Louisiana Window Tint: 25% Front Sides, 12% Rearmost, Measured With a Meter at the Brake Tag

The governing statute is La. R.S. 32:361.1, headed "View outward or inward through windshield or windows; obscuring prohibited". Subsection B states the general rule: nothing may be placed on or affixed to the front windshield or the front side windows that obstructs or reduces the driver's clear view, and no transparent material may be applied there if it alters the color or reduces light transmission. Everything a Louisiana driver is allowed to do with film is therefore an exception carved out of Subsection C, and the exceptions are a closed list of four.

The first exception carries the numbers. A sun screening device used with automotive safety glazing is permitted at a light transmission of at least twenty-five percent on the front side window, at least twenty-five percent on the side window behind the driver, and at least twelve percent on the rearmost windows, in each case "all tolerances included". No sun screening device may have a luminous reflectance of more than twenty percent, which is what rules out mirrored film even when the transmittance figure passes. The other three exceptions are narrow: a transparent material that is not red or amber affixed to the topmost portion of the windshield and extending no more than five inches down, an adjustable nontransparent sun visor mounted forward of the side windows and not attached to the glass, and publicly owned law enforcement vehicles, including vehicles owned or used by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for enforcement operations.

Subsection D(4) removes the transmittance requirement for windows behind the driver on trucks, buses, trailers, motor homes and multipurpose passenger vehicles, so a pickup or a van can run very dark glass behind the driver's seat while the front side windows still have to meet 25 percent. Subsection D also puts obligations on the trade rather than the motorist: every manufacturer must certify compliance to the office of motor vehicles using independent test laboratory data, and every installer must fit a permanent legible label no larger than one and one-half square inches between the film and the glass, carrying the installer's name and city, in the lower right corner of the driver's side window.

Enforcement is what separates Louisiana from states with similar percentages. Louisiana still requires a valid safety inspection certificate on every registered vehicle under R.S. 32:1301, and the State Police inspection rule at LAC 55:III.813.S repeats the same 25 / 25 / 12 figures and the 20 percent reflectance cap as pass or fail items, adding that "Light transmission will be checked using only an approved tint meter and following manufacturer's directions." The same rule bans vehicle wraps on any glass and allows no tint colour other than smoke, and it lifts the windshield strip from five inches to six for a vehicle holding a sunscreen certificate. A certificate costs ten dollars for each year of validity under R.S. 32:1306(C)(2), of which four dollars and seventy-five cents stays with the station, four dollars goes to the office of state police for traffic law enforcement and one dollar and twenty-five cents to the office of motor vehicles. Owners choose a one year or a two year sticker.

Two statutory exemptions exist for darker glass. R.S. 32:361.2 provides a medical exemption on an affidavit prepared by the office of state police and completed by a licensed optometrist or physician, tied to a condition recognised in the World Health Organization ICD-9-CM list; the applicant must sign a notarised medical release, consent to a state and federal criminal history check through the Louisiana Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information and submit a full set of fingerprints. A conviction for a violent crime or a drug offence disqualifies the applicant, exemptions are reviewed every three years except for diagnosed light-sensitive porphyria, which lasts for the duration of ownership of the vehicle, and if the vehicle is sold the new owner must remove the tint unless they obtain their own exemption. R.S. 32:361.3 provides a parallel security exemption, automatic for government and law enforcement vehicles, and expressly states that no security exemption reaches the area below the top six inches of the windshield. A copy of either affidavit must stay in the described vehicle at all times.

The percentages in force today are the product of Acts 2024, No. 268 and Acts 2025, No. 143, which lowered the front side window figure. Older cars are treated separately: Subsection H applies the section to vehicles manufactured on or after January 1, 1994, and Subsection I exempts a vehicle tinted on or before December 31, 1993 in compliance with the law then in force, provided the owner holds a certificate of prior tinting issued on an office of motor vehicles form and keeps it in the vehicle to show on demand.

S. 1 is fined not more than one hundred fifty dollars for a first offence, not more than two hundred fifty dollars for a second, and not more than three hundred fifty dollars for a third or subsequent offence. S. 32:57. The trade is punished far harder: a seller, installer, manufacturer or distributor is fined one thousand dollars for a first offence, two thousand dollars for a second, and on a third or subsequent conviction is prohibited from conducting the business at all. S. S.

32:1304(E)(1) gives only a one calendar month grace period after a certificate expires. S. 2(A)(3)(b) makes the secretary's case-by-case review the end of the road: once a final determination is made, the applicant has no further recourse.