The 2026 Legislative Session wrapped up Friday, March 6, with 541 bills passed by the time the gavel came down at midnight. The Governor has until March 26 to review each bill and decide whether to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.
This was a session with some flashy bright spots – a last-minute win on our top priority bill, meaningful progress on early literacy, and a modest but welcome expansion of the Child Tax Credit. At the same time, we saw another tax cut, quite a few anti-immigrant bills, mixed progress on the child care access and affordability front, and a continuation of the hard work it takes to protect Medicaid in our state. There were 28 bills on our tracker this year: 20 we supported, 5 we opposed, and 3 we monitored.
While not a comprehensive list of everything that happened during the 2026 session, here are updates on the key issues we were most focused on.
Economic Mobility
Our top priority bill this session came down to the wire, with final passage at 11:55 p.m. on the last night of the session. SB 165 Economic Mobility Initiative passed the House in a 63-4 vote. While the bill did not receive dedicated state funding to establish a grant program this session, we were able to pivot and get critical pieces of the bill across the finish line.
The second substitute of SB 165 establishes the cross-sector collaboration framework. Passing this framework now positions us well for current and future funding opportunities and gives us the structure we need to make real, measurable progress on economic mobility in Utah. This win took persistence, and we’re grateful to everyone who advocated alongside us to get it passed.
Education
SB 241 Early Literacy passed with relatively little opposition, and it’s a meaningful step forward. The bill includes a $16 million increase in funding for early literacy programs supporting literacy training, paraprofessional development, and school performance monitoring. It also sets an ambitious new statewide goal: 80% of third-grade students reading on grade level by 2030.
This bill builds on the groundbreaking early literacy legislation we championed a few years ago. Seeing the legislature continue to invest in this work is encouraging. Early literacy is foundational to everything else we care about, from school success to career and technical education to long-term economic opportunity, and we’re glad Utah lawmakers are treating this issue with the importance it deserves.
SB 152 Public and Higher Education Collaboration also passed this session. This bill creates a formal data-sharing process between K-12 public schools and Utah’s higher education system. It allows student data from grades 7-12 to be used to connect students with college readiness programs, concurrent enrollment opportunities, scholarships, financial aid, and admissions pathways. SB 152 helps ensure that the students who could benefit most from these opportunities don’t fall through the cracks simply because the two systems weren’t in communication. The bill includes meaningful guardrails, including compliance with federal and state data privacy laws, required training for any higher education employees who access student data, and parent notification with the right to opt out. It’s a practical, low-cost step toward making higher education more accessible for Utah students.
Tax and Revenue
We were disappointed to see the legislature pass yet another income tax cut this session, this one costing the state an estimated $101 million in revenue. While the 0.05% cut (bringing the income tax from 4.5% down to 4.45%) sounds meaningful, the reality for most families is a savings of around $40 a year. This is not the kind of relief that moves the needle for families who are struggling to afford child care, groceries, or rent.
Utah’s income tax is constitutionally dedicated to funding education and some social services, and year after year these cuts erode our ability to invest in the programs kids and families depend on most. Meanwhile, the families who need the most help see the least benefit from these cuts. This is because Utahns at the bottom of the income scale pay a higher share of their income in state and local taxes than the wealthiest Utahns do.
In good tax news – HB 290 Child Tax Credit Amendments passed this session, increasing the income eligibility thresholds for Utah’s Child Tax Credit (CTC). Couples filing jointly can now earn up to $61,000 (up from $54,000) and single parents can earn up to $49,000 (up from $43,000) and still qualify for the full tax credit.
This is a modest but real improvement that will help more working families access a credit they’ve earned and their families need. We’ll keep pushing to expand the CTC further in future sessions. There’s still more work to do, such as making the credit refundable, to make sure eligible families can actually access the full benefit.
HB 190 Child Care Business Tax Credit also passed this session. This bill is a meaningful step toward addressing Utah’s child care shortage from the employer side of the equation and builds on the tax credit passed by the federal government in H.R. 1 or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The bill expands an existing tax credit, so businesses can now receive credit for contracting with off-site child care facilities (not just on-site ones) and increases the credit to 30% of child care expenditures for small businesses. Critically, employers cannot charge or deduct pay from employees for those child care services to qualify, ensuring the benefit actually flows to workers. Getting more employers invested in child care solutions is good for families, good for the workforce, and good for Utah’s economy.
Child Care
Progress on child care policy had its share of wins and losses this session. SB 214 Home-based Child Care Solutions didn’t pass, but it’s worth acknowledging what it proposed. The bill included provisions we supported, including background checks for home-based providers, CPR and first-aid training requirements, and some key oversight from the Department of Health and Human Services. These are basic child safety measures that should be in place, and we will be working to ensure they come back in a future session.
We did oppose one piece of the bill: a provision that would have expanded the number of children a home-based provider can care for without a license from 8 to 10 kids. Increasing child-to-provider ratios without corresponding safety infrastructure isn’t something we can support. Although the safety components were good policy, and we’re disappointed those didn’t move forward, we’re glad to not see another capacity increase for unlicensed, home-based providers this session.
Health
HB 15 Medicaid Amendments passed, a bill we supported that protects Medicaid Expansion. After Medicaid expansion passed in Utah, the legislature changed some of the provisions the voters supported. One of these changes was putting a trigger law on the bill that if the federal government decreased their matching rate, the expansion would end. This bill extended the trigger law to ensure there is one legislative session where lawmakers can decide if expansion should continue or not. The bill also allows for some flexibility for programs to end or continue depending on what the federal government does to change current rules and laws.
HB 471 Social Services Amendments, one of the bills on our monitor list this session, did pass. This bill required significant attention from health policy advocates this session. Through our coalition work with Protect Medicaid Utah, we engaged directly with the bill’s sponsor to ensure it wouldn’t create barriers to essential programs beyond what federal law already mandates. We still have concerns about codifying federal code in state law, as it’s unnecessary and can create confusion, but we’re grateful to Representative Monson for his openness to our feedback and the time he gave us throughout the process. His responsiveness made a real difference in the final iteration of the bill.
In our work with the Protect Medicaid Utah coalition, and our colleagues at Voices for Utah Children, we were also able to kill a slew of bad bills that, among other things, would have created significant public health crises if allowed to pass. These bills include HB 88 Public Assistance Amendments, HB 386 Immigrant Amendments, and HB 152 Educational Vaccine Exemption Amendments.
Summary
The session may be over, but in many ways our work is just getting started. We understand that how a law is implemented matters just as much as whether it passed. State agencies will spend the coming months writing rules and implementing the bills that just passed. We’ll be at the table for that process, advocating on the issues that matter for kids and families in Utah.
Thank you for following along this session. The voices of our constituency showed up in committee hearings, in legislators’ inboxes, and in the conversations that helped shape these outcomes.
To learn more about the outcomes on every bill we tracked this session, check out our bill tracker here.
Written by the United Way of Salt Lake Policy Team
