Florida
Fla. Stat. §§ 39.201, 39.204, 39.205 — Florida mandatory-reporting statute
- Clergy named as mandatory reporter?
- No
- Confessional exemption?
- Yes
- Statute
- Fla. Stat. §§ 39.201, 39.204, 39.205
- Clergy named
- All-person
- Pending
- —
Florida has one of the broader reporting frameworks in the country. Section 39.201 imposes the duty on any person with reasonable cause to suspect child abuse, abandonment, neglect, sexual abuse, or juvenile sexual abuse, and routes those reports to the 24/7 central abuse hotline operated by the Department of Children and Families. Knowing failure to report is a third-degree felony under § 39.205(1), and Florida College System institutions, state universities, and nonpublic colleges, universities, and schools whose administrators knowingly fail to report face institutional fines of $1 million under § 39.205(3). The carveout sits one section away from the reporting duty: § 39.204 abrogates spousal and most professional-client privileges in child-abuse matters but expressly preserves attorney-client privilege and the clergy-penitent privilege at § 90.505. In 2026 Florida enacted CS/SB 590 (Chapter 2026-95), which tolls the statute of limitations on failure-to-report offenses until law enforcement or another government agency, not the institution where the violation occurred, learns of it. That exclusion is aimed squarely at institutional concealment. Its House companion HB 373 was laid on the table in favor of the Senate bill. Neither measure touches the § 39.204 carveout itself. Closing that carveout is the work UCO is pushing in Florida and every state where a confession-style privilege sits inside the reporting statute.