As the second Trump administration appears to deprioritize enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a wave of states has taken up the mantle of shedding light on foreign influence. In 2025, five states have quietly enacted invasive state laws with FARA-like disclosure requirements designed to reveal the activities of foreign governments, political parties, companies, and individuals within their own borders. Dubbed “baby FARA” laws, these statutes require those engaged in certain activities on behalf of foreign partners or with their support to publicly disclose those relationships and details about their work. Because many of these laws may require disclosure even if the very same activity is exempt from FARA at the federal level, compliance teams should take heed of this emerging trend.
FARA and the Federal State of Play
Originally enacted in 1938 to bring transparency to Nazi propaganda ahead of World War II, FARA requires those who engage in certain political or quasi-political activities on behalf foreign governments, parties, businesses, nonprofits, individuals, or other entities to register with the U.S. Department of Justice and publicly disclose specific details about the work unless it falls within one of several statutory and regulatory exemptions. For much of its existence, FARA was an obscure law with little enforcement, but between 2016 and 2024, the DOJ significantly stepped up civil and criminal enforcement efforts. Responding to concerns about “malign foreign influence,” DOJ dramatically increased the number of audits and civil settlements, secured high-profile criminal prosecutions, adopted aggressive interpretations of the infamously vague statute, and opened a rulemaking to potentially address perceived loopholes and shortcomings.
That shift has come into question under the second Trump administration. On her first day in office in early 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the U.S. Department of Justice was deprioritizing criminal enforcement of FARA, limiting its focus to cases more akin to traditional espionage. The announcement suggests a significant departure from recent years, though it was accompanied by few details and civil enforcement measures continue at a steady clip.
Regardless of the shifts in federal enforcement, the specter of “foreign interference” has remained a frequent subject of public scrutiny. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have invoked the law to call into question the international ties of numerous companies, organizations, and individuals. Attuned to this, states are increasingly exploring their own ways to compel disclosure of foreign support with their own FARA-like laws.
Enter the States: A New Front for Disclosure of Foreign Relationships
States are no longer ceding disclosure of foreign relationships to the federal government. Since the start of 2025, five states—Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Texas—have adopted baby FARA laws, and similar bills have been considered in legislatures across the country, including in Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. In recent years these laws have been accompanied by others targeting foreign influence, including at least 20 state laws prohibiting foreign sources from directly or indirectly supporting ballot measure campaigns or other state elections.
As summarized below, the baby FARA laws vary in detail, but often lift language verbatim from FARA, seeking to create a parallel state disclosure regime. In short, they typically require a domestic individual, nonprofit, or company engaged in certain activities within the state to abide by various conditions if they are acting on behalf of, or with the support of, a government, political party, business, or individual from a hostile foreign nation. Restrictions include robust disclosure about the activities and the nature of foreign support. In certain cases, the states purport to bar groups from certain privileges altogether if they receive foreign support.
All baby FARA bills adopted thus far limit their scope to entities with ties to a narrow list of countries—in all cases, some combination of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and the Maduro regime of Venezuela. As a result, the number of entities covered under state FARA laws is likely to be smaller than the number covered by federal FARA, which applies to agents of foreign principals in any country.
At the same time, the state laws contain many fewer registration exceptions than the federal FARA statute. Notably, state laws typically do not include FARA’s carveouts for those advancing purely commercial interests or for those already registered under applicable lobbying laws. Such exemptions give many businesses, nonprofits, and individuals a reprieve from FARA obligations at the federal level, and their absence from the state laws will mean that those who are covered because of their relationships with covered countries may face disclosure of information that is not currently part of the public record. That distinction should put entities with ties to the listed countries on high alert if they engage in activities like lobbying, influencing ballot measures or candidate elections, public relations, or fundraising in these states.
Arkansas
HB 1800 |
Arkansas' law requires registration by representatives of "hostile foreign principals" who attempt to influence state policy or elections for state or local officials. "Hostile foreign principal" includes governments, political parties, and businesses or foreign individuals from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and their "representatives" may be anyone who acts at the order, request, or direction or control of a hostile foreign principal or whose actions are financed in whole or in part by the hostile foreign principal. Disclosures include information about the representative's business and their relationship with the hostile foreign principal, and few exemptions are available. |
Florida
SB 700 |
Florida's law is unique among baby FARA laws in that it uses the state's charitable solicitation law as a basis for curbing foreign sources of support. Specifically, the law prohibits those involved with charitable solicitations or sales promotions from soliciting or receiving support from "foreign sources of concern"—governments, parties, businesses, and individuals from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Maduro regime of Venezuela. The prohibition extends to solicitations by certain nonprofit organizations (including public charities and private foundations that are tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and social welfare organizations exempt under Section 501(c)(4)), professional fundraisers, fundraising consultants, and commercial co-venturers. Those that do not comply can be banned from soliciting donations within the state. |
Louisiana
HB 686 |
Louisiana's baby FARA law requires any person who lobbies on behalf of a "foreign adversary" or a corporation or other entity headquartered or with its principal place of business in a foreign adversary country to register with the Board of Ethics. A "foreign adversary" is any individual, corporation, or government identified in 15 C.F.R. § 791.4 (currently, China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and the Maduro regime of Venezuela) and "the database" maintained by the U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is presumed to be a reference to OFAC's Sanctions List. Disclosures under the Louisiana law include the nature of the registrant's business, the foreign adversary they represent, and a description of their business and the matters on which the registrant expects to lobby on behalf of the foreign adversary. |
Nebraska
LB 644 |
Nebraska will require any agent of a foreign principal from an "adversary nation" to register with the state attorney general when engaged in covered activities. "Foreign adversary" is defined by reference to federal Department of Commerce regulations, which currently include China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea. |
Texas
HB 119 |
Finally, Texas requires any person who lobbies on behalf of a "foreign adversary, a foreign adversary client, or a foreign adversary political party" to register with the Texas Ethics Commission. Notably, "lobbying" includes any attempt to directly communicate with state officials to influence legislative or administrative action, including communications that do not reference specific legislation or administrative action if a communication is intended to generate or maintain goodwill for future influence. "Foreign adversaries" includes China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and the Maduro regime of Venezuela; political parties in those countries; any entity under the control of or wholly or partly owned or operated by those countries and their subsidiaries; any entity organized or having their principal place of business in those countries or their subsidiaries; and certain current and former public officials of those countries, their immediate family members, and entities formed by those officials or their benefit. |
All of the state FARA laws are brand new, and states are still working on regulations and guidance materials to further explain how the statutes will be implemented and enforced. There are also significant constitutional considerations at play, including whether such laws violate protections for free speech, due process, interstate commerce, or federal preemption of state law. Accordingly, Venable’s Nonprofit and Political Law Group is closely tracking all developments. Please contact us for more information about how these laws may apply to your organization or your efforts to engage with state officials on existing or forthcoming baby FARA laws.