Most states have some form of Romeo and Juliet law, but the states with Romeo and Juliet laws don’t all offer the same thing. In some, a qualifying close-in-age relationship isn’t a crime at all. In others, it only reduces a felony to a misdemeanor, or lets the older person petition off the sex offender registry after a conviction. A small number of states offer no close-in-age protection whatsoever, which means two teenagers in a consensual relationship can face the same charges as a predatory adult. The typical allowable age gap runs from two to four years, with a few states as narrow as one or as wide as five.
Exception or Affirmative Defense
Romeo and Juliet laws aren’t standalone statutes. They sit inside existing statutory rape laws, either as an exception or as an affirmative defense, and the difference matters.
When a state writes the rule as an exception, the conduct simply isn’t a crime if the age gap and other conditions are met. A prosecutor can’t bring charges. When the rule is an affirmative defense, the older person can still be arrested, charged, and tried; they then have to prove at trial that the relationship met the law’s requirements. The burden sits with the accused. Even a successful defense means the person has already been through the criminal system, often with their name in public records.
What Every Version Requires
Despite the state-to-state variation, close-in-age rules share a few baseline conditions.
The age gap is the central one. States cap the number of years between the two people, and exceeding that cap disqualifies the defense entirely. Three or four years is most common. Two is the floor in a few places.
Consent is required in every version. Any evidence of force, threats, or coercion ends the defense. The laws also universally exclude relationships where the older person held authority over the younger one, including teachers, coaches, employers, and foster parents. A power imbalance undermines consent regardless of age.
Many states also impose a minimum age for the younger person, often 12, 13, or 14. Even inside the allowable age gap, the defense won’t apply if the younger person is below that floor.
States With Full Exceptions or Defenses
Several states treat qualifying close-in-age activity as non-criminal. Alaska, Colorado, and Montana provide defenses when the age gap is small, generally two to four years depending on the state and the ages involved. Meeting the requirements means no conviction.
Arkansas, New Mexico, and Oregon similarly build close-in-age relationships into their statutory frameworks. The structures vary. Some use a relative age gap, others use a fixed ceiling on the older person’s age, such as requiring the defendant to be under 21.
States That Only Reduce Charges or Penalties
Not every state offers complete protection. California and Illinois use their close-in-age provisions to lower the severity of a charge rather than eliminate it. A qualifying relationship might turn a felony into a misdemeanor, or shorten the available sentence, but the older person still faces criminal liability.
Missouri’s statutes contain provisions that can produce lesser penalties for close-in-age cases without decriminalizing the conduct. New York has no statute labeled “Romeo and Juliet,” but its penal code uses age-based gradations that effectively result in lesser charges for near-peers than for cases with large age gaps.
States That Address Registration Instead of Conviction
Some states focus their close-in-age protection on the aftermath of a conviction rather than the conviction itself.
Florida lets a person convicted of certain sexual offenses involving a minor petition for removal from the sex offender registry when the age gap was small and the younger person was at least 14. The conviction stays on the record, but the lifelong registration burden can be lifted.
Washington’s Responsible Teen Communications Act takes aim at sexting between minors. The law replaced felony charges with misdemeanor-level penalties for sharing images of peers and decriminalized possession of images minors created of themselves.
States With No Close-in-Age Protection
A small number of states have no meaningful Romeo and Juliet rule. In those jurisdictions, statutory rape is a strict liability offense. The only relevant fact is whether one person was below the age of consent. Whether the two people were close in age, and whether the relationship was consensual, carries no legal weight.
The practical effect is severe. Two high school students who are dating can face the same criminal exposure as an adult who targets a much younger child. A conviction typically carries mandatory sex offender registration, with consequences for housing, employment, education, and relationships that last decades. If you live in one of these states, the legal risk of a consensual teen relationship is drastically higher than in a neighboring state with close-in-age protection.
Federal Law Has Its Own Rule
State Romeo and Juliet laws don’t apply when the federal government has jurisdiction, which covers military bases, national parks, federal prisons, Indian reservations, and other federal areas. Federal statutory rape law has a close-in-age element built in.
Under federal law, sexual abuse of a minor applies only when the younger person is between 12 and 15 and is at least four years younger than the other person. If the age gap is less than four years, the federal offense doesn’t apply at all. The only affirmative defense available is that the defendant reasonably believed the other person was at least 16.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2243 – Sexual Abuse of a Minor, a Ward, or an Individual in Federal Custody
The military is different. The Uniform Code of Military Justice governs sexual offenses for service members, and its statutory text contains no explicit close-in-age defense. A young service member in a relationship with a person under 16 could face prosecution under military law even if the same conduct would be legal under state law.
How These Laws Affect Sex Offender Registration
Registration is often the consequence people fear most, and the way Romeo and Juliet laws interact with it depends on the jurisdiction.
At the federal level, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act carves out close-in-age cases. An offense involving consensual sexual conduct is not a registrable “sex offense” under SORNA if the younger person was at least 13 and the older person was no more than four years older.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 20911 – Relevant Definitions, Including Amie Zyla Expansion of Sex Offense Definition Qualifying cases don’t trigger federal registration regardless of what happens at the state level.
State registration rules are less uniform. Where the Romeo and Juliet law works as a full exception, no conviction means no registration. Where the law only reduces charges, registration may still apply if the reduced charge is itself registrable. And in states like Florida that address registration directly, the person has to petition for removal rather than receiving an automatic exemption.
Consequences That Can Survive the Defense
Even where a close-in-age law prevents conviction or reduces charges, other consequences can still follow.
Immigration
Federal immigration law classifies “sexual abuse of a minor” as an aggravated felony, which can trigger deportation for noncitizens. For years, immigration authorities treated even minor statutory rape convictions as aggravated felonies. The Supreme Court narrowed this in 2017, ruling that a close-in-age conviction under a law like California’s does not categorically qualify as sexual abuse of a minor for immigration purposes. The law in this area remains unsettled, and noncitizens convicted of any sexual offense involving a minor should treat the immigration risk as serious.
Professional Licensing
Licensing boards for teaching, nursing, law enforcement, and childcare routinely ask about criminal history and can deny or revoke a license based on any sex-related offense. A Romeo and Juliet law that reduces a felony to a misdemeanor still leaves a misdemeanor sex offense on the record, which can be disqualifying. Even in states that allow expungement or record sealing for qualifying close-in-age offenses, some licensing boards can still access sealed records. A reduced charge is not the same as no charge.
School Discipline and Civil Liability
Close-in-age protections are criminal law provisions. They don’t stop a school from imposing discipline, including expulsion, for sexual conduct that violates school policies. They also don’t bar the younger person’s parents from filing a civil lawsuit. A defense that works in criminal court has no bearing on a civil claim for damages.
Why the Specific State Matters
The variation among states creates situations where identical conduct is a non-issue in one state and a felony in the next. A 17-year-old dating a 15-year-old faces no legal risk in many states and real criminal exposure in a state without close-in-age protection. Families that move across state lines, or teenagers in relationships near a state border, can stumble into criminal liability without any change in behavior.
These laws also change. Several states have added or expanded close-in-age protections in recent years, and the direction has generally been toward broader coverage. That trend doesn’t help you if your state hasn’t followed it. Anyone dealing with a specific situation needs to check the current law in their exact jurisdiction rather than assume protection exists.