Arizona Window Tint Limits, Windshield Strip and Reflectivity Cap

The controlling provision is A.R.S. section 28-959.01, and it is drafted backwards from the way most tint statutes read. Subsection B and subsection C state the blanket prohibitions: no object or material on the windshield or the side or rear windows that obstructs or reduces the driver's clear view, and no transparent material that alters the color or reduces the light transmittance of any of that glass. Subsection A then lists twelve carve-outs, and the tint you are allowed to run is defined entirely by fitting inside one of those twelve. Nothing in the section grants a general right to tint, which is why the percentages matter so precisely.

Paragraph A.1 is the front-window allowance: front side wing vents and windows may carry a substance or material in conjunction with the glazing that has a light transmission of thirty-three percent plus or minus three percent and a luminous reflectance of thirty-five percent plus or minus three percent. The plus-or-minus three tolerance is part of the statute rather than an enforcement courtesy, so 30 percent is inside the allowance and 29 percent is not. Because the figure is stated for the film in conjunction with the glazing, the reading that counts is the total transmission through the glass and the film together, not the number printed on the roll.

Paragraph A.6 is the reason Arizona reads as a permissive state from behind. Side windows to the rear of the driver and rear windows may carry film with a luminous reflectance of thirty-five percent plus or minus three percent or less, and the paragraph sets no light-transmission figure whatsoever. Limousine-grade film on the back half of the car is therefore lawful. The one condition attaches through paragraph A.10: the rear window is exempted where the vehicle carries outside mirrors on both the left-hand and right-hand sides positioned to reflect a view of the highway at least two hundred feet to the rear through each mirror. Blacking out the rear glass without dual outside mirrors leaves you back inside subsection B.

The windshield rule is the climate-adapted piece and it does not use the AS-1 line that most states borrow from the federal glazing standard. Paragraph A.11 permits transparent material on the topmost portion of the windshield if the bottom edge of the material is at least twenty-nine inches above the undepressed driver's seat, measured from a point five inches in front of the bottom of the backrest with the driver's seat in its rearmost and lowermost position and the vehicle on a level surface, and if the material is not red or amber in color. That is a seat-referenced measurement you can take yourself with a tape measure, and it travels with the driver's seating position rather than with a mark etched on the glass.

Four smaller carve-outs decide most of the remaining roadside arguments. Paragraph A.5 allows signs, stickers and other materials in a seven inch square in the lower corner of the windshield farthest from the driver and a five inch square in the lower corner nearest the driver. Paragraph A.2 preserves the pull-down or clip-on sun shade used on the front side windows during daylight hours as provided in section 28-922. Paragraph A.4 protects adjustable nontransparent sun visors mounted forward of the side windows and not attached to the glass. Paragraph A.12 permits safety monitoring equipment and driver feedback devices mounted immediately behind, slightly above or slightly below the rearview mirror, or where the rearview mirror would commonly sit on a vehicle without one.

Two duties fall on the trade rather than the driver. Under subsection D every manufacturer must certify to the ADOT director that the product it manufactures or assembles meets the reflectivity and transmittance requirements of the section. Under subsection F anyone who sells or installs the material must state conspicuously that installing it on the driver or passenger side window may be illegal in some states.

A medical exemption exists and it runs through the state, not through the installer. Subsection G lets the Arizona Department of Transportation issue an exemption on application from a person required for medical reasons to be shielded from the direct rays of the sun, supported by written attestation from a physician licensed under Title 32, chapter 13, 14 or 17, which covers allopathic, naturopathic and osteopathic physicians. The exemption attaches to a motor vehicle belonging to that person or in which the person is a habitual passenger, and it permits both darker glass and operation of the vehicle.

Enforcement is where Arizona separates from states with a yearly inspection sticker. Title 28, chapter 3, article 17 contains no periodic passenger-car inspection at all. Section 28-982 instead lets the superintendent of the highway patrol, Department of Public Safety personnel and any peace officer require a driver to stop and submit the vehicle to inspection whenever there is reasonable cause to believe the vehicle is unsafe or is not equipped as required by law. The only recurring test an Arizona registration triggers is the emissions inspection that A.R.S. section 49-542 requires for vehicles registered in area A and area B, the two emissions control areas defined in section 49-541, the second of which lies in Pima County. That test looks at the tailpipe and the onboard diagnostics, not at the glass.

Tint is a civil traffic violation rather than a crime. A.R.S. section 28-121(B) makes a violation of Title 28, chapter 3, which contains section 28-959.01, a civil traffic violation unless the defining statute says otherwise, and section 28-959.01 sets no separate classification. Section 28-1598 caps a civil penalty imposed under the civil traffic procedures article at two hundred fifty dollars, on top of which the court must levy the surcharges required by sections 12-116.01 and 12-116.02. Section 28-1526 limits the Motor Vehicle Division to assessing points for a single violation where several arise from the same course of conduct.

The practical outcome is usually a correction order rather than a fine. Under section 28-982(B) an officer who finds equipment that is not as required by law gives the driver a written notice stating that the vehicle must be placed in safe condition, the particulars of what is wrong, and that a certificate of correction or adjustment of illegal or faulty equipment must be obtained within five days. The Department of Public Safety director prescribes the form of that notice. Removing the offending film and returning the certificate inside the five day window is the cheapest route through. Where the vehicle is otherwise unsafe, section 28-921(A) reaches the owner as well as the driver, since an owner may not knowingly cause or permit a vehicle to be driven that is equipped in violation of the equipment article.