Arkansas Window Tint: 25% Beside the Driver, 10% at the Rear

Arkansas puts its tint limits in Ark. Code § 27-37-306, enacted as Act 967 of 1993 and amended four times since. Subsection (a) is a flat prohibition: it is unlawful to operate a vehicle on the public highways if aftermarket tinting material together with striping material has been applied to any window, or if letters or logos larger than one-quarter inch have been applied to the windows. Subsection (b) then carves out what is lawful, and the model year matters. The percentages in (b)(2) and (b)(3) are written to apply "on all 1994 model vehicles and later model vehicles," and subsection (h) sweeps 1993 and older vehicles in as well, either immediately if they were never tinted under the repealed 1991 acts, or on transfer of ownership if they were.

The windshield rule is unusually specific. The glass immediately in front of the operator may carry a strip of tinting material on the top edge, known in the industry as an eyebrow, but it may not extend downward more than five inches from the top center of the windshield. Arkansas measures from the top center rather than from an AS-1 line, so there is no manufacturer's marking to argue about.

The side and rear numbers split three ways. Side windows and side wings on the immediate right or left of the driver, and those to the right or left immediately behind the driver, must pass at least 25 percent net light transmission. The rearmost window must pass at least 10 percent. And the side windows immediately behind the driver on any truck, bus, trailer, motor home or multiple purpose passenger vehicle drop to the same 10 percent, which is why a pickup or an SUV can legally run darker rear doors than a sedan.

Three groups sit outside the section entirely. Subsection (d) exempts motorists driving vehicles registered in other states that have their own window shading legislation, so a visitor is judged by the law of the plate rather than by Arkansas's. Subsection (f) exempts vehicles used exclusively or primarily to transport dead human bodies. Subsection (i) lets law enforcement windshields be tinted to 50 percent net light transmission, and subsection (j), added by Act 1141 of 2011, disapplies the whole section to a chauffeur-driven sedan governed by § 27-37-307, which permits 15 percent on the rear passenger doors and 10 percent on the rear windshield of a vehicle licensed as an automobile for hire that seats at least three rear passengers and is not a taxicab or van.

The medical route was rewritten by Act 293 of 2013. A motorist who carries a physician's certification that a disease or disorder, including but not limited to albinism or lupus, makes the exemption in his or her best interest may have 20 percent on the side windows and side wings, 10 percent on the rearmost window and 50 percent on the front windshield. The certification is valid for three years from the date of issue and must be carried in the vehicle. On transfer of a vehicle tinted under the waiver, the transferor must either disclose that the tinting is not within legal limits without a medical waiver or remove it.

Enforcement is entirely roadside. The Arkansas Code carries no periodic safety inspection programme at all: a full text search of the Code for "motor vehicle inspection" returns a single hit, and it is a 1977 bond act reprinted in the Title 19 appendix, not an operating inspection lane. What stands in for a lane is the label. Subsection (c) requires any vehicle operated on Arkansas roads with aftermarket tinting on any glass to have attached to the front glass immediately to the operator's left a label giving the name and telephone number of the company that installed the film and affirming that all tinting on the vehicle conforms to the section.

Subsection (g) reaches two people at once. Any installer who installs glass tinting in violation of the section, and any person operating a motor vehicle whose glass tinting or other aftermarket alteration of the glass is contrary to the section, is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. Under Ark. Code § 5-4-401(b)(2) a Class B misdemeanor carries a sentence not exceeding 90 days, and under § 5-4-201(b)(2) a fine not exceeding $1,000. Because there is no inspection lane, a citation normally follows a traffic stop, and the missing installer label under subsection (c) is itself part of the offense, so a driver who bought legal film but has no label on the glass to the left of the operator has nothing to point at. A driver relying on the medical waiver who cannot produce the physician's certification in the vehicle is in the same position, and a certification more than three years old has expired by its own terms.