Window tint laws in South Carolina (2026)

The rules, window by window

Windshield

A sunscreening device may be used only along the top of the windshield and may not extend downward beyond the AS1 line (as defined in 49 CFR 571.205 S5.1.1); if the AS1 line is not visible, no sunscreening device may be applied to the windshield. It must be nonreflective and not red, yellow, or amber (S.C. Code 56-5-5015).

The standard in the law's own words

The section regulates sunscreen devices by numeric combined transmittance plus the nonreflective and color rules.

Reflectivity

A sunscreening device must be nonreflective (S.C. Code 56-5-5015). No numeric reflectance percentage is stated.

Color restrictions

A sunscreening device may not be red, yellow, or amber in color (S.C. Code 56-5-5015).

Medical exemption

Subsection (H) of 56-5-5015 exempts a motor vehicle registered in South Carolina in the name of a person (or the person's legal guardian) who holds an affidavit signed by a physician or an optometrist licensed to practice in South Carolina stating that the person has a physical condition making it necessary to equip the vehicle with sunscreening material that would otherwise violate the section's transmittance or reflectance limits. The affidavit must be carried in the vehicle at all times and produced on a law enforcement officer's request.

Enforcement

Every vehicle with an after-factory sunscreening device (consumer or professionally installed) must at all times bear a certificate of compliance in a size and form prescribed by the Department of Public Safety, attached per statute to each tinted window. The standard is stated as combined transmittance: the sunscreening device together with any factory-installed sunscreening material must not fall below 27 percent.

Notes

RESOLVED, full section read directly. Side windows and windows adjacent to the driver: combined light transmission of the sunscreening device with factory sunscreening material not less than 27 percent; the rear-most window carries the same 27 percent combined floor (provision applicable to devices applied beginning January 1, 1993). On the flagged gap: the official scstatehouse.gov chapter file for Title 56 Chapter 5 remains too large for automated fetch tools to reach section 56-5-5015 within a single page load, and Justia's page continues to return HTTP 403 to a direct fetch, but this pass successfully retrieved the full rendered text of Justia's reproduction of the current S.C. Code section 56-5-5015 through a text-extraction proxy, obtaining verbatim quotes of: subsection (B) (AS1-line windshield rule, nonreflective requirement, red/yellow/amber color ban), subsection (C) (27 percent combined transmittance floor for side and rear windows), and subsection (H) (the medical exemption -- affidavit from a South Carolina-licensed physician or optometrist, carried in the vehicle, producible on request). This is a materially stronger read than the prior pass, which could only surface excerpts via search snippets and an amending bill (2025-2026 H.3851, which independently confirmed subsection (H)'s existence and content as the medical-exemption provision while proposing to add a law-enforcement-canine-vehicle exemption to it, but did not itself reproduce the transmittance/color subsections). Confidence upgraded from medium to high.