IndianaSB 80First Regular Session 124th General Assembly (2025)SenateWALLET

Code publication.

Sponsored By: Aaron Freeman (Republican)

Signed by Governor

Summary

Makes Indiana Code publication amendments. Repeals and relocates specific Indiana Code definitions chapters for organization of the defined terms by alphabetical order and to provide for future expansion of the chapters. Makes conforming cross-reference updates. Makes technical amendments to remove tabulation designations from the certain criminal law and procedure sections for consistency with similar statutes and to streamline amendment of those sections. Resolves technical conflicts between various enrolled acts passed during the 2025 legislative session.

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

36 provisions identified: 15 benefits, 12 costs, 9 mixed.

Abuse protections reach young facility residents

Specified child-abuse protections now cover people ages 18 through 20 who live or previously lived in a state-licensed residential facility. The facility must be licensed by the Department of Child Services. Coverage applies when facility staff cause harm or threatened harm through battery or the sexual activity listed in the law.

Broader protections against stalking and abuse

Indiana’s domestic and family violence protections cover stalking and sex offenses even when the offender is not a family member. The definition also covers specified animal abuse used to threaten, intimidate, coerce, harass, or terrorize a family or household member. This broadens the conduct covered by the chapter’s protections and relief.

Some overseas voters get federal-only ballots

Overseas voters who no longer reside in an Indiana precinct may receive absentee ballots only for federal offices. Their assigned precinct contains the voter registration office in the Indiana county where they lived before leaving the United States.

Stricter hiring limits for nurse aides

Beginning July 1, 2025, health care facilities and staffing contractors cannot knowingly employ applicants with certain recent convictions. The law bars applicants whose crime-of-violence conviction occurred less than 10 years before applying. This replaces the prior five-year rule for involuntary manslaughter. The law also removes an exception for specified theft, conversion, or receiving-stolen-property felonies committed less than five years before applying.

Relative placements get priority and screening

For court-ordered placements of children alleged to need services, the department must first consider suitable, willing relatives or de facto custodians. Relatives may be related by blood, marriage, or adoption; these homes require a visit before placement. Covered home placements require resident criminal-history checks, and substantiated abuse reports or nonwaivable offenses generally bar approval. Limited exceptions require findings that past conduct does not affect present caregiving and placement serves the child’s best interest. Listed convictions must be at least five years old; officials must weigh elapsed time, severity, and rehabilitation, and remaining nonwaivable offenses still bar placement.

Product injury rules include some bystanders

Indiana product liability law includes purchasers, users, consumers, and people controlling a product for the injured person as consumers. It also includes injured bystanders reasonably expected to be near the product during reasonably expected use. Buying or using the product is therefore not always required to fall within this definition.

Distillers gain event sales, less paperwork

Beginning July 1, 2025, artisan distillers may sell, donate, transport, and deliver liquor to qualified organizations for legally allowed events. Covered events include the charity auctions and events listed in the law. Distillers no longer must send annual copies of state and federal excise tax returns to the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission. This reporting repeal does not change the excise taxes themselves.

Distillers gain more direct sales capacity

Beginning July 1, 2025, qualifying artisan distillers can sell and deliver more liquor directly to retailers or dealers. The annual cap rises from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons. The prior-year Indiana sales limit for eligibility rises from 9,000 to 10,000 gallons. Distillers must not distribute through an Indiana liquor wholesaler and must follow the legal requirements for wholesalers.

More trade show days for producers

Indiana brewers, farm wineries, and artisan distillers can attend trade shows or expositions for up to 75 days yearly. The prior cap was 45 days, and Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission approval remains required. For artisan distillers, the increase begins July 1, 2025. Distillers can participate alone or with other permit holders listed in the law.

Wine dealers lose three-case sales cap

Beginning July 1, 2025, Indiana wine dealers may sell more than three standard cases in a single transaction. Wine must still be sold in permissible containers.

Counties face polling security and layout rules

County boards must separate election-worker areas from voting equipment, designate challenge areas, and mark entrance-line boundaries. Specified voting systems require a railing. Beginning July 1, 2025, electronic poll books must meet security, check-in, ballot-tracking, training, audit, and data-handling standards. County boards must safeguard devices between uses and keep unnecessary software off them. Permitted data transfers to voting systems require a physically removable device, no hardware or software connection, and required data erasure.

Hemp exclusions and marijuana definitions clarified

Qualifying hemp extract is excluded from marijuana, hashish, and hash oil definitions; qualifying smokable hemp is excluded from marijuana. Extract must be hemp-derived, contain no other controlled substances, and stay within 0.3% total delta-9-THC by weight, including precursors. Smokable hemp has a 0.3% delta-9-THC limit including precursors and derivatives, and must allow use by inhaling smoke. Specified hemp plants or parts handled by licensed processors are excluded from the smokable-hemp definition. Marijuana manufacture includes processing, packaging, and labeling, but growing remains production; stated professional, research, teaching, and chemical-analysis exclusions remain.

