Roblox Kids and Roblox Select Explained: What the New Age-Based Accounts Mean for Players

Roblox no longer hands every player the same app. Since mid-2026, the platform has sorted younger users into one of three distinct account types — Roblox Kids, Roblox Select, or a standard 16+ account — each with its own look, its own game catalog, and its own chat rules. If your child just logged in and saw a different home screen than you remember, or you're wondering why a game you expected them to play isn't showing up, this is why.

Here's exactly what Roblox Kids and Roblox Select are, how Roblox decides which one a player gets, and what changes for communication, content, and parental oversight at each tier.

1. What Are Roblox Kids and Roblox Select?

Roblox introduced the two new account types in an April 2026 newsroom announcement, then rolled them out globally starting June 16, 2026 after an initial regional test in Australia, Indonesia, the Netherlands and New Zealand. The system now has three tiers:

• Roblox Kids — for ages 5 to 8. The app uses a distinct navy color scheme with a "KIDS" badge next to the logo, shows only the lowest-maturity games, and has chat switched off by default.
• Roblox Select — for ages 9 to 15. The interface carries a "SELECT" badge, unlocks a wider game catalog, and gradually opens up chat with filters and monitoring attached.
• Standard Roblox — for ages 16 and up, with full platform access once age verification is complete.

Accounts aren't something a player chooses for themselves. Roblox assigns the tier automatically based on the age tied to the account, and the interface, catalog and communication settings change immediately when that happens.

2. How Roblox Decides Which Account You Get

Age is established either through Roblox's age-check system — which includes ID verification and Facial Age Estimation technology — or by a parent who has verified their own identity and linked a child's account. A player who hasn't completed an age check and simply self-declares an age is treated more conservatively: chat stays disabled regardless of the age they entered, since Roblox doesn't treat a self-reported number as reliable on its own.

We've covered the mechanics of that verification step in more detail in our guide to how Roblox's age verification and Facial Age Estimation actually work, including what the scan does and doesn't collect.

Progression between tiers is automatic and tied to birth date: a Roblox Kids account becomes a Roblox Select account the moment a player turns 9, and a Roblox Select account graduates to a standard account at 16. Parents don't need to manually upgrade anything for a routine age-based transition to happen.

3. What Games Each Account Can Access

Roblox sorts every experience on the platform into one of four content maturity labels, defined in its own content maturity documentation:

• Minimal — occasional mild violence, light unrealistic blood, occasional mild fear.
• Mild — repeated mild violence, heavier unrealistic blood, mild crude humor, repeated mild fear.
• Moderate — moderate violence, light realistic blood, moderate crude humor, unplayable gambling-style content, moderate fear.
• Restricted — strong violence, heavy realistic blood, romantic themes, alcohol references, strong language, social hangout spaces and extended AI chat — available only to age-verified users 18 and older.

Roblox Kids accounts can only see Minimal and Mild games. Roblox Select accounts add Moderate games to that list. Standard 16+ accounts can reach everything up to Restricted once verified as 18+. On top of the label itself, games aimed at the Kids and Select catalogs have to pass an extra review layer: real-time monitoring of how players actually interact with the experience, developer ID and two-factor verification on the creator's end, and a flat exclusion of social hangout spaces, free-form drawing tools and "sensitive issue" content, regardless of what maturity label the game would otherwise carry.

4. Chat and Communication Rules

Communication is the area Roblox locked down hardest. The baseline rules:

• Any self-declared (not age-checked) user age 5 and up has chat disabled, full stop.
• Age-checked Roblox Kids users (5–8) have chat off by default; a verified parent can turn it on.
• Age-checked Roblox Select users (9–15) get chat access that opens gradually, with text filters, rephrasing of risky messages, and ongoing monitoring layered on top.
• Standard 16+ accounts have chat enabled by default.

A "Trusted Friends" system sits underneath all of this, letting younger players communicate more freely with contacts that have been specifically approved rather than with strangers in open lobbies. Roblox's stated goal, per its own newsroom post, is for chat permissions to loosen gradually as a player ages rather than switching on all at once at a single birthday.

5. Parental Controls at Each Age Band

Linking a parent account to a child's unlocks a different set of controls depending on the child's age band:

• Ages 5–12: full friend-list visibility, the ability to block or report any contact, approval or denial of Trusted Friend requests, and screen-time and spending limits.
• Ages 13–15: adjustable chat settings plus the ability to block or specifically allow individual games.
• Ages 16–18: lighter-touch, informational controls — spending notifications and visibility into screen time and friend lists, without the ability to block content outright.

That game-blocking tool also works in reverse: if a game a child wants to play isn't available on their account tier, a parent can review it and specifically approve access rather than waiting for Roblox to change the game's rating.

For a full walkthrough of setting these controls up — including screen-time scheduling and spending caps — see our existing guide to Roblox's parental controls for screen time and spending.

6. The Rollout Timeline

Roblox didn't flip the switch everywhere at once. The company piloted both account types regionally in April and May 2026 in Australia, Indonesia, the Netherlands and New Zealand, then expanded to every market on June 16, 2026. Roblox has also said it plans to move toward the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) framework later in 2026, which would align its own maturity labels more closely with the rating systems used by console storefronts and other platforms.

7. What It Means If You're a Parent Right Now

If your child already has an account, you don't need to create a new one — Roblox places existing users into the correct tier automatically based on the age on file. The two things actually worth doing are: completing a parent age verification so you can link accounts and access the full control panel, and checking your child's chat and content settings once, since defaults differ noticeably between the Kids and Select tiers described above. If a specific game your child plays suddenly isn't visible, it's worth checking that game's maturity label before assuming something broke — it may simply sit above what their account tier allows by default, in which case the per-game approval tool covered above is the fix.

Quick recap:

• Roblox Kids (5–8): Minimal/Mild games only, chat off by default.
• Roblox Select (9–15): adds Moderate-rated games, chat opens gradually with monitoring.
• Standard account (16+): full catalog once age-verified, including Restricted content at 18+.
• Tiers upgrade automatically at age 9 and age 16 — no manual switch needed.
• Parents can approve individual games outside a child's default tier from the parental controls dashboard.

For more on how Roblox verifies players in the first place, or for the full rundown of what else came out of this year's developer conference, check our guides to Roblox's age verification system and everything announced at RDC 2026, or browse the rest of our game guides and walkthroughs.

Official Resources:

• Roblox Newsroom – Introducing Roblox Kids and Select Accounts
• Roblox Newsroom – Global Rollout Announcement
• Roblox Creator Docs – Content Maturity Labels