Tennessee Made Trafficking Training Mandatory for Tattooists. California and Delaware Are Next.

A tattoo artist sees skin, and sometimes sees the same mark on more than one young person. Branding is a documented feature of human trafficking, and tattooists are among the few people outside law enforcement who reliably encounter it.

Several states have now decided that is a reason to require training.

Tennessee: already law

The Ink of Hope Act — SB 171 / HB 182, enacted as Public Chapter 19 — requires human trafficking recognition training before a tattoo permit is issued. Provisions took effect 12 March 2025 and 1 January 2026.

The details that matter if you work in Tennessee:

• Training is a condition of permit issuance for new applicants.
• Existing licensees have until 31 December 2028 to comply, so there is a real runway.
• Trafficking questions have been added to the artist examination.

Tennessee also passed SB 497 (Public Chapter 212, effective 1 January 2026), which changes apprentice-supervisor eligibility and allows two years of out-of-state experience in place of examination — useful if you are moving into the state.

California: live right now

AB 1918 would require trafficking training for body art practitioners, with compliance by 1 January 2027. It was ordered to third reading on 2 July 2026, which means it is moving through the final stage as this is published.

If you are licensed in California, this is the one to watch. A third reading is not a certainty, but it is a long way past the point where most bills die.

Delaware: on the Governor's desk

HB 324 passed the House 39–0 and the Senate 21–0 — no opposition in either chamber — and was enrolled on 25 June 2026, awaiting the Governor's signature.

Unanimous passage in both chambers is a strong signal about where this is heading generally.

What else moved

• North Dakota HB 1071 — amends the state's body art statute; signed 24 March 2025.
• Nebraska LB 720 — creates a temporary event licence for body artists, approved 12 March 2026. Relevant if you work conventions.
• Texas SB 1804 — extends crime-victim restitution to cover tattoo removal, effective 1 September 2025. A different angle on the same problem: helping survivors remove the marks.

Still stuck

• Pennsylvania HB 1180, a Tattoo Practice Act, was referred to committee on 9 April 2025 and has not moved since — no votes, no scheduled meetings in fifteen months, no Senate companion. This is Pennsylvania's second attempt; the 2023 version also died. Pennsylvania remains a state with no artist licence.
• New York A 3517 is the only genuine ink-safety bill we found. It would direct the health department to study long-term ink safety and recommend labelling standards. In the Assembly Health Committee since 7 January 2026.

The direction of travel

Three things are worth noticing together. Trafficking training is spreading through licensure rather than criminal law. It is passing with no meaningful opposition — Delaware's votes were 39–0 and 21–0. And it is arriving in states that already license artists, which means it rides on machinery that already exists.

If your state licenses tattooists, this is a likely addition to your renewal requirements within a few years. If it does not license tattooists, there is no obvious vehicle for it.

What this list is not

The National Environmental Health Association counted 135 body art bills introduced and 32 enacted across 2025 sessions — materially more than we verified here. Bills drafted under "cosmetology" or "permanent cosmetics" headings would not surface in a search for tattoo or body art.

Treat the enactments above as confirmed, and the list as incomplete. If something passed in your state that is not here, it very likely passed under a heading we did not search.