The Latest on Net Neutrality – Where Are We In 2026

The question everyone asks is simple enough. Is net neutrality gone? The answer depends entirely on where you live. 

At the federal level, the enforcement framework that governed how ISPs handle your internet traffic was effectively dismantled following a 2025 Sixth Circuit Court ruling. But the story doesn't end there. While federal protections receded, a patchwork of state laws stepped in. In states like California and Washington, the open internet is alive and actively enforced. Elsewhere, ISPs operate under a looser transparency-based framework with far less accountability. 

This guide breaks down the current legal landscape, explains the court decisions that created it, identifies which states protect you and which don't, and answers the practical questions that matter most when you're paying for internet service in 2026. 

Net Neutrality in 2026: Quick Answer 

Net neutrality is the principle that ISPs must treat all internet traffic equally, without blocking, throttling, or paid fast lanes. As of 2026, it no longer exists as a federal rule. The Sixth Circuit struck down the FCC's authority to enforce it in early 2025, following the Supreme Court's 2024 Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, which eliminated the legal framework that had previously allowed agencies like the FCC to interpret their own regulatory authority.  

As of 2026, the FCC can require ISPs to disclose their traffic management practices, but it cannot prohibit those practices. Eight states have filled the gap with their own laws. Five have comprehensive bans for residential users (California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Vermont); three operate through state contracting or executive order mechanisms (New York, New Jersey, and Maine). Outside those states, your ISP's behavior is governed by its own disclosed policies and the FCC's transparency requirements rather than legal prohibitions. 

Key Takeaways: Net Neutrality in 2026 

1. Federal enforcement is gone, but not permanently. The Sixth Circuit ruled the FCC cannot classify broadband as a utility without explicit Congressional authorization. The only path back to national protection is a new act of Congress. 
2. Your protection depends on your state. Five states have comprehensive residential bans: California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Vermont. Three states have protections through contracting or executive order mechanisms: New York, New Jersey, and Maine.Users in those states retain meaningful protections against throttling and paid prioritization. 
3. ISPs must still disclose their practices. The FCC's transparency rules remain in effect. ISPs cannot secretly throttle your connection. They have to tell you about it. That disclosure requirement is what makes the FTC's deceptive practices authority relevant. 
4. Zero-rating is the active battleground. With hard blocking and overt throttling too visible to attempt broadly, ISPs have shifted toward softer practices, making their own services exempt from data caps while competitors' services count against your usage. 
5. A Congressional bill is the only permanent fix. The Major Questions Doctrine means the FCC cannot restore federal neutrality on its own. Until Congress acts, the regulatory landscape will shift with each administration

What Is Title I vs. Title II Broadband Classification? 

The classification of broadband service under the Communications Act determines how much regulatory authority the FCC has over internet service, and it is the legal foundation on which net neutrality has always rested. 

Title II of the Communications Act covers telecommunications services, telephone lines being the classic example, and gives the FCC broad authority to regulate them as public utilities. This includes the ability to prohibit discriminatory practices, require equal treatment of traffic, and mandate interconnection. When broadband is classified as Title II, the FCC can enforce net neutrality. 

Title I covers information services and applies a much lighter regulatory touch, treating providers more like private businesses that transmit and transform data rather than common carriers that simply pass it through. When broadband is classified as Title I, the FCC's authority to regulate how ISPs manage traffic is narrow, limited primarily to transparency requirements. 

The FCC has reclassified broadband multiple times. In 2015, it was moved to Title II to enable net neutrality rules. In 2017, it was moved back to Title I when those rules were repealed. In 2024, it was reclassified to Title II again under the Biden-era FCC. The Sixth Circuit struck those rules down in 2025. As of 2026, broadband is back under Title I. The underlying classification question will not be stable until Congress resolves it through legislation, because court and agency decisions remain perpetually reversible. 

What Happened to Net Neutrality in 2025 and 2026? 

Net neutrality has had a turbulent decade, passed, repealed, reinstated, and struck down again depending on who controlled the FCC. But the 2025 ruling represents something different from previous cycles. It is not a policy reversal. It is a structural one. 

Here's the sequence that matters. In June 2024, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturning a legal principle called Chevron deference. For 40 years, Chevron deference meant that when a law was ambiguous, courts would defer to the relevant federal agency's interpretation of what the law allowed. The FCC used that deference to classify broadband as a utility under Title II, which was the legal foundation for net neutrality rules. Without Chevron deference, that foundation collapsed. 