Juvenile reports explain placements and risks

Reports prepared before juvenile court decisions must explain placement options, recommendations, consultations, and required dual-status assessments. Department reports must describe efforts to find adult relatives; probation reports must include validated risk-and-needs assessments and dual-status screening results. When considering a home placement, report writers must include criminal-history checks for people living there. Checks are not required when only nonresidential or state-licensed placements are considered, or when placement remains undetermined.

Emergency care liability rules include volunteers

A separate civil-liability chapter includes licensed care, hospitalization, emergency services, and goods or services treating illness, disability, or injury. It also includes specified registered, certified, and trained unlicensed health professionals. Unlicensed professionals must complete applicable state health department training. Volunteers and temporary or provisional license holders qualify when permitted to practice during a declared COVID-19 disaster emergency.

School childcare programs gain student volunteers

Beginning July 1, 2025, students age 15 or older may volunteer as caregivers in their school corporation’s childcare program. An adult authorized to provide childcare must supervise them. Students may start before completing the usual caregiver requirements, but must finish those requirements within three months.

Health plan buyers gain audit access

Eligible contract holders, plan sponsors, and state entities can request one audit per calendar year, at least six months apart. This covers pharmacy benefit managers, third-party administrators, managed care organizations, and prepaid health care delivery plans. Requested claims data must arrive within 15 business days. Audit files can be changed only to meet federal health privacy rules, not to hide trade secrets. Pharmacy benefit managers must also obtain requested audit information from group purchasing organizations or other partner entities.

Closing agents face fewer reporting duties

Closing agents no longer must send transaction information and forms to the Department of Insurance after closing. They also no longer need a customer's signed verification of compliance. The law removes the $25 civil penalty and related examination and enforcement rules, including the penalty for missing the pre-closing form. Agents must still give customers that form before closing.

Local tax allocation rules change

The law directs qualifying surplus assessed value to local taxing units in specified redevelopment, economic development, or urban renewal areas. This applies to allocation areas established after June 30, 2019. The trigger is assessed value expected to generate more than 200% of specified bond-payment and other funding amounts. For areas established after June 30, 2025, residential value means value in county tax software's 1% homestead land and improvement categories. These allocation changes do not specify a change to household tax bills.

Court auctioneer sales face feasibility tests

Courts may find an execution sale economically feasible with an auctioneer only after making two findings. An auctioneer must be reasonably likely to produce a valid, enforceable bid covering the judgment and necessary costs. The court must also find no such likelihood without an auctioneer.

Primary voters must show identification

In-person primary voters must show qualifying identification before signing the poll list. An election-board member must challenge voters who cannot or decline to provide it. Those voters may sign the required affidavit and receive a provisional ballot. The requirement does not apply to residents voting at their own state-licensed care facility.

Product claims exclude gradual damage, services

Product liability law covers bodily injury, death, loss of services and related rights, and sudden major property damage. It excludes gradually developing property damage and economic losses resulting from that damage. A product must be a good that is personal property when the seller transfers it. Transactions wholly or mostly for services do not count as product sales under this law.

Property owners face fire service charges

Beginning July 1, 2025, volunteer fire departments may authorize agents to collect service charges from property owners they serve. Charges cannot exceed the state fire marshal’s recommended schedule. Departments must give required notice before starting or changing charges, and owners may refuse service in writing. Written bills must meet legal requirements and arrive within 30 days after service. Payments go directly to the government unit providing service.

Absentee application helpers face filing duties

People helping with specified absentee-application information must give identifying and contact details and make statements under penalty of perjury. They must attest to legal compliance and no reason to doubt the applicant’s eligibility or proper completion and signature. Recipients must record receipt and file completed applications by noon 10 days later or the application deadline, whichever comes first. People filing another person’s application generally must also submit the required affidavit. Postal and bonded-courier employees acting in that role have deadline and affidavit exceptions; listed election offices have affidavit exceptions.

Child abuse definition excludes sex-based references

The law excludes raising or referring to a child consistently with the child’s biological sex from the stated child-abuse definition. That conduct alone does not fall within this definition of child abuse or neglect.

More fentanyl compounds face controlled-substance rules

Indiana’s Schedule I rules include specified fentanyl compounds, ANPP, and carfentanil. The fentanyl-related category covers substances not already listed in Schedules I through V that meet a listed structural test. These classifications apply to people manufacturing, distributing, possessing, or otherwise handling covered substances.

