Delaware Window Tint Law 2026
Delaware publishes no visible-light-transmittance percentage we have been able to establish for an ordinary passenger car, so this page shows what its law does say and marks the missing figures as gaps rather than guessing at them.
The limits at a glance
Delaware sets the same limits for passenger cars and for SUVs, vans and trucks, so there is nothing to switch between.
This state regulates this glass in words rather than a percentage. There is no figure to filter film against, and we will not translate a written standard into a number.
Every Delaware tint rule we track
| Rule | Applies to | What the law says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windshield strip — how dark the strip may be | All vehicles | No numeric VLT for the permitted windshield band. The products or materials along the top edge must be transparent and must not encroach on the AS-1 portion; no percentage is set. | 21 Del. C. §4313(b) — Delaware Code Online · read “so long as such products or materials are transparent and do not encroach upon the AS-1 portion of the windshield” |
| Windshield strip — how far down it may extend | All vehicles | AS-1DetailThe AS-1 line alone — Delaware provides no inches-from-the-top fallback for a windshield with no identifiable AS-1 marking, unlike Idaho, Hawaii or New Mexico. Note the statute still cites the repealed FMVSS 128 alongside 205. | 21 Del. C. §4313(b) — Delaware Code Online · read “Nothing in this section shall prohibit the use of any products or materials along the top edge of the windshield so long as such products or materials are transparent and do not encroach upon the AS-1 portion of the windshield as provided by FMVSS 205 and [former] FMVSS 128.” |
| Windshield below the strip | All vehicles | The windshield must meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 205 as in effect at the time of the vehicle's manufacture. Delaware states no percentage of its own.DetailThe reference is to the standard IN EFFECT AT THE TIME OF MANUFACTURE, so the applicable requirement is a function of the vehicle's model year rather than of current federal law. A single published number cannot express that. | 21 Del. C. §4313(a) — Delaware Code Online · read “No person shall operate any motor vehicle on any public highway, road or street with the front windshield, the side windows to the immediate right and left of the driver and/or side wings forward of and to the left and right of the driver that do not meet the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 205 in effect at the time of its manufacture.” |
| Front side windows | All vehicles | No state percentage. The side windows to the immediate right and left of the driver, and the side wings forward of the driver, must meet FMVSS 205 as in effect at the time of the vehicle's manufacture.DetailDeliberately NOT recorded as 70%. FMVSS 205 sets 70% for glazing requisite for driving visibility, but Delaware enacted the standard rather than the figure, and the standard is pinned to the model year. Promoting the federal number into a state VLT row would be an inference, and the dataset does not publish inferences as values. | 21 Del. C. §4313(a) — Delaware Code Online · read “No person shall operate any motor vehicle on any public highway, road or street with the front windshield, the side windows to the immediate right and left of the driver and/or side wings forward of and to the left and right of the driver that do not meet the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 205 in effect at the time of its manufacture.” |
| Back side windows | All vehicles | confirmed No restriction in §4313. The section reaches the front windshield, the side windows immediately right and left of the driver, and the side wings forward of the driver. A rear side window is on none of those lists and no percentage, reflectance ceiling or mirror condition attaches to it.DetailAn affirmatively-confirmed absence within this section, on the same footing as the Texas, Indiana, New York and Utah findings already recorded — the enumeration is closed and the certificate duty in (c) is keyed to it. What was NOT checked is whether Delaware imposes a limit by Division of Motor Vehicles inspection regulation; Phase 1b should read those before this is rendered as settled. | 21 Del. C. §4313(a) — Delaware Code Online · read “with the front windshield, the side windows to the immediate right and left of the driver and/or side wings forward of and to the left and right of the driver” |
| Rear window | All vehicles | confirmed No restriction in §4313. The rear window is not among the windows the section names, and Delaware sets no transmittance figure for it.DetailSame basis and same caveat as vlt_back_side: closed enumeration in the statute, DMV inspection regulations not yet read. | 21 Del. C. §4313(a) — Delaware Code Online · read “with the front windshield, the side windows to the immediate right and left of the driver and/or side wings forward of and to the left and right of the driver” |