The FCC tried to restore neutrality rules anyway in 2024 under a new rulemaking. In early 2025, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck those rules down, ruling that broadband regulation constitutes a Major Question, meaning it has vast economic and political significance, and that the FCC cannot act on a Major Question without explicit, specific authorization from Congress. The current Communications Act doesn't provide that authorization. Until it does, the FCC's role in net neutrality enforcement is limited to requiring disclosure. 

Why Did the FCC Lose Its Net Neutrality Authority? 

Two legal developments combined to create the current situation: the death of Chevron deference and the rise of the Major Questions Doctrine.  

Chevron deference (1984–2024) was a judicial principle that told courts: when a law is vague about what a federal agency can do, trust the agency's reasonable interpretation. The FCC used this to interpret ambiguous language in the Communications Act as granting it authority to regulate broadband as a utility under Title II. Loper Bright ended that. Courts now must determine independently what laws mean, and they have consistently ruled that broadband regulation under existing statutes does not clearly give the FCC the power it claimed. 

The Major Questions Doctrine adds a second barrier. Even if a law could plausibly support agency action, if that action would be of vast economic or political significance, the agency needs clear and specific congressional permission, not just a reasonable legal interpretation. Regulating the entire internet infrastructure of the United States qualifies. The Sixth Circuit made that explicit in 2025. 

The practical result: the FCC isn't powerless, but its power is narrow. It can require transparency. It can investigate deceptive practices. It cannot set rules about how ISPs manage traffic, prioritizing content, or charge for network access, not without Congress explicitly telling it to. 

Does Net Neutrality Still Exist in the United States? 

At the federal level, no. Practically speaking, it depends on your zip code. 

In states with active net neutrality laws, your ISP is legally prohibited from blocking websites, deliberately throttling specific services, and creating paid fast lanes where some content loads faster because companies paid for priority access. These protections are real and enforced. 

In states without those laws, ISPs are operating under their own disclosed policies and competitive market pressure. Most major ISPs still publish voluntary neutrality commitments, partly because of transparency rule requirements and partly because overt violations tend to generate bad press. But voluntary commitments and legal obligations are not the same thing. An ISP can change a voluntary commitment. A state law requires a legislative process to undo. 

The most accurate answer to whether net neutrality exists in the U.S. is: partially, unevenly, and with no guarantee of permanence outside the states that have codified it into law. 

Is Net Neutrality a State or Federal Issue in 2026? 

Right now, it's both, but mostly state. 

The federal government retains the transparency framework: ISPs must disclose their traffic management practices, and lying about those practices is actionable under FTC deceptive practices authority. That's not nothing, but it's also not net neutrality. Disclosure that your ISP throttles streaming video is not the same as prohibiting it. 

The states with the strongest laws have essentially replicated the 2015 federal rules at the state level. California's SB-822, the most comprehensive state net neutrality law, bans blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. It survived a major federal preemption challenge, and its enforceability has been settled through several court decisions. Other states have followed with varying degrees of coverage. 

The practical result of this patchwork: a user in Los Angeles has stronger, legally enforceable net neutrality protections than a user in Dallas or Phoenix, even though they're paying comparable prices for comparable internet service. Same country, different rules, same ISPs. 

How Do ISPs Shape Traffic Without Federal Oversight? 

With federal restrictions removed, ISPs have more tools available for managing and monetizing how data flows through their networks. Two methods matter most for everyday users. 

Deep Packet Inspection 

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is a technology that allows an ISP to analyze the content of data packets traveling through its network, not just the addressing information but the actual payload. With DPI, an ISP can identify whether a packet is part of a video stream, a gaming session, a voice call, or a file download. 

That identification capability is the foundation for traffic shaping, the practice of treating different types of traffic differently. An ISP using DPI can slow down video streams from a competitor's streaming service while leaving its own service unaffected. It can deprioritize gaming traffic during peak hours while giving priority to its own VoIP service. It can identify and throttle encrypted traffic it suspects is VPN use. In states with active neutrality laws, this is prohibited. Federally, it's legal as long as it's disclosed. 

Selective Packet Filtering on Mobile Networks 

Mobile networks face a genuine bandwidth constraint, since spectrum is limited in ways that cable infrastructure isn't. Some traffic shaping on mobile networks is legitimately necessary to keep networks functional for everyone. The problem is that without net neutrality rules, there's no clear line between legitimate network management and profitable prioritization. 

One specific pattern worth knowing: UDP-based traffic, which is the data protocol used by live streaming platforms, online gaming, and video calls, is frequently subject to more aggressive filtering than standard web traffic. UDP packets don't have the built-in retransmission mechanism that TCP traffic does, which makes them faster but also easier for ISPs to deprioritize without users immediately noticing a connection failure. If your Twitch stream or video call consistently degrades at certain times while general web browsing seems fine, selective protocol filtering is a plausible explanation. 