Organized retail theft counts toward racketeering

Beginning July 1, 2025, organized retail theft qualifies as racketeering activity in Indiana. A racketeering pattern requires at least two related incidents meeting the law’s requirements. The last incident must occur within five years after a prior incident.

Civil liability coverage limits medical services

One civil-liability provision covers noninvasive care and four listed invasive services. Those services are routine dental care, injections, suturing minor cuts, and opening boils or superficial abscesses. Abortions, including medication abortions, and prescribing controlled or scheduled drugs are excluded. These limits concern this liability provision, not health insurance coverage.

Electronic charity games face testing requirements

The Gaming Commission must set approval standards for electronic raffle systems, including testing and age, identity, and location checks. Raffle operators or payment processors must submit their systems for independent certification or other testing. The commission must also set licensing, technical, and approval standards for electronic pull tab manufacturers. Manufacturers pay for independent testing and certification. Qualified organizations cannot use a pull tab system until the commission approves it.

Absentee applications face preparation and distribution limits

Others may prefill only a voter’s name, registration address, mailing address, and birth date on an absentee application. They cannot prefill ballot choices, voting reasons, an alternate ballot-delivery address, or the voter’s identification number. Mailed applications require an unsolicited-application disclaimer; online applications do not. Government agencies may provide applications only when requested by the voter or a listed family member. Voters generally must sign, but an authorized helper may sign for a voter unable to sign because of disability who has no designated attorney in fact.

Absentee voters face identification checks

Absentee applications request listed identification numbers and the last four Social Security digits, or a copy of qualifying identification. Applicants may provide just one listed number or one listed identification document. Applications through the computerized-list module require one listed identifying number. The information is confidential. County election boards must follow legal procedures when no provided number matches the voter’s registration record.

Market alcohol sales expand with limits

Beginning July 1, 2025, approved artisan distillers may promote and sell liquor at farmers’ markets in qualified take-home containers. Distillers cannot offer samples for on-site consumption. Farm wineries also need Alcohol and Tobacco Commission approval and must sell wine in qualified containers for off-site consumption. Wineries may offer each person up to three samples, each no larger than one ounce. The law removes wineries’ separate right to sell bottles at nonprofit farmers’ markets.

Cleanup claims gain ten-year cost window

Qualifying cleanup cases filed on or after the section’s effective date may seek costs from the 10 years before filing. They may also seek removal, remedial, or corrective-action costs incurred on or after filing. Eligible costs can predate the law’s effective date. The rule does not reopen settled or finally decided cases. People with cases already pending on that date cannot use this section to amend them or bring replacement cases.

Drug-related civil cases reach more counties

For the specified drug-related civil law, a county qualifies as a place of drug activity where a user possesses or uses drugs. It also qualifies where the user lives, works, or attends school during that drug use. A defendant may rebut that county finding with clear and convincing evidence. A county likewise qualifies as a place of drug-market participation through participation there or the participant’s residence, work, or school there.

Government liability rules define covered people

Specified government liability laws cover current and former people acting for government, whether temporary, permanent, paid, or unpaid. Covered people include board members, volunteer firefighters, elected officials, and specified attorneys. Physicians and optometrists qualify only for care to confined offenders through their Department of Correction employment or contracts. Most independent contractors and their workers are excluded, along with other stated exclusions. Covered public entities include local governments, schools, state colleges, hospitals, joint drug task forces, community corrections programs, and solid waste districts.

Officeholders covered; election reports gain email filing

The chapter’s candidate definition includes people holding federal, state, school board, and local elected office. Election reports may be emailed when the receiving office can receive, timestamp, and print them. Emailed reports are due by noon seven days after the report date, with the electronic timestamp determining filing time. The printed copy controls any conflict with email text until amendment. Offices may also accept faxed reports under an approved policy.

Public contract talks gain closed-door options

Beginning July 1, 2025, governing bodies may privately review publicly bid contract negotiations when public knowledge likely increases costs. They may also privately discuss soliciting proposals containing protected business methods, pricing, or trade-secret information. That exception requires a reasonable expectation that public discussion causes private loss to the information provider. These discussions no longer require an open meeting when the stated tests are satisfied.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

Aaron Freeman
Republican • Senate

Cosponsors

Greg Taylor
Democratic • Senate
Karen Engleman
Republican • House
Pat Boy
Affiliation unavailable

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 284 • No: 1

Senate vote • 4/24/2025

Rules Suspended. Conference Committee Report 1: adopted by the Senate

Yes: 50 • No: 0

House vote • 4/24/2025

Rules Suspended. Conference Committee Report 1: adopted by the House

Yes: 90 • No: 1

House vote • 3/17/2025

Third reading: passed

Yes: 95 • No: 0

Senate vote • 1/21/2025