sponsored solely by Democrats and 9 by Republicans. By state government structure, 25 enacted bills passed in Republican trifecta states, 23 in Democratic trifecta states, and 10 in states under divided government.
- Overall Bill Introductions: Lawmakers in 43 states introduced or carried over deepfake legislation during the 2026 session, led by New York with 40 total bills. Democratic lawmakers sponsored 173 of all introduced or carried-over bills, compared to 109 bipartisan measures and 98 Republican-sponsored bills.
Since state legislatures first began using the term “deepfake” in proposed legislation in 2019, lawmakers have enacted 244 total bills nationwide. The vast majority of that activity is recent, with 87 percent of all deepfake legislation enacted between 2024 and 2026.
Legislators and advocates continue to weigh these regulations against constitutional standards. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression noted in the report that “any government restriction on the expressive use of AI needs to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental purpose, and the regulation must restrict as little expression as is necessary to achieve that purpose.”
Ballotpedia’s analysis tracked bills across 15 distinct categories, using automated keyword tracking and manual bill reviews to monitor state-level responses to synthetic media technology.
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