 What Are Zero-Rating and Sponsored Data? 

Zero-rating is the practice where an ISP exempts certain apps or services from counting against your monthly data cap. Sponsored data is the commercial arrangement behind it. Companies pay the ISP to have their content zero-rated for customers. 

On its face, this sounds like a consumer benefit. Free streaming sounds good. But it creates a structural advantage for whoever can afford to pay for it. A large streaming service that pays for zero-rating gets to offer customers something that appears free, while smaller competitors who can't afford the sponsorship fees, consume data that customers have to pay for. The competitive playing field tilts toward incumbent services that can pay the toll. 

This is widely considered the most active form of net neutrality circumvention in 2026, subtle enough to avoid public outrage, commercially significant enough to matter for market competition, and technically permissible at the federal level. California's SB-822 explicitly bans zero-rating as part of its comprehensive framework. Most other states don't address it specifically, which leaves it in a legal grey zone even in states with broader neutrality laws. 

 Throttling vs. Reasonable Network Management: How to Tell the Difference 

Not all traffic shaping is a net neutrality violation. Some of it is legitimate network engineering. The distinction matters because ISPs regularly characterize deliberate throttling as reasonable management when they're called on it. 

The practical test: run speed tests at different times of day and with different apps. If your speeds are consistently lower when using a specific streaming service but not others, and that pattern holds during off-peak hours when the network shouldn't be congested, it's not network management. If speeds are low during peak hours for everything and recover in the early morning, congestion is the more likely explanation. 

A VPN adds another data point. If speeds improve noticeably when you enable a VPN, which encrypts your traffic so the ISP cannot identify what app you are using, that is strong evidence of content-based throttling rather than general congestion management. 

Can ISPs Block Websites in 2026? 

At the federal level, yes. There's no law that currently prohibits it. That's the blunt answer. Eight states have laws that do prohibit it. Everywhere else, the constraint is transparency rules and market pressure rather than a legal prohibition. 

In practice, outright blocking of major legal websites or services is rare. ISPs that block websites would face immediate transparency rule violations if they tried to hide it, and disclosure of blocking would likely generate significant public and media attention. The reputational risk of hard blocking is high enough that most ISPs avoid it even where it's technically permissible. 

Where blocking does occur and this is documented, it tends to be more targeted. Smaller streaming services, VoIP competitors to ISP-owned phone services, and peer-to-peer applications have all faced interference that sits in the grey area between blocking and throttling. Without federal rules, the incentive to be careful about these practices is reduced. 

 Why a Congressional Net Neutrality Bill Matters 

The only path to permanent, national net neutrality is an act of Congress. This isn't a political opinion. It's a direct consequence of the Major Questions Doctrine. The courts have ruled that the FCC cannot create these rules without explicit legislative authorization. That authorization doesn't exist under the current Communications Act. Until Congress writes and passes legislation that specifically grants the FCC authority to enforce open internet standards, federal net neutrality cannot be restored regardless of which administration controls the FCC. 

A Congressional bill would resolve the regulatory ping-pong that has characterized net neutrality policy for the past decade, repealed by one administration, restored by the next, repealed again. Legislation would set a stable legal standard independent of FCC political composition and insulated from the administrative rulemaking challenges that have repeatedly ended in court losses.  

As of early 2026, no net neutrality legislation has passed Congress. Multiple bills have been introduced, including variations on the Save the Internet Act, but none have cleared both chambers. The legislative path remains the most significant unresolved question for the future of open internet policy in the United States. 

 Which States Currently Have Net Neutrality Laws? 

If your state isn't on this list, your protections at the state level are either limited or nonexistent, and you're operating under the federal transparency-only framework. 

The Battle for the Open Internet Moves to the States 

The 2025 Sixth Circuit ruling did not end the open internet. It moved the fight to a different arena. Federal enforcement is gone, and it will not come back without an act of Congress. What remains is a durable, if uneven, patchwork of state laws that collectively cover a significant portion of the U.S. population with meaningful protections. 

Whether that's enough depends on where you sit. For users in California, Washington, or Oregon, the rules are clear and enforced. For users in most other states, your protection is your ISP's disclosed commitments and the competitive pressure that comes from having alternatives. 

The practical advice for 2026: know your state's status, read your ISP's transparency disclosures, and run baseline speed tests you can reference if you suspect throttling. Documented evidence of a gap between disclosed and actual behavior is the foundation of both regulatory complaints and consumer pressure. 

Want to know more about how to detect whether your ISP is throttling your connection? See how to identify and document internet throttling so you have the evidence to act on it.