For decades, the nonstick coating on your frying pan - and later your air fryer basket - was essentially unregulated. Manufacturers could use PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene, sold as Teflon) and other fluoropolymer coatings freely, market their products as "PFOA-free," and face no legal obligation to disclose that those coatings belonged to the PFAS chemical family. That era is ending state by state.
Beginning January 1, 2025, Minnesota banned the sale of cookware containing intentionally added PFAS - making it the first US state to outright prohibit nonstick pans with Teflon-style coatings. Colorado, Illinois, Vermont, and Maine followed with bans taking effect in 2026. Connecticut and Rhode Island come next in 2027-2028. New Jersey enacted cookware disclosure requirements in early 2026 with a ban phasing in by 2028. California's legislature passed an outright ban in 2025 that Governor Newsom vetoed, but the state already enforces AB 1200 disclosure requirements - and another ban attempt is widely expected.
Taken together, these laws cover a significant share of the US consumer market. For families buying air fryers and cookware, the practical question is straightforward: does this pan or basket contain PFAS? An expanding list of states now says that if the answer is yes, the product cannot legally be sold there.
What "Intentionally Added PFAS" Means Legally
Every state ban hinges on this phrase: intentionally added PFAS. The legal definition matters because it draws a line between deliberate use and contamination.
Across all major state laws, "intentionally added PFAS" means PFAS that a manufacturer deliberately includes in a product or component to provide a specific characteristic, appearance, quality, or function. The chemical must be present because the manufacturer chose to put it there - not as trace contamination from recycled materials or background manufacturing.
The definition has one critical expansion: the use of PFAS as a processing aid, mold release agent, or manufacturing intermediate counts as intentional addition IF the PFAS is detectable in the finished product. This closes a common industry loophole - the argument that PFAS used during manufacturing were never "added to the product" because they were applied to molds or equipment rather than the coating itself.
For cookware, the practical meaning is clear: a PTFE nonstick coating is intentionally added PFAS. PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) is itself a member of the PFAS chemical class - a fluoropolymer with the distinctive carbon-fluorine bonds that define the entire category. When state laws ban intentionally added PFAS in cookware, they ban PTFE. This is not a legal ambiguity; it was explicitly confirmed by Minnesota's Pollution Control Agency guidance and upheld by a federal court when the Cookware Sustainability Alliance challenged the ban.
Why PTFE Is a PFAS: The Chemistry That Changes Everything
The cookware industry spent years successfully distinguishing PTFE from the PFAS compounds (primarily PFOA) that generated the most concern. PTFE, manufacturers argued, is chemically inert, does not leach, and is structurally different from the short-chain PFAS linked to health harms. That argument worked in Congress and with the FDA. It has not worked in state legislatures.
State laws adopt the broadest scientific definition of PFAS: any substance with at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom. PTFE has an entire backbone of fully fluorinated carbons. Under this definition, PTFE is unambiguously a PFAS. When the Minnesota law took effect in January 2025, Teflon-coated pans became illegal to sell in Minnesota. The Cookware Sustainability Alliance - representing brands including Farberware, Circulon, T-fal, All-Clad, and Tramontina - filed an emergency challenge in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction. On February 25, 2025, Judge Tunheim denied the injunction, finding the Alliance unlikely to succeed on the merits and affirming Minnesota's authority to regulate cookware PFAS.
For families: if you see a pan labeled Teflon, DuPont PFAS coating, or any nonstick coating described as fluoropolymer, PTFE, PFA, or FEP - that product contains intentionally added PFAS and cannot legally be sold in states with active bans.
State-by-State Status
The regulatory landscape is moving fast. Here is the full breakdown as of March 2026.