Source: Utah Code Title 76, Chapter 17, Part 3 — Offenses Concerning Pyramid Schemes

Summary

Utah's criminal anti-pyramid statute as it currently stands: four sections defining a pyramid scheme, grading the two offenses, and giving a participant a private right of action. Effective 2025-05-07, renumbered and amended by Chapter 173, 2025 General Session. Until that date the same material sat at Title 76, Chapter 6a, the Pyramid Scheme Act — a chapter heading a reader will still find in older citations, industry compliance guides, and third-party code mirrors, where the current code now shows only "Renumbered 5/7/2025."

The four sections, at the versioned permalinks the Legislature publishes (these are the exact documents read for this page, and they do not move when the code is amended again):

• 76-17-301, Definitions — https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter17/C76-17-S301_2025050720250507.html
• 76-17-302, Rights of person giving consideration — .../C76-17-S302_2025050720250507.html
• 76-17-303, Conducting a pyramid scheme — .../C76-17-S303_2025050720250507.html
• 76-17-304, Participating in a pyramid scheme — .../C76-17-S304_2025050720250507.html

Why this document matters to a wiki about Utah: the statute is the legal boundary that the state's largest export industry operates against, and the boundary is drawn by a definition rather than by a list of prohibited practices. Everything turns on what counts as "compensation," and the definition excludes payment tied to sales made to anyone buying for their own use — with no distinction drawn between an outside customer and a participant in the plan buying the product themselves.

Useful Claims

• Conducting a pyramid scheme — knowingly organizing, establishing, promoting, or administering one — is a third degree felony in Utah (76-17-303).
• Participating in a pyramid scheme is a class B misdemeanor, and only where the participant takes compensation for introducing another person "rather than from the sale of goods, services, or other property" (76-17-304).
• The definition of a pyramid scheme turns on whether compensation is "derived primarily from the introduction of other persons into the sales device or plan rather than from the sale of goods, services, or other property" (76-17-301).
• "Compensation" expressly does not include payment based on the sale of goods or services to anyone purchasing them "for actual personal use or consumption" — the provision that decides which network-selling plans the statute reaches (76-17-301).
• "Consideration" excludes payment for sales-demonstration equipment or materials furnished at cost, and excludes time or effort spent selling or recruiting (76-17-301).
• Three defenses are foreclosed by name: capping the number of people who may be introduced, adding conditions on eligibility or on when compensation may be received, and giving participants property or services in addition to the compensation (76-17-303, 76-17-304).
• The appropriate county attorney or district attorney has "primary responsibility" for investigating and prosecuting a criminal violation (76-17-303(5), 76-17-304(5)). "Primary" is the statute's word: nothing in the text makes local prosecution exclusive or bars a state agency, and subsection (6)(c) separately routes the same conduct to civil investigation and prosecution under the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act.
• A violation is also a violation of Section 13-11-4, the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act, and a criminal conviction is prima facie evidence of that civil violation — so the same conduct is civilly investigable under Title 13, Chapter 11.
• A person who gave consideration in a pyramid scheme may declare the sale void and sue to recover it, and a prevailing plaintiff is entitled to interest, reasonable attorney fees, and costs, reduced by any compensation the defendant paid them (76-17-302).

Verbatim

"(a) "Compensation" means money, money bonuses, overrides, prizes, or other real or personal property, tangible or intangible. (b) "Compensation" does not include payment based on the sale of goods or services to anyone purchasing the goods or services for actual personal use or consumption." — 76-17-301(1)

""Pyramid scheme" means a sales device or plan under which a person gives consideration to another person in exchange for compensation or the right to receive compensation that is derived primarily from the introduction of other persons into the sales device or plan rather than from the sale of goods, services, or other property." — 76-17-301(4)

"An actor commits conducting a pyramid scheme if the actor knowingly organizes, establishes, promotes, or administers a pyramid scheme." — 76-17-303(2)

"A violation of Subsection (2) is a third degree felony." — 76-17-303(3)

"An actor commits participating in a pyramid scheme if the actor participates in a pyramid scheme only by receiving compensation for the introduction of another person into the pyramid scheme rather than from the sale of goods, services, or other property." — 76-17-304(2)

"A violation of Subsection (2) is a class B misdemeanor." — 76-17-304(3)

"A person giving consideration in connection with a pyramid scheme may, notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, declare the person's giving of consideration and the related sale or contract for sale void, and may bring a court action to recover the consideration." — 76-17-302(2)(a)

"In addition to prosecution under this section, a violation of this section shall be civilly investigated and prosecuted as prescribed by Title 13, Chapter 11, Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act." — 76-17-303(6)(c)

Reliability Notes

A statute published by the Legislature's own code office is primary tier and permanently retrievable, which is why this page carries no archive snapshot: the versioned permalinks above are the durable citation. The one hazard is the opposite of link rot — the unversioned URL in **URL:** always serves the current text, so a reader arriving here after the next amendment will see something other than what is quoted. The quotes are from the 2025-05-07 versions named above.

No Raw: capture, and no single URL could supply one. The quotes below come from four different section documents, while **URL:** and every part- or chapter-level artifact on le.utah.gov serve only a table of contents — a capture of any of them would insure none of the text. So the mechanical verbatim-not-in-raw check cannot run on this page; the four versioned section permalinks are the substitute, and each quote was read off the one named beside it. Anyone re-checking should fetch those four URLs directly rather than trusting this page's transcription.

Two limits on what this document establishes. First, it is the criminal statute and nothing else. Utah's regulation of network selling also runs through the Consumer Sales Practices Act (Title 13, Chapter 11) and the Division of Consumer Protection, and through federal FTC authority, none of which is in this text. Second, the statute's reach is a question of interpretation this page does not settle. Whether a participant's own purchases count as sales "for actual personal use or consumption" — and therefore whether compensation flowing from a network's internal buying is inside or outside the definition — is exactly the question that federal enforcement against multi-level marketers has turned on for thirty years. The Utah text does not distinguish participants from other purchasers; no Utah appellate decision construing this language has been read for this page, and until one is, the practical boundary is unresolved here.

The pre-2025 numbering matters for research: anything citing 76-6a-101 through 76-6a-104 or "the Pyramid Scheme Act" is citing this material at its old address. The two labels the Legislature's site serves are easy to confuse, so here is exactly where each appears. The individual old sections (.../Title76/Chapter6a/76-6a-S101.html and its siblings) are marked "Renumbered 5/7/2025". The chapter-level page — https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter6a/C76-6a_1800010118000101.html — is marked "Repealed 5/7/2025", which reads as if the prohibition were gone. It is not: the chapter was emptied because its contents moved to Title 76, Chapter 17, Part 3.

Related Pages

• Utah's Direct-Selling Industry