What age should a kid get Roblox?
"Is Roblox OK for a seven-year-old" has no single answer, for the same reason "is YouTube OK" has none: Roblox is not a game, it is millions of games other people made. What changed in 2026 is that Roblox now says this too — under-16s are sorted into two different products, and the younger one has chat switched off.
The short answer
Roblox without chat and Roblox with chat are two separate decisions. On this plan, games without chat open at 10 and games with chat and other players open at 12. Roblox can now be either one, so the version you allow is what sets the date.
That is a more useful answer than a single number, and it is also the only honest one. The rest of this page is what changed, what the change is worth, and what it does not fix.
What actually changed, and when
Most advice about Roblox online is older than the platform it describes. Two things happened in a year.
Age checks to chat. In November 2025 Roblox said it would require users to verify their age with a selfie, use that image to estimate their age, and put them in an age group — after which they could only talk to people in the same group, such as 9 to 12 or 13 to 15. It started in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands in December 2025 and applied to other countries from January 2026. The stated goal was to limit communication between children and adults.
Age-based accounts. In April 2026 Roblox said it would sort younger users into two account types, through its age-check system or parental verification: Roblox Kids for ages 5 to 8 and Roblox Select for ages 9 to 15, rolling out from early June. Games have to meet content standards to appear in either. For Kids accounts, games are limited by maturity level and go through a three-step review, with creators required to verify ID and turn on two-step verification.
Chat is off by default on a Kids account. On a Select account it is turned on gradually, by age.
This did not come from nowhere. Roblox spent the previous years under heavy criticism from governments over child safety, and is facing lawsuits from several US state attorneys general. A company changing this much this fast is usually a company under pressure — which is a reason to read the changes carefully, not a reason to dismiss them.
Which Roblox do you mean?
The plan on this site does not have a date for "Roblox". It has dates for what a child can do, and an app arrives with the latest thing it needs.
| The version | On this plan |
|---|---|
| Roblox with chat off Games without chat: played alone or with people in the room. | 10 |
| Roblox with chat on Games with chat and other players, including voice. | 12 |
Most of what worries parents about games isn't the game — it's the chat channel attached to it. Removing the channel leaves the part a child actually wants.
That sentence was written before Roblox Kids existed, and Roblox has now built the thing it describes. A five-year-old on a Kids account with chat off is not doing the thing the 12 is there to protect against. Plenty of families will open that earlier than 10, and this page is not going to tell them they are wrong — but it is worth knowing which of the two dates you are moving, because they guard against completely different things.
The step that gates chat is the same one that gates open messaging: a short conversation called someone you don't know. It is not a test and a child cannot fail it.
What the age check does not do
The age check is a real improvement and it is worth turning on. It is also not the end of the conversation, for three reasons.
Other children are strangers too. An age band means your eleven-year-old talks to other eleven-year-olds instead of to adults. That removes the worst risk on the platform. It does not remove being asked for a Snapchat handle, being talked into a trade, being left out of a group, or being shown something by another child. The strangers conversation is still the conversation.
A band is only as good as the check behind it. The sorting depends on the age check actually happening for that account. An old account created years ago with a made-up birth year, a sibling's account, or an account on a friend's device is not necessarily in the right group. This is worth checking rather than assuming, and it is worth saying to the child without it being an accusation:
This account was set up with a birth year that isn't yours, so the settings meant to protect someone your age may not be switched on. We're going to check them together.
It is about chat, not about money or time. The two things families actually argue about most — how long, and how much — are untouched by any of this.
The Robux question
Roblox is free to install and is not free to play in the way that phrase suggests: the economy inside it is the product. Children are asked to spend, by the game, by other players, and by the culture around it, more or less constantly.
On this plan, deciding what to install and what to pay for arrives together at 13, with a conversation about permissions and paying. Below that, the practical answer is not a Roblox setting at all: turn off purchases at the level of the phone and the app store, where they cannot be re-enabled from inside a game. A child cannot spend what the device will not let them spend.
The other half is worth saying out loud early, because it is the part that generalises: an in-game currency is designed to make the price feel smaller than it is. That is not a Roblox complaint. It is how all of them work.
