Nevada Window Tint: 35% Front Sides, No Limit Behind the Driver

NRS 484D.440 is not written as a table of percentages. Subsection 2 states a flat prohibition on both applying and operating with any transparent material which alters the color or reduces the light transmission of the windshield or any side or rear window of a vehicle required to be registered in Nevada, and subsection 3 then carves out three exceptions. Everything a Nevada driver is allowed to do sits inside those three paragraphs. Subsection 1 supplies the measuring standard, defining light transmission as the ratio of the amount of light allowed to pass through a product or material to the amount of light that falls on it.

The front side windows are the tightest. NRS 484D.440(3)(a) permits film on a window immediately to the right or left of the driver only where the window is nonreflective and has a total light transmission, through the combination of the transparent material and the safety glazing, of not less than 35 percent with a tolerance of 7 percent. Two points follow. The 35 percent is measured through the glass and the film together rather than the film alone, so a film sold as 35 percent laid over factory glass will meter below the line. And because the 7 percent tolerance is written into the statute rather than left to a field manual, a meter reading of 28 percent is inside the permitted range.

Behind the driver the statute drops the percentage entirely. NRS 484D.440(3)(b) exempts a side window to the rear of the driver, or a rear window, if the vehicle has outside mirrors on each side located so as to reflect a view of the highway through each mirror for a distance of not less than 200 feet to the rear. There is no floor, so limousine-grade film on the back half of an SUV is lawful in Nevada. The catch is the mirror condition, because NRS 484D.430 requires only one such mirror on a motor vehicle. A car that came with a single exterior mirror, or one whose passenger mirror has been broken off, loses the exception the moment the second mirror stops giving that 200-foot view.

The windshield rule is a strip rule rather than a percentage. Under NRS 484D.440(3)(c) transparent material may be applied to the topmost portion of the windshield if the bottom edge of the material is not less than 29 inches above the undepressed driver seat, measured from a point 5 inches in front of the bottom of the backrest with the 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. Nevada measures from the seat rather than from the manufacturer AS-1 line that most states rely on, so the legal depth of the strip depends on the vehicle and on where its seat travel ends.

Two further exceptions save older and factory-tinted vehicles. NRS 484D.440(4) disapplies only paragraph (b) of subsection 2, the operating prohibition, for a motor vehicle of model year 1993 or older on which the material was placed before July 1, 1993, which is the date the section took effect. NRS 484D.440(5) protects any vehicle sold new, or which could have been sold new, with the covering or treatment as standard or optional equipment without violating any federal statute or regulation governing the sale at the time of manufacture, which is what keeps deep factory privacy glass legal in Nevada.

NRS 484D.440(6) lets the Director provide exemptions by regulation, and the Department of Motor Vehicles has done so at NAC 484D.280 to 484D.290. A written application must give the applicant name and address, the vehicle year of manufacture, make, model, color and vehicle identification number, the license plate number, the percentage of total light transmission after the material is applied, and any sworn statements or documentation supporting the exemption, and NAC 484D.280(2) requires it to be filed with the Nevada Highway Patrol, Department of Public Safety, 555 Wright Way, Carson City, Nevada 89711. NAC 484D.285 lists the three grounds on which the Director may issue the permit: a treating physician sworn statement that the applicant has a medical condition requiring the material together with the applicant sworn statement that he or she is the primary driver; a sworn statement that the vehicle is operated exclusively as an ambulance or hearse, with a copy of the NRS 450B.200 or NRS 450B.210 permit if it is an ambulance; or a sworn statement that the vehicle will be used by a federal, state or local law enforcement agency for surveillance, to transport canines, or for undercover or forensic purposes. NAC 484D.290 bars the owner of a vehicle with a gross weight rating of 10,000 pounds or more subject to 49 C.F.R. Part 393.60(b) from applying at all.

Nevada has no periodic safety inspection that could catch tint. 770 requires in counties whose population is 100,000 or more, which controls emissions and nothing else. Enforcement is therefore roadside. 560(2) lets the officer give the owner a citation or notice of violation and require the owner to produce, in court or at the officer office, satisfactory evidence that the vehicle has been made to conform, which is the Nevada equivalent of a fix-it ticket. 0623. 704(1), and a contested hearing cannot be set earlier than 9 calendar days after the court gives notice of it.

473 a violation of subsection 2 is not a moving traffic violation, so a Nevada tint citation adds no demerit points to the license. 570(1)(a) bars continued operation of the vehicle except to return it to the residence or place of business of the owner or driver, or to a garage.