Quick answer: Is Roblox safe for kids? It can be, from age 5, with the right settings. Ages 5 to 8: a Roblox Kids account with chat off. Ages 9 to 12: chat limited to Trusted Friends you approve. Age 13: you decide about voice. Tonight, link your parent account and set a PIN.
If your child has asked to play Roblox, you are not late and you have not done anything wrong. About 123 million people use it every day, and 35% of age-checked users are under 13 (Roblox, Q2 2026 shareholder letter). Most of your child's class is on it.
The headlines are real too. Since August 2025, at least ten state attorneys general have sued Roblox over child safety, and more than 170 family lawsuits are consolidated in a federal court in California. Roblox answered in June 2026: nobody can chat without an age check, and every user under 16 is placed in an age-based account. That changed what the settings do at each age, so most of the advice online is out of date.
Here is the verdict for every age from 5 to 13, the settings that matter, and what the settings cannot do.
Age | Account | Chat | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
5 to 8 | Roblox Kids | Off by default; you can allow text with Trusted Friends | Okay, with a parent nearby |
9 to 12 | Roblox Select | Filtered text with similar ages; limit it to Trusted Friends | Yes, if you approve the list |
13 | Roblox Select | Voice possible, only if you allow it | Yes, with voice off or Friends only |
Do this tonight: the 5-minute checklist
Link your account. Settings, then Parental Controls, then Link Parent Account.
Set a Parental PIN. Without it, every setting below can be changed back.
Chat. Ages 5 to 8: off. Ages 9 to 12: Trusted Friends only, direct chat off. Age 13: voice to No one or Friends.
Content maturity. Kids accounts are locked to Minimal and Mild. On Select, you can reduce Moderate to Mild.
Spending and screen time. Set a Robux spend limit (zero is fine) and a time limit.
Friends list. Read the names. Ask about any you do not know.
Full walkthrough with screenshots: Roblox parental controls, step by step. For voice chat across every game your child plays, start with our parent's guide to voice chat safety.
Is Roblox safe for 5 year olds?
Verdict: okay on a Roblox Kids account with chat off, when you are in the room.
At 5, your child gets a Roblox Kids account (ages 5 to 8). Chat is off by default. Only games, which Roblox calls experiences, labeled Minimal or Mild are available, and chat outside games is disabled (Roblox, June 2026).
The risk at this age is not strangers. It is content. A 5 year old cannot read a maturity label, and the recommended row will pull them toward games built for 10 year olds. The other risk is Robux: one tap on a bright button spends real money.
Do this: link your parent account, leave chat off, set the spend limit to zero, and play the first few sessions together.
Is Roblox safe for 6 year olds?
Verdict: okay with the same locks as age 5, plus a rule about who they play with.
Roblox's rules do not change between 5 and 6. Your child does. They start playing with a cousin or a school friend, and someone will suggest turning chat on.
If you do, keep it to Trusted Friends. A Trusted Friend is someone Roblox lets your child chat with, and for ages 5 to 12 you approve each one (Roblox, June 2026). So the list is yours. Say yes to the cousin. Say no to "my friend's friend."
Do this: keep chat off unless there is a named person you know. A screen time limit helps more than you would think at this age.
Is Roblox safe for 7 year olds?
Verdict: yes, on a Kids account with chat off or Trusted Friends only, and a parent who checks in.
Seven is when Roblox becomes social. Common Sense Media says Roblox is okay for 13 and up, and that younger children can use it if a parent controls the account and supervises (Common Sense Media, August 2026). Roblox's own answer is a Kids account with chat off. The honest position is in between. A 7 year old can play well on a Kids account. What decides it is whether chat is on, and who is on the list.
The risk to watch is other children. An older sibling or friend will show them how to get around a setting, or lend an account that is already age-checked as older.
Do this: chat off or Trusted Friends only, and maturity at Minimal and Mild.
Is Roblox safe for 8 year olds?
Verdict: yes with the same settings, and this is the year to start the stranger conversation.
Eight is the last year on a Kids account. Next year, chat turns on. Use this year to talk about it before it happens.
The pattern that matters: someone in a game says "add me on Discord" or "let's talk somewhere else." That request is how conversations leave Roblox's filters, and it is the one pattern most worth teaching. Two in three minors have been asked by someone they met online to move to a private conversation on another platform (Thorn, 2022).
Do this: keep the Kids settings, and agree on one rule: "If anyone asks you to talk somewhere else, tell me. You will not be in trouble."
