New GA Laws Approved 2025: Child Tax Credit, School Safety Among Passed Laws

GEORGIA — The Georgia General Assembly recently ended its 2025-26 session, passing laws that elevate child tax credits, establish funding for the wrongfully convicted and reaffirm the state's stance on males playing in female sports.

Several bills successfully made it through the House and Senate chambers under the Gold Dome at the Georgia Capitol.

Here are 12 laws that passed during the latest legislation season:

House Bill 136

• Increases the state tax credit for certain child and dependent care expenses.
• Establishes new tax credits for people with children ages 6 and younger, for employers that pay certain child-care expenses and for insurance companies against insurance premium tax liability for contributions to qualified organizations that support foster children and justice involved youth.
• Provides for terms, conditions, limitations and procedures for such credits.
• Revises a tax credit for contributions to foster child support organizations.
• Expands the organizations that qualify for such contributions.
• Allows such organizations to include as qualified expenditures certain services for justice involved youth.

House Bill 137

• Maximizes the dollar value of certain public works contracts exempt from contractual payment retention provisions.
• Increases the dollar value related to when certain school construction contracts must be subject to competitive bidding.

House Bill 551

• Provides for conditions, procedures and limitations for issuance of temporary operating permits for motor vehicles.

House Bill 513

• Authorizes continuance of existing local ordinances related to video surveillance at gas stations.
• Amends Georgia code relating to service delivery strategy.
• Revises provisions related to the county share of funding for jointly funded county-wide services be borne by unincorporated residents.

House Bill 268

• Provides for the safety, health and well-being of students and school communities.
• Requires public schools to implement a mobile panic alert system capable of connecting disparate emergency services technologies.
• Ensures real-time coordination between multiple state and local first responder agencies in the event of a school security emergency.

House Bill 582

• Provides for defendants to support a justification defense by offering evidence of family violence, dating violence or child abuse committed by the alleged victim.
• Revises provisions for the defense of coercion.
• Provides a privilege for participation in victim-centered programs and victim-offender dialogues.
• Provides for civil immunity for facilitators in certain circumstances.

Senate Bill 1

• Enacts the "Riley Gaines Act of 2025."
• Provides generally for competitively fair and safe student participation in school and college sports.
• Provides for equal athletic opportunities and safety.
• Provides for specific designations of teams operated or sponsored by local school systems, public schools, participating private schools and postsecondary educational institutions in this state.
• Prohibits males from participating in interscholastic and intercollegiate competitions on teams designated as female.
• Prohibits females from participating in competition on intercollegiate teams designated as male, subject to exceptions.
• Provides for interscholastic coed team designations.
• Requires multiple occupancy restrooms and changing areas and sleeping quarters to be designated for exclusive use by males or females.
• Prohibits postsecondary educational institutions that are covered entities from hosting or sponsoring intercollegiate competitions that allow males to participate with teams designated as female or use multiple occupancy restrooms or changing areas and sleeping quarters designated for use by females.
• Prohibits such covered entities from awarding to males scholarships intended for female team members.
• Provides for investigation of complaints of noncompliance.

Senate Bill 123

• Provides that no student shall be expelled by a public school due solely to absenteeism.
• Provides for attendance review teams.

Senate Bill 36

• Recognizes free exercise of religion as an inalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
• Prohibits the government from burdening a person's exercise of religion unless it is in the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest or the least restrictive means of furthering such compelling governmental interest.

Senate Bill 69

• Regulates third-party litigation financing practices.
• Enacts a new chapter regulating litigation financing practices.
• Prohibits any person with relevant affiliations with foreign persons, foreign principals or sovereign wealth funds from serving as litigation financiers.

Senate Bill 185

• Prohibits the use of state funds or resources for certain treatments for state inmates.

Senate Bill 244

• Enacts provisions relating to certain criminal prosecutions.
• Provides for the award of reasonable attorney's fees and costs in a criminal case to the defendant upon the disqualification of the prosecuting attorney for misconduct in connection with the case and the subsequent dismissal of the case by the court or a subsequent prosecutor.
• Provides for procedures for assessing and paying such fees and costs.
• Allows for wrongful conviction and incarceration compensation claims.
• Requires administrative law judges within the Office of State Administrative Hearings to hear and evaluate such claims.
• Establishes the Wrongful Conviction and Incarceration Compensation Trust Fund.