| Reflectivity — front side windows | All vehicles | unclear No published figure Under review — the official sources we read state no figure for this. This is a gap in our research, and it says nothing about what Delaware requires here; the state may set its rule in words rather than a percentage. Not addressed in 21 Del. C. §4313. The section names no reflectance figure and contains no mirrored- or metallic-appearance prohibition; its entire mechanism for the windshield and front side glass is compliance with FMVSS 205 plus the manufacturer's certificate. Subsections (a) through (f) and all of §4313A are in the retrieved cache, so this is a substantive silence rather than an unread one. Whether reflectance is regulated by DMV inspection regulation was not determined. | — |
| Reflectivity — back side windows | All vehicles | unclear No published figure Under review — the official sources we read state no figure for this. This is a gap in our research, and it says nothing about what Delaware requires here; the state may set its rule in words rather than a percentage. Not addressed in 21 Del. C. §4313, and for the compounding reason that the section does not reach the rear glass at all. See reflectivity_front. | — |
| Medical exemption | All vehicles | RequiredDetailFramed as a bar on CONVICTION, not as a permit: there is no application, no agency, no decal and no renewal, and the statement may come from a physician, an osteopathic physician or an optometrist. Compare Texas, where the medical provision is likewise a defence rather than an authorization — a driver can still be stopped and cited. | 21 Del. C. §4313(d) — Delaware Code Online · read “No person shall be convicted under this section if that person possesses a statement signed by a licensed practitioner of medicine and surgery or osteopathic medicine or optometry verifying that tinted windows are medically necessary for the owner or usual operator of said vehicle.” |
| Certification sticker / label | All vehicles | RequiredDetailThis certificate does more work in Delaware than in any other jurisdiction extracted so far: with no percentage in the statute, the conspicuous manufacturer certificate IS the compliance mechanism. A driver whose film is compliant but whose certificate is absent still violates (c). The subsection supplies its own cure — a validated DMV inspection notice obtained after the offence date is a defence at trial. | 21 Del. C. §4313(c) — Delaware Code Online · read “No person shall operate any motor vehicle on any public highway, road or street which does not conspicuously display a certificate by the manufacturer of any “after manufacture” window tinting material which may have been installed that such window tinting material meets the requirements of FMVSS 205 in effect at the time of the vehicle’s manufacture. It shall be a valid defense to any charge under this subsection if the person so charged produces in court a validated mandatory inspection notice showing that the Division of Motor Vehicles has examined the motor vehicle since the date of offense and certifies compliance with FMVSS 205.” |
| Restricted colors | All vehicles | unclear No published figure Under review — the official sources we read state no figure for this. This is a gap in our research, and it says nothing about what Delaware requires here; the state may set its rule in words rather than a percentage. Not addressed in 21 Del. C. §4313. No colour is named anywhere in the section — not for the windshield band in (b), which is constrained only by transparency and the AS-1 line, and not for any other window. Contrast Alaska, which lists the four colours tint may be, and Alabama, Louisiana and New Mexico, which bar named colours on the windshield band. | — |
| Side mirrors required if the rear window is tinted | All vehicles | No mirror condition. Delaware never trades a rear-window allowance for outside mirrors, because it sets no rear-window limit to trade away.DetailRecorded as a consequence of the closed enumeration rather than as an independent finding. Kentucky, Wisconsin, Hawaii and Alaska all use the mirror trade; Delaware has no occasion to. | 21 Del. C. §4313(a) — Delaware Code Online · read “with the front windshield, the side windows to the immediate right and left of the driver and/or side wings forward of and to the left and right of the driver” |
This state publishes no light-transmittance figure for this glass, so there is no percentage to match a film against. Other rules — colour, reflectivity, obstruction — can still apply, so we are not going to present a shelf as though nothing does.
Sources
- 21 Del. C. §4313 — Delaware Code Online, read
Nearby states
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Delaware lift kit and bumper height laws
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Delaware wheel and tire laws
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Delaware ECU tuning and emissions laws
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Delaware intake laws
Not published yet. We have not researched this category for Delaware — which is a statement about us, not about whether Delaware regulates it.
Delaware body and appearance laws
Not published yet. We have not researched this category for Delaware — which is a statement about us, not about whether Delaware regulates it.