Ohio’s Non-Compete Ban Is Still Lurking at the Statehouse

If you run an Ohio business that relies on non-competes, there’s a bill you should know about before it moves.

Senate Bill 11 would bar Ohio employers from entering or enforcing non-competes against “workers” — and “workers” is defined broadly. It’s bipartisan (Blessing, R / DeMora, D), and right now it’s sitting in Senate committee. No vote this week. But it’s the single biggest restrictive-covenant threat in the statehouse.

Here’s the part employers miss while waiting to see if it passes.

As drafted, SB 11 goes after non-competes. It leaves your NDAs, trade-secret protections, and customer non-solicitation provisions alone.

To me, that’s the tell. The smart move isn’t to wait and hope the bill dies. It’s to stop leaning on the non-compete as your only line of defense. If a ban lands, the employers who are fine are the ones whose confidentiality and non-solicit agreements were already doing the real work.

Bans like this are the national trend. Ohio may or may not get there this session — but your agreements should be ready either way.

When did you last look at what’s actually protecting your business if the non-compete disappears?

Source: Ohio Senate Bill 11, 136th General Assembly (in Senate committee as of 6/1/26)