Hawaii Bans Every License Plate Cover, Clear Ones Included

The two sections were added by Act 124, Session Laws of Hawaii 2025 (H.B. No. 228), a bill relating to license plates that was approved on May 29, 2025 and took effect on approval. Before that date Hawaii had only the display duty in HRS section 249-7(b), which says number plates shall at all times be displayed entirely unobscured and be kept reasonably clean. That duty still stands and still carries its own penalty, so a covered plate can now be charged two ways.

Section 286-73 is written in two layers, and they do not sit perfectly together. The operative sentence prohibits any cover or shield installed over a license plate regardless of transparency or intent. The definitional sentence that follows says a cover or shield means any device, material, or film, whether clear, tinted, mirrored, reflective, or otherwise, that is installed over or affixed to a license plate and is intended to alter or interfere with the visibility, legibility, or identification of the license plate by law enforcement or traffic enforcement systems. A driver arguing that a clear cover was fitted only to stop road grit will point at the intent language in the definition; the prohibition itself forecloses that reading by naming transparency and intent as irrelevant. Until a Hawaii court resolves it, the safe assumption is that any cover comes off.

The reference to traffic enforcement systems is not decorative. Hawaii runs a photo red light imaging detector system under HRS chapter 291J and an automated speed enforcement system, and HRS section 291C-161 carries separate fine provisions for both. A plate that a camera cannot read defeats those programs, which is the practical target of the 2025 legislation.

Section 286-72 goes after flipping hardware rather than film. It prohibits operating a motor vehicle with, possessing, purchasing, installing, selling, offering for sale, or otherwise distributing a license plate flipping device, defined as a manual, electric or mechanical device that either switches between two or more plates or hides a plate from view by flipping it. Each listed act is a separate and distinct violation even if several happen at once, and the section expressly reaches any motor vehicle operated on public roadways in the State regardless of where it is registered, so a rental or a mainland-plated car is not outside it.

Mounting rules come from elsewhere. HRS section 249-7(b) requires two plates on a motor vehicle, one front and one rear, fastened at the location the manufacturer provided or on the bumpers, in conformance with section 291-31 and in a way that prevents the plates from swinging. Trailers, semitrailers and motorcycles carry a single rear plate. Section 291-31 adds that from thirty minutes after sunset to thirty minutes before sunrise the rear plate must be lit by a white light so the number can be plainly distinguished at a distance of not less than fifty feet from the rear.

A section 286-73 citation carries a mandatory floor: no less than $500 and no more than $1,000 for each offense, and each day of violation is a separate offense, so a cover left on for a week is exposed to seven counts. Section 286-72 sets its own range of no less than $750 and no more than $1,000 for each separate violation, and says so notwithstanding any other provision of chapter 286. The older display duty in section 249-7(b) is enforced through HRS section 249-11(a), which fines a violation of sections 249-1 to 249-13 not more than $500.

The Intermediate Court of Appeals held in a case reported at 107 Haw. 3d 698 (2005) that because section 249-11 tops out at $500, an offense under it is a traffic infraction under chapter 291D rather than a criminal offense, so it is answered administratively rather than by a guilty plea. Act 124 states that it does not affect rights and duties that matured, penalties that were incurred, or proceedings begun before its effective date, so conduct before May 29, 2025 is judged under the older law alone.