Dec. 9, 2025, 2:47 p.m. ET
- A brand new Florida regulation makes it unlawful to impede any a part of a license plate, together with numbers and registration stickers.
- The regulation targets tinted covers and units designed to cover plates from regulation enforcement and cameras.
- Customary ornamental license plate frames are authorized so long as they don’t cowl important info.
As of Oct. 1, something that obstructs your license plate is illegitimate in Florida with harsher punishments, beginning with as much as a $500 superb, as much as 60 days in jail, or each.
Does that imply you must ditch your cool license plate body?
Many individuals prefer to personalize their autos with frames on prime of their license plates that promote causes, favourite TV, film and music stars, locations they’ve visited, humorous sayings and extra. Many automotive sellers ship purchases off the lot with customized frames they hope patrons go away on for some time.
Will your Lord of the Rings body get you pulled over? What a few Florida one with the palm bushes sticking up?
This is what to know in regards to the new regulation.
Is it unlawful in Florida to have a license plate body?
No. Not except it truly covers any portion of the license plate numbers and letters or the yellow registration decal.
The regulation was supposed to cease tinted covers that would make plates laborious to learn underneath sure situations. It additionally takes intention at units which might be particularly supposed to obscure identification by regulation enforcement by flipping, blurring or hiding the plate. Some on-line sellers even promote sprays to overexpose photos taken by purple mild and velocity cameras.
“Beginning October 1, 2025, Florida Statute 320.061 introduces new penalties for anybody who alters, obscures, sells, or makes use of units to cowl their license plate,” the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Workplace stated in an X submit after the regulation went into impact.
“What was a visitors ticket can now land you with felony expenses, as much as a second-degree misdemeanor. And should you’re utilizing certainly one of these plates to commit one other crime, the penalties get even worse.”
The regulation bans something that covers, obscures, or in any other case interferes “with the legibility, angular visibility, or detectability of the first options or particulars, together with the license plate quantity or validation sticker, on the license plate.” So long as your body does not block these particulars, you need to be superb.
Critics of the brand new regulation fearful that it might be used as one other excuse to tug over individuals of coloration or potential immigrants.
Florida Sheriffs reassure drivers over license plate frames
On Monday, Dec. 9, the Florida Sheriffs Affiliation posted some clarification to Fb over its personal license plate body.
“We need to reassure you that the official FSA license plate body DOES NOT violate Florida Statute 320.061,” the FSA stated in a Fb submit. “You could proceed to make use of your FSA license plate body with confidence.”
What’s Florida’s regulation on license plate covers?
HB 253: Offenses Involving Motor Automobiles bumped up penalties for obscuring identification of a car.
- Shopping for or possessing a “license plate obscuring gadget:” Second-degree misdemeanor punishable by as much as a $500 superb, as much as 60 days in jail, or each.
- Use one whereas committing or fleeing against the law: Third-degree felony with fines as much as $5,000 and/or as much as 5 years in jail
- Manufacturing, promoting, providing to promote or in any other case distributing such units: First-degree misdemeanor, punishable by as much as a 12 months in jail or as much as a $1,000 superb, or each
- Knowingly altering a car registration certificates, license plate or specified sticker, or knowingly protecting or interfering with the legibility of a license plate: Additionally a second-degree misdemeanor.
How do license plate covers work? How do they conceal numbers?
License plate covers are manufactured from clear polycarbonate with a skinny layer of prismatic materials over the place the letters and numbers go, in response to radartest.com. The plate is seen when considered from instantly behind, however the extra you progress to the aspect or above (such because the angle that, say, a purple mild or velocity digital camera is perhaps utilizing), extra of the characters could also be obscured. RadarTest’s assessments did not discover them notably efficient.
Nonetheless, some are tinted in order that even from behind the car, glare from the Florida solar might make the plate illegible.
At the least two corporations market spray coatings they declare trigger regulation enforcement cameras to overexpose their photos, thwarting makes an attempt to determine the car.
“We discover that it takes greater than a can of clear spray paint to neutralize a $50,000 computer-controlled digital camera system,” RadarTest stated.
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