No, you cannot buy a person in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude outright, and federal criminal law layers on penalties that run from twenty years to life in prison for anyone who tries. Those laws reach far beyond chattel slavery: they cover forced labor, debt bondage, sex trafficking, buying children, and even purchasing human organs. Large-dollar transactions that look superficially like buying a person, including private adoption, gestational surrogacy, and professional sports contracts, are legal only because the money pays for services and medical care, never for the human being.
What the Constitution Forbids
The Thirteenth Amendment bars slavery and involuntary servitude anywhere in the United States, with one narrow exception for criminal punishment.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment It is unusual among constitutional rights because it binds private parties, not just the government. No individual, company, or organization can hold ownership rights over another human being, and any contract that purported to create that relationship would be void from the moment it was signed.
The Supreme Court has read the amendment broadly. The 1883 Civil Rights Cases identified the “badges and incidents” of slavery as including forced service, restrictions on movement, and the inability to own property or enter contracts.2Congress.gov. Amdt13.S1.2 Defining Badges and Incidents of Slavery In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968), the Court confirmed that Congress can reach private conduct that functions as a relic of slavery.3Justia. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968) Any arrangement mimicking ownership of a person is unconstitutional.
The Two Boundaries People Ask About
The amendment’s criminal-punishment exception allows involuntary servitude for people who have been convicted of a crime.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment More than 80 percent of people in U.S. prisons perform work that keeps prison operations running, generally outside standard labor protections because the work is classified as punishment rather than employment.
Military conscription is the other common question. In the Selective Draft Law Cases (1918), the Supreme Court held that the constitutional power to raise armies includes the power to compel citizens to serve, and said the involuntary-servitude argument “is refuted by its mere statement.”4Justia. Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1918) Conscription is legally distinct from servitude because it flows from a civic obligation the Constitution itself recognizes.
Federal Crimes That Punish Buying, Selling, and Holding People
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, reauthorized several times since, created a comprehensive federal response to modern human trade.5Department of Justice. Key Legislation The criminal provisions sit at 18 U.S.C. ยงยง 1581 through 1595 and cover every participant from recruiter to end buyer. The sentences are some of the harshest in federal law.
Peonage and Forced Labor
Peonage, holding a person and forcing them to work off a debt, carries up to 20 years in federal prison.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1581 – Peonage; Obstructing Enforcement This is not ordinary debt collection. A creditor can sue and garnish wages. A creditor cannot physically hold someone and extract labor until the debt is paid. The forced labor statute carries the same 20-year maximum, and if the offense results in death or involves kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, the sentence rises to any term of years up to life.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1589 – Forced Labor
Recruiting, transporting, or harboring a person for labor or services in violation of these laws is a separate 20-year offense with the same life-sentence enhancement.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1590 – Trafficking With Respect to Peonage, Slavery, Involuntary Servitude, or Forced Labor Taking or destroying someone’s passport or identification documents to trap them adds another five years, because confiscating documents is one of the most common control tactics in trafficking.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1592 – Unlawful Conduct With Respect to Documents in Furtherance of Trafficking
Sex Trafficking
Sex trafficking penalties are heavier. When force, fraud, or coercion is involved, or the victim is under 14, the mandatory minimum is 15 years and the maximum is life. When the victim is 14 to 17 and no force or coercion is used, the floor drops to 10 years, with life still available.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1591 – Sex Trafficking of Children or by Force, Fraud, or Coercion Interfering with enforcement of the sex trafficking statute is punishable by up to 25 years.
The Buyer Is a Criminal Too
Federal law does not treat the person paying as a customer. Under the Mann Act, knowingly transporting someone across state lines for prostitution or other illegal sexual activity carries up to 10 years, and the statute reaches people who arrange or facilitate the transportation, not only the driver.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2421 – Transportation Generally
The Department of Justice’s National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, developed under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, explicitly targets demand, with an objective to “advance innovative demand-reduction strategies” aimed at people who pay for exploited labor and commercial sex.12United States Department of Justice. Justice Department Announces Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking
A separate statute addresses buying or selling children for the production of sexually explicit material. Both the seller and the buyer face a 30-year mandatory minimum, up to life.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2251A – Selling or Buying of Children That 30-year floor is one of the highest mandatory minimums in federal criminal law.
