Maryland Window Tint: 35% Light Transmittance Statewide

The number is 35% light transmittance, and Maryland applies it by registration class rather than by window position. A Class A (passenger) vehicle, which § 13-912 defines as every passenger car and station wagon registered with the MVA, may not have tinting material added after manufacture on any window that drops transmittance below 35%. For a Class B (for hire) vehicle under § 13-913, a Class E (truck) of three-quarter ton rated capacity or less under § 13-917, and a Class M (multipurpose) vehicle under § 13-937, only the windows to the immediate right and left of the driver are covered. COMAR 11.14.02.14D(2)(b)(iii), the Maryland Vehicle Inspection standard, states the consequence in plain terms: on light trucks, vans and multipurpose passenger vehicles the windows to the rear of the driver may be tinted with post manufacture window tint to any degree of darkness. A sedan and an SUV parked side by side in Maryland are therefore under different tint rules.

Three limits apply no matter which class the vehicle carries. Nothing may be applied to the windshield below the AS1 line or below 5 inches from the top, whichever is less, under § 22-406(i)(4)(iv)1 and COMAR 11.14.02.14D(2)(a)(ii). COMAR 11.14.02.14D(1) bans certain films outright regardless of how much light they pass: any tint with a mirrored or one-way vision effect, any tint with a sparkling effect, and any tint that is or changes to red, yellow or amber. And COMAR 11.14.02.14D(2)(a)(i) and (b)(iv) require an outside rearview mirror on each side of any vehicle wearing permitted tint. Two vehicle types get stricter treatment still: a limousine may carry no post-manufacture tint on the windshield or on either front side window, and a school vehicle may carry none on any window or on the windshield.

Whose car the subsection reaches matters as much as the percentage. Section 22-406(i)(1) opens by naming four Maryland registration sections, so it governs vehicles registered with the Motor Vehicle Administration in those classes. A car wearing another state’s plates is not registered under § 13-912 or its neighbours and so falls outside the subsection, which is why Maryland tint enforcement concentrates on Maryland-plated vehicles. The installer is separately on the hook: § 22-406(i)(3) makes it an offence to install film on a window that will not meet the 35% figure, so a shop cannot shift the risk onto the customer.

The medical exemption is genuinely usable but tightly specified. Under § 22-406(i)(4)(i) the owner must have in the vehicle, at the moment a police officer stops it, a written certification in the manner and format required by the Automotive Safety Enforcement Division of the Department of State Police, from a physician licensed to practice medicine in Maryland, detailing the medical need for transmittance below 35%. The certification runs for the period the physician determines the owner needs the tint, capped at 2 years, or indefinitely where the physician finds the condition permanent. The vehicle may be driven while the certified person is absent, provided the paperwork is still in the car. Separately, § 22-406(i)(4)(iii) exempts material that is easily removed and is being used to shade a child less than 10 years of age from the sun.

Maryland has no periodic safety inspection, so the checking happens at a different moment than in states that run an annual lane. Under § 23-106 a used vehicle must be inspected when it changes hands, with exemptions for transfers to a licensed dealer and for transfers between spouses, between a parent and child, and between co-owners removing a name from the title. Section 23-107(a)(2) makes the resulting certificate valid for 90 days, or for a dealer-held vehicle the earlier of 6 months or 1,000 added miles. Tint is genuinely measured at that inspection: COMAR 11.14.02.14D(2)(c) directs the station to inspect the light transmittance of each window equipped with post manufacture window tint, and the same regulation names the repair-order defect code, number 61, TINT. An owner claiming the medical exemption at inspection is referred to the Automotive Safety Enforcement Division, which may issue an exemption form to the station or certify the repair order itself. Section 23-109(i) closes the obvious loophole by making it an offence to materially alter equipment on a vehicle after an inspection certificate has issued.

A tint stop produces two documents, not one. Section 22-406(i)(2) lets the officer issue a citation charging the driver and, in addition, a safety equipment repair order under § 23-105. That order directs the owner to have the film corrected within 10 days at a place of the owner’s choosing and to send the Automotive Safety Enforcement Division a repair order certification dated after the order was issued. Ignoring the order is what actually bites: § 23-105(e)(2)(i) requires regulations suspending the registration of a vehicle whose repair order is not complied with within 30 days of issuance, with reinstatement on satisfactory evidence that the equipment has been corrected.

The underlying charge is a misdemeanour under § 27-101(a), carrying a fine of up to $500 under § 27-101(b). The shop that applied non-compliant film commits its own offence under § 22-406(i)(3), and an inspection station that willfully passes a vehicle whose equipment fails the standard, or issues a certificate without inspecting, faces up to 6 months in prison or a $500 fine for each vehicle under § 23-109(k).