Every administration since Jimmy Carter’s successful deregulation campaign has advocated for loosening restrictions. Despite this, regulations more than doubled between 1970 and 2022, and the government cannot even say with certainty how many regulatory agencies exist.

In 2025, the conflict continued, with some gains for proponents of deregulation mixed with some setbacks. Following is a list of what we consider the five best and worst regulatory actions of the year:

Best of 2025

  1. Regulatory Sandboxes: Seven years after states began adopting regulatory sandbox legislation, Sen. Ted Cruz introduced the first federal-level sandbox bill. By relaxing outdated regulations in exchange for special government oversight, sandboxes protect both tech innovators and consumers. This new bill guards state-level programs from federal overreach.
  1. Second Chances: Criminal records, no matter how minor and old, often preclude individuals from obtaining occupational licenses. This even applies to professions for which they were trained in prison. Job placement lowers recidivism rates, benefiting the overall economy, and some states—including Florida, Alabama, and Utah—passed legislation eliminating some of these restrictions.
  1. License Reciprocity: Many occupational licenses are not recognized across state lines, forcing workers to pay fees and repeat education to obtain another license when they move. This is particularly challenging for military spouses. West Virginia passed the Universal Professional and Occupational Licensing Act, joining 28 states moving toward sensible license reciprocity, which grants mutual recognition of licenses between states that join a reciprocity compact.
  1. Eliminating Nonsensical Regulations: Many occupational license rules have no relation to safety, existing only to prevent competition and provide revenue. These mandates should be eliminated. Michigan legislators introduced 55 bills ending license requirements for professionals such as floor sanders and potato dealers.
  1. Military Occupational Crosswalks: Military training frequently exceeds the schooling and experience requirements for civilian professional licensure. The federal government developed an occupational licensing “crosswalk” in 1991 to match veteran skills to corresponding civilian training, but each state has unique licensing rules and needs a unique database. This year, Utah secured a sponsor for its state-specific crosswalk legislation.

Worst of 2025

  1. Overdraft Overreach: At the federal level, Congress overturned the Biden-era “junk fee” ban restricting how financial institutions penalize overdrafts. Arbitrarily determining which charges are “junk,” “excessive,” or “predatory” is an overreach of government power into a private contract, which harms the account holders it purports to help. New York, however, enacted its own paternalistic rule, ultimately threatening the existence of overdraft protection.
  1. Healthcare Permission Slips: Protectionist Certificate of Need (CON) laws continued to operate in 35 states. North Carolina, which saw multiple CON cases languish in court for multiple years, missed yet another opportunity to eliminate these anti-competitive laws when anti-CON legislation stalled in April. By year’s end, it remained undecided.
  1. Online Vision Test Restriction: The seemingly endless debate over online vision tests likewise languished in South Carolina. The justifications for preventing near-sighted adults from independently obtaining eyeglasses, particularly considering the availability of far-sighted glasses at gas stations, are almost farcical. However, this argument inexplicably stalled again, with brick-and-mortar optometrist businesses currently retaining their grip on the market.
  1. Telehealth For Teeth: Like protectionist eye exam laws, rules controlling telehealth and mail-order orthodontics and dentistry purport to protect patients from numerous harms, often unrelated to the treatments themselves. However, just as preventing online vision tests often results in patients simply using their outdated prescriptions, restricting convenient treatment for teeth results in patients postponing or forgoing care. South Carolina was again in the hot seat for banning non-traditional dental and orthodontic processes, keeping traditional orthodontists and dentists free of competition.
  1. Hair Care: Most people wash, blow-dry, and curl their hair without completing 300 hours of training. But to do it for clients, they need those 300 hours in many states. Furthermore, regardless of the regular clientele of a business, five states passed laws requiring special certification for textured hair services in order to operate any salon. This is akin to mandating hamburger joint employees to learn the finer skills of vegan burrito making. Specialized care exists organically in cosmetology, and customers and hair professionals are perfectly capable of finding each other without government edicts.

Bottom Line
Deregulation is winning many battles, indicating a future of more freedom for both proprietors and customers. This is a win for worker freedom; easing heavy-handed government frees entrepreneurs and individuals to start or grow businesses. More competition drives more choices for consumers and drives down costs for services and goods. With few exceptions, the failures of 2025 involved stalled court cases, not actual losses. New regulations pop up relatively rarely, but current regulations still need to be axed more frequently.