Is Roblox safe for 9 year olds?
Verdict: yes, but this is where chat turns on, so set it to Trusted Friends before they log in.
At 9, your child moves to a Roblox Select account (ages 9 to 15). Text chat becomes available, filtered, and only with users in a similar age group or with Trusted Friends. Voice chat is not available for ages 9 to 12, and direct one-on-one chat is off by default (Roblox Safety Center, 2026).
That is mostly contained. The gap is that "similar age group" depends on every age check being right. The face scan is accurate to about 1.4 years (NBC News, June 2026), so ages either side of a line can land in the wrong group. Among 9 to 12 year olds on gaming platforms, 91% have interacted with someone they do not know offline (Thorn, 2022).
Do this: in-game chat to Trusted Friends only, direct chat off, and you approve every Trusted Friend. If your child asks for voice chat, our guide to Roblox voice chat under 13 explains why the answer is no for now.
Is Roblox safe for 10 year olds?
Verdict: yes, with chat limited to people you have approved. This is the age the research is about.
One in three boys aged 9 to 12 reported an online sexual interaction (Thorn, 2024). Researchers who registered a test account as a 10 year old found it could enter spaces with highly suggestive content and watch adult conversations (Revealing Reality, reported by The Guardian, April 2025).
Roblox's Select defaults let a 10 year old into games rated up to Moderate. You can reduce that to Mild in Parental Controls.
Do this: maturity down to Mild, chat to Trusted Friends only, and one question now and then: "Who did you play with today?"
Is Roblox safe for 11 year olds?
Verdict: yes with the same locks, plus a talk about gifts and secrets.
The settings do not change between 10 and 11. The social pressure does. Eleven year olds want the friends list to grow, and the people who target children know it.
The approach is patient. Help with a hard level. Send Robux. Then "keep this between us." A conversation with a child on a gaming platform can turn into high-risk grooming in as little as 19 seconds; the average is 45 minutes (WeProtect Global Alliance, 2023). It takes one session.
Do this: keep chat to Trusted Friends, and add the gift rule: "If someone you do not know in real life sends you Robux or an item, that is something to tell me."
Is Roblox safe for 12 year olds?
Verdict: yes, and this is the year to decide what you will allow at 13.
Twelve is the last year without voice chat. Next year Roblox lets a parent enable it. Your child knows this, and friends who are already 13 will describe it.
The risk at 12 is the workaround: a second account with a fake birthday, or an older sibling's account that is already age-checked. Roblox also keeps re-estimating age from how an account behaves, not just from the first check (NBC News, June 2026).
Do this: keep the Select settings, and have the voice conversation now, on your terms: "When you are 13, here is what we will do, and here is why."
Is Roblox safe for 13 year olds?
Verdict: yes, with voice chat off or Friends only, a PIN on the settings, and a real conversation.
At 13, your child is still on a Select account, but you can now turn on in-game voice chat (Roblox, June 2026). Voice and text stay inside the 13 to 15 age group and Trusted Friends. Adults are kept out of that group by design. That is a real improvement, and it holds only if every age check is right.
Three in four young gamers aged 10 to 17 experienced harassment in online multiplayer games (ADL, 2023). At 13 the question stops being "can they play" and becomes "what happens in the headset." For the voice settings in detail, see our guide to Roblox voice chat safety for 13 year olds.
Do this: voice to No one or Friends, a Parental PIN so it stays that way, and the scripts at the end of this page.
How Roblox works in 2026
Everything above rests on three changes Roblox made this year.
An age check for everyone. Since June 2026, every user completes an age check with a government ID or a face scan before they can chat, at any age. Users under 16 are then placed in Roblox Kids (5 to 8) or Roblox Select (9 to 15); 16 and up get a standard account (Roblox, June 2026).
Chat that stays inside an age group. Kids accounts have chat off by default; a parent can turn on filtered text with approved Trusted Friends. Select accounts get filtered text chat with similar ages and Trusted Friends, with voice possible from 13 if a parent allows it. Direct one-on-one chat is off until a parent turns it on.
Parental controls that follow the age. Until 13, you control the friend list, Trusted Friend approvals, screen time, and spending. Until 16, you control chat settings and which games are blocked. From 16 to 18, you can see spending and screen time but not change them (Roblox, June 2026).
