New Jersey Enacts Nation's Most Expensive Data Broker Law, Effective Immediately

New Jersey signed A5328 into law on June 30, 2026, establishing data-broker registration fees ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million annually — far exceeding California’s $6,000 cap and any other state’s fee structure. The law applies to any company selling or licensing New Jersey resident data, including companies with direct customer relationships (not just traditional brokers), prohibits selling sensitive data outright with penalties up to $50,000 per record, and took effect immediately upon signing.

This lands the same week the Brennan Center is separately pressing Congress to close the federal data-broker-to-government loophole — the gap that lets ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies buy Americans’ location data from brokers without a warrant, already documented in the Patel/FBI data-broker-purchase confirmation (2026-03-18–patel-fbi-confirms-warrantless-purchase-commercial-data). New Jersey’s fee structure is the most aggressive state-level counter-move in the broker-regulation wave the timeline tracks through Vermont’s Data Privacy and Online Surveillance Act (2026-06-16–vermont-data-privacy-online-surveillance-act-broker-deletion-rights).