You Also Cannot Buy Parts of a Person
Under the National Organ Transplant Act, acquiring, receiving, or transferring any human organ for something of value, when the organ will be used in a transplant, is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 274e – Prohibition of Organ Purchases
The law allows reasonable payments for the medical costs of removing, transporting, and storing the organ, along with the donor’s travel, housing, and lost wages. What it forbids is paying anyone a premium for the organ itself. A living kidney donor can be reimbursed for a hotel room and missed work; nobody can legally offer $50,000 for the kidney.
Transactions That Look Like Buying a Person but Aren’t
Adoption
Federal law criminalizes the sale of children, and every state has its own prohibitions. Money changes hands in an adoption, but it pays for professional services and medical care, not for a child. Private domestic adoption typically runs $20,000 to $45,000, covering home study evaluations, legal representation for both the adoptive and birth parents, agency coordination, counseling, and medical expenses for the birth mother. Attorney-only adoptions tend to run $10,000 to $40,000. Foster-care adoption involves minimal out-of-pocket costs and is sometimes free. State laws cap payments to birth parents at reasonable living expenses like rent and food, and courts review these expenditures to make sure nobody profits from placing a child.
Surrogacy
Surrogacy compensation pays the gestational carrier for her time, physical risk, and the disruption of pregnancy. Base compensation generally falls between $50,000 and $80,000, with legal, medical, and agency costs on top. The contracts specify that the payment is for carrying the pregnancy, not for the child, and that distinction is what keeps the arrangement legal.
Sports Contracts and Employment
When a team “buys” or “trades” a player, no one is purchased. The team holds the exclusive right to the athlete’s professional services for a defined period under a contract governed by labor law and collective bargaining. A trade transfers the remaining rights and obligations of that contract to another organization. The athlete remains a free person throughout.
Unlike any form of servitude, athletes and other employees under restrictive contracts can walk away. Doing so may trigger financial penalties or a breach-of-contract suit, but no court will order someone physically returned to their employer. That is exactly what the peonage statute forbids.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1581 – Peonage; Obstructing Enforcement A creditor can sue for money. A creditor cannot force you to show up to work.
Non-compete clauses, which restrict where someone can work after leaving a job, are governed by state law and vary widely. An estimated 30 million American workers are currently subject to them. A federal ban the FTC attempted in 2024 was struck down and formally vacated in September 2025, leaving enforcement to the states. Even the most restrictive non-compete, however, limits where you work next, not whether you can leave. The line between controlling someone’s services and controlling someone’s body is the line the Thirteenth Amendment draws, and every lawful employment arrangement in the country sits on the free side of it.
What Victims Can Recover
Federal law requires traffickers to make their victims financially whole. Courts must order restitution in every trafficking case, with no discretion to skip it. The amount is the greater of the value of the victim’s labor under federal minimum wage and overtime rules or the value the trafficker actually gained from the victim’s work.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1593 – Mandatory Restitution Restitution also covers medical and psychiatric care, rehabilitation, housing, childcare, and other costs resulting from the offense. Assets seized from traffickers through forfeiture help fund these orders.5Department of Justice. Key Legislation
Trafficking victims who are not U.S. citizens can apply for a T nonimmigrant visa to remain in the country. You must have been a victim of a severe form of trafficking, be physically present in the United States because of that trafficking, cooperate with law enforcement (with exceptions for minors and for those with trauma that prevents cooperation), and show that removal would cause extreme hardship involving unusual and severe harm. Spouses, children, and in some cases parents and siblings may also qualify.16USCIS. Victims of Human Trafficking: T Nonimmigrant Status