Ratings. In the US, the ESRB rates Roblox T for Teen with "Diverse Content: Discretion Advised", "Users Interact", and "In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)" (ESRB, August 2025). Roblox is moving individual games onto regional labels, so UK and European parents see PEGI labels, and Australian ACB labels are rolling out during 2026. The account type does more than the platform rating: a Kids account cannot open a Moderate game whatever the label says.
The real risks, with numbers
Most of what goes wrong on Roblox is one of four things.
Contact from strangers. The account system limits who can chat with whom. It does not remove the risk; it moves it. Two in three minors have been asked to move a conversation to another app (Thorn, 2022), and "add me on Discord" is how a filtered conversation becomes an unfiltered one.
Grooming. One in three boys aged 9 to 12 reported an online sexual interaction (Thorn, 2024). In gaming chat, the move from friendly to high-risk can take as little as 19 seconds; the average is 45 minutes (WeProtect Global Alliance, 2023). Roblox filed 65,381 reports to the NCMEC CyberTipline in 2025, up from 2,973 in 2022 (NCMEC, reports by electronic service provider). Those are reports filed by Roblox, and the number reflects better detection as well as more incidents.
Content. Millions of games are made by users. The maturity labels are good, not perfect. A test account registered as a 10 year old reached highly suggestive spaces (Revealing Reality via The Guardian, April 2025).
Money. Robux is real money in a costume. A spend limit fixes this in one setting.
The lawsuits, in two sentences. At least ten state attorneys general have sued Roblox since August 2025; four states have settled for more than $35 million combined (Claims Journal, April 2026), and more than 170 family cases are consolidated in federal court in California. The suits allege that Roblox misrepresented how safe the platform was for children, which is worth holding in mind when you read Roblox's own safety pages.
Is the Roblox age check safe?
The face scan is run by a third party, Persona. Roblox says the image is used to estimate age and then deleted, and a wrong estimate can be corrected with a government ID (Roblox; NBC News, June 2026). For a child on a linked account, you can set the age yourself instead of scanning their face.
Our view: for a child, use the parent route. For a teen who wants voice chat, the ID route gives a definite answer and avoids a scan that is only accurate to about 1.4 years. Full detail in our guide to Roblox facial age verification.
What the settings cannot do
Everything above is about who can talk to your child and what they can open. None of it tells you what was said.
Roblox does not give parents a transcript, and voice chat is not recorded for parents to review. So the question most parents end up asking is: if something did happen in a session, would I know?
You can see their screen. You cannot be in their headset. Here are the options. One of them is ours: we make Halo, so read that row with the same suspicion you would bring to any company writing about its own product.
Tool | What it does on Roblox | Devices | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
Roblox parental controls | Restricts who can chat and what can be opened. | All | Blocking only. Shows nothing that was said. |
Bark | Scans sent text chat and content searches. | Android and the Bark Phone | Not offered for iPhone or iPad. Child's side only. Does not claim voice. (Bark, July 2026.) More in does Bark monitor game voice chat. |
Qustodio | Screen time and app limits; its own guide says it alerts on some Roblox chat (Qustodio, June 2026). | Check device support | Not independently verified. We tested what Qustodio does with voice chat. |
Aura / Kidas | Voice and text in supported PC games. | Windows PC only | No phone or tablet. |
Halo | Sends you an alert and a short summary when it detects grooming, bullying, or threats in your child's game. It monitors the voice chat and the text chat, and it never records a thing. | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows | No Android yet. On iOS your child starts the session. An alert is a signal, not a verdict; no alert is not proof of safety. |
If your child plays on an iPad or iPhone, Halo is the option that covers voice and text there. Their voice never leaves their device: speech is turned into text on the device, and only the words are analyzed, then discarded, never stored. If you would rather nothing at all left the device, there is a switch in the parent app. Your child knows Halo is there; that is the point. It will not tell you everything, and it is not a substitute for the conversation below. There is a 7-day free trial.
What to say to your child
The settings buy you time. The conversation is what makes them safer.
Ages 5 to 8
"Roblox is for playing with people we know. If someone you do not know wants to be your friend, come and get me."
"If anything on the screen looks weird or scary, you can close it. You are never in trouble for that."
Ages 9 to 12
"If someone asks you to talk on a different app, that is a red flag. Why would they want to leave Roblox?"
"Has anyone ever sent you Robux or an item who you do not know in real life?"
"Some adults pretend to be children online. It is hard to tell. If something feels off, trust that."
