Provided are methods and systems for a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) state handoff of a data traffic flow. A method for a TCP state handoff of a data traffic flow comprises determining a TCP state at predetermined times by a state machine unit. The TCP state includes data concerning a session between a client and a server. The TCP state for the predetermined times is stored to a database. A request to apply a predetermined policy to the session is received by a transaction processing unit and, based on the request, a session request associated with the session between the client and the server is sent to an access control unit. The session request is processed by the access control unit based on the TCP state and according to the predetermined policy.