Australia: Roblox is not covered by the under-16 law
Since 10 December 2025, age-restricted social media platforms in Australia must take reasonable steps to stop under-16s holding accounts, and parental consent creates no exception. Roblox is not one of them. The regulator's published lists place Roblox among the services it considered not age-restricted, alongside Discord, Messenger, Pinterest, Steam, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids. The restricted list is Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube.
So in Australia this is a family decision, not a legal one — and Australia was the first country where the Roblox age check went live.
If they already play it
Roblox is usually not a decision anybody made. It arrived on a tablet, at a cousin's house, or through the entire class. Removing it is the most expensive opening move available and rarely the one that holds. The better order is on the reset plan: two weeks in which nothing changes, then settings, then the conversations that were skipped, then one dated decision.
For Roblox specifically, the settings worth an evening are the account's age check and age group, who can chat with the account and whether chat is on at all, and purchases at the device level rather than in the game.
Put a date on it
Whatever you decide, the thing that makes it hold is that it is written and dated. A child cannot tell "not yet" from "never" unless somebody writes down which one it is.
Free and printable. Your child's name and birthday stay in your browser and are not saved anywhere.
Questions parents ask
Should my 7 year old have Roblox?
A seven-year-old falls inside Roblox Kids, the account type for ages 5 to 8, where chat is off by default and games have to pass a content review to appear at all. That is a much smaller thing than the Roblox most parents picture. On this plan games without chat open at 10, so seven is earlier than the default pace — but if you are moving that date, you are moving the games-without-chat one, which is the milder of the two. What should not move quietly is chat.
Is Roblox safe for kids in 2026?
Safer than it was, and changed enough that most advice written before 2026 describes a different platform. Chat now requires an age check, under-16s are sorted into Roblox Kids or Roblox Select, chat is off by default for the youngest accounts and unlocks gradually by age, and games have to meet content standards to appear in those accounts. What none of that fixes: other children are still strangers, an account that never went through an age check is not in the right band, and nothing here limits time or spending.
Can I turn off chat on Roblox?
Yes, and on a Roblox Kids account it is off unless someone turns it on. This is the single most useful control on the platform, because it separates the part of Roblox a child wants — building and playing — from the part that carries the risk parents are actually worried about. If you allow Roblox earlier than the plan's date, allowing it with chat off is the version to allow.
Is Roblox banned for under-16s in Australia?
No. Australia's minimum age law applies to age-restricted social media platforms, and the regulator's published lists place Roblox among the services it considered not age-restricted. The services on the restricted list are Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube.
Sources
The ages on this page are Rungs' own plan — a suggestion a family can move, not a finding. Where the page states a checkable fact, it is sourced here. Roblox's own help and newsroom pages could not be opened from here, so the facts below are taken from reporting and from the Australian regulator rather than from Roblox's site.
- Reuters — Roblox to require age checks to use platform's chat features (18 November 2025)That Roblox would require users to take a selfie and use it to estimate their age, that users would be assigned to an age group and allowed to communicate only with others in that group such as 9 to 12 or 13 to 15, that the requirement started in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands in December 2025 and applied to other countries from January 2026, that the goal was to limit communication between children and adults, and that Roblox is not included in Australia's under-16 social media law.
- Reuters — Roblox to introduce age-based accounts in child safety push (13 April 2026)That Roblox would assign users aged 5 to 8 to Roblox Kids accounts and users aged 9 to 15 to Roblox Select accounts through its age-check system or parental verification, that the accounts would roll out from early June 2026, that content standards would govern what appears in each, that games in Kids accounts are limited by maturity level and go through a three-step review with creators required to verify ID and enable two-step verification, and that chat is off by default for Kids accounts and turned on gradually for Select accounts based on age. Also that Roblox has been under heavy criticism from governments over child safety.
- eSafety Commissioner — Which social media platforms are age-restricted? (lists published 21 November 2025, assessment reconfirmed March 2026)That Roblox, along with Discord, GitHub, Google Classroom, LEGO Play, Messenger, Pinterest, Steam and Steam Chat, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids, was considered not an age-restricted social media platform, and that the services considered age-restricted were Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube.
- OAIC — Social media minimum age (Australia)That age-restricted platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from having accounts from 10 December 2025, and that parental consent does not create an exception.
Pages opened and checked on 29 September 2026. How sources are handled on this site: about.