Age 13
"Voice chat means real voices. If someone gets personal fast, asks what school you go to, or wants to go private, that is a pattern worth knowing about."
"If something happens that feels wrong, I would rather hear it from you than find out later. That is the deal."
If you ever see the warning signs, our guide to grooming warning signs in gaming covers what to do next. Reports go to the NCMEC CyberTipline in the US, CEOP in the UK, and the ACCCE in Australia.
Frequently asked questions
Is Roblox safe for kids?
Roblox can be okay for most children from age 5 on the right account with the right settings. Ages 5 to 8 use a Roblox Kids account with chat off. Ages 9 to 12 get filtered text chat that you should limit to Trusted Friends. At 13, a parent can allow voice chat. The settings control who can talk to your child; they do not show you what was said.
What age is Roblox appropriate for?
Roblox's own accounts start at 5. The ESRB rates it T for Teen, and Common Sense Media suggests 13 and up, or younger with a parent controlling the account. In practice, a 5 to 8 year old on a Kids account with chat off is well protected; the decisions get harder at 9, when chat turns on, and at 13, when voice becomes possible.
Can strangers talk to my child on Roblox?
Less than before, and not never. Since June 2026, chat stays inside a child's age group and Trusted Friends, and adults are kept out of under-16 groups. That depends on every age check being accurate, and the face scan is only accurate to about 1.4 years. Keep chat to Trusted Friends you approve, and treat "let's talk on another app" as a red flag.
Which is safer for kids, Minecraft or Roblox?
They carry similar risk, and it comes from the same place: open chat with people your child does not know. In Thorn's 2024 survey, 9% of Roblox's minor users and 8% of Minecraft's reported an online sexual interaction on that specific platform (the one-in-three figure counts any platform). Minecraft has no built-in voice chat; Roblox has stronger age-based controls. Either is manageable with chat limited to known friends.
Is the Roblox age check safe?
The scan is run by Persona and, Roblox says, the image is deleted after the estimate. It is accurate to about 1.4 years and can be corrected with a government ID. For a child, you do not need it: set the age on a linked parent account instead. For a teen who wants voice chat, the ID route is more reliable than the scan.
Is there a way to monitor my child on Roblox?
Roblox's controls restrict but do not monitor; there is no chat transcript and voice is not recorded. Bark scans sent text on Android only. On iPhone, iPad, Mac and Windows, Halo sends you an alert and a short summary when it detects grooming, bullying, or threats in your child's game. It monitors the voice chat and the text chat, and it never records a thing. Details in can parents see Roblox chat.
Why is Roblox getting banned in 2026?
It is not banned in the US. The headlines come from two places: a handful of countries have blocked Roblox over child safety, and at least ten US states have sued it. Roblox's response in 2026 was a mandatory age check to chat and age-grouped accounts for everyone under 16, which is a tightening, not a ban.
Sources
[Roblox] "Age-based Roblox Kids and Select accounts now globally available." 16 June 2026. about.roblox.com
[Roblox] Safety Center: account types and chat settings. Accessed September 2026. about.roblox.com/safety
[Roblox] Facial age estimation and ID verification pages (Persona; image deletion). Accessed September 2026.
[Roblox] Q2 2026 shareholder letter. 31 July 2026.
[NBC News] "How old are you? Inside Roblox's new campaign to verify user ages." 15 June 2026.
[ESRB] "What parents need to know about Roblox." 6 August 2025.
[Common Sense Media] "Parents' Ultimate Guide to Roblox." Reviewed 4 August 2026.
[Thorn] "Youth Perspectives on Online Safety." 2024.
[Thorn] "Online Grooming: Examining risky encounters amid everyday digital socialization." 2022.
[WeProtect Global Alliance] "Global Threat Assessment." 2023.
[ADL] "Hate is No Game: Hate and Harassment in Online Games." 2023.
[NCMEC] CyberTipline reports by electronic service provider. 2022 to 2025.
[The Guardian] "Risks to children playing Roblox 'deeply disturbing', say researchers" (Revealing Reality research). 14 April 2025.
[Claims Journal] "Roblox settles with states for $35.8 million over child safety." 22 April 2026. State complaints summarised by litigation trackers, September 2026.
[Bark] "How to set up Roblox parental controls." 23 July 2026.
[Qustodio] "Is Roblox safe for kids? An app safety guide for parents." 23 June 2026.
This guide is updated as Roblox changes its safety features. Last reviewed September 2026.
