In many places, yes. At least 33 U.S. states have laws that can make it a crime to not tell a sexual partner you have HIV, and similar laws exist in dozens of countries worldwide. But the specifics vary enormously depending on where you live, what kind of contact occurred, whether you used protection, and whether your viral load was detectable at the time.
Which U.S. States Require Disclosure
Twenty-four states require people who know they have HIV to disclose their status to sexual partners before sex. Fourteen of those states also require disclosure to needle-sharing partners. These laws are separate from general public health statutes. They specifically target HIV and impose criminal penalties for nondisclosure, even if transmission never occurs.
The consequences are serious. In 28 of the 33 states with HIV-specific criminal laws, violations are classified as felonies. Two states, North Carolina and Maryland, treat them as misdemeanors. The remaining states use HIV status as a sentence enhancement or aggravating factor for related offenses rather than as a standalone crime. In Georgia, for example, simply having sex without disclosing your HIV status is a crime on its own, and 100% of convictions under that law did not require prosecutors to prove any intent to actually transmit the virus. That pattern holds across many states: you don’t have to mean to infect someone. Failing to disclose is enough.
Beyond disclosure, these 33 states also criminalize other HIV-related behaviors. Nineteen make it illegal for someone with HIV to donate blood, tissue, or bodily fluids. Thirteen criminalize prostitution or solicitation by someone with HIV. Eleven criminalize behaviors like biting, spitting, or throwing bodily fluids, mostly in prison settings.
What the Law Considers “Disclosure”
Most state laws don’t spell out exactly how you need to disclose. There’s no required form to sign or script to follow. In practice, this means that if a nondisclosure case goes to court, it often comes down to one person’s word against another’s. Some legal advocates recommend disclosing in writing (a text message, for instance) to create a record, but no state formally requires that.
Separate from criminal law, many states have partner notification systems run through public health departments. When you test positive for HIV, your result is reported to the local or state health department by law. Health department staff may then contact your sexual or needle-sharing partners to let them know they’ve been exposed, without revealing your name. This is considered the most effective approach for reaching partners, and it protects the privacy of the person who tested positive. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which funds much of the country’s HIV care infrastructure, requires health departments to make good-faith efforts to notify the spouses of people living with HIV.
How Science Clashes With the Law
One of the sharpest criticisms of these laws is that many of them criminalize behaviors that carry little to no actual risk of transmission. Twenty-five states criminalize at least one behavior that poses low or negligible transmission risk. Spitting, for instance, cannot transmit HIV, yet multiple states treat it as a criminal act when done by someone who is HIV-positive.
The actual per-act risk of HIV transmission, without a condom, varies by type of exposure. Receptive anal sex carries the highest risk at roughly 138 transmissions per 10,000 exposures, or about 1.4%. Receptive vaginal sex comes in at about 8 per 10,000 (0.08%), and insertive vaginal sex at about 4 per 10,000 (0.04%). Oral sex, both giving and receiving, has a risk so low it rounds to nearly zero in large studies.
These numbers drop even further with condom use. And for people on effective treatment who maintain an undetectable viral load, the risk of sexual transmission is zero. This is the principle known as U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable), which is now endorsed by the CDC and major health organizations worldwide. Yet most U.S. state laws were written in the late 1980s and 1990s and make no distinction based on viral load, condom use, or actual transmission risk.
When Treatment Status Matters Legally
A small but growing number of jurisdictions do account for modern HIV science. Canada’s Department of Justice has concluded that prosecution for HIV nondisclosure is not warranted when a person has a suppressed viral load. Canadian legal guidance also states that criminal law should generally not apply to nondisclosure cases involving someone on antiretroviral treatment, someone who used condoms, or encounters limited to oral sex, because the realistic possibility of transmission is not met in those circumstances.
In the U.S., reform is happening state by state. Since 2020, Nevada, Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia have all significantly reformed or outright repealed their HIV criminalization laws. These reforms typically update statutes to require intent to transmit, account for condom use or undetectable viral load, reduce felony charges to misdemeanors, or eliminate HIV-specific laws entirely in favor of general public health statutes that apply to all communicable diseases equally.
Laws Outside the U.S.
Globally, the picture is mixed. According to the HIV Policy Lab, which tracks policies across 194 countries, only about 33% (64 countries) have laws that fully refrain from criminalizing HIV exposure or transmission. Another 42% (81 countries) partially criminalize it, meaning they either target intentional transmission or have seen prosecutions even without explicit statutes. About 22% (43 countries) actively criminalize non-intentional HIV exposure and have recent records of prosecution.
The legal theories vary. Some countries prosecute nondisclosure under general criminal codes covering assault, reckless endangerment, or grievous bodily harm. Others have HIV-specific statutes. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, HIV criminalization laws are particularly broad and can apply even when no transmission occurs.
What This Means in Practice
If you are living with HIV in the United States, your legal obligations depend entirely on your state. In roughly half the country, you are required by law to tell sexual partners about your status before sex, regardless of whether you use a condom or have an undetectable viral load. Violating these laws can result in felony charges and significant prison time. In the states that have modernized their laws, taking precautions like maintaining viral suppression or using condoms may protect you legally, but this is not universal.
Public health departments can help with partner notification without revealing your identity. If you’ve recently been diagnosed and are unsure how to handle disclosure, your local health department or an HIV legal services organization can walk you through what your state requires. The legal landscape is shifting, but in most of the country, nondisclosure remains a criminal matter with real consequences.