Right now, drivers can fire up Amazon and order tinted covers for their license plates, which protect them from damage and sometimes makes them a bit hard to read. Other companies are more direct, offering devices to flip, blur or hide the plate or sprays to overexpose images from red light and speed cameras.
As of Oct. 1, all of them are even more illegal in Florida than they were before.
“Starting October 1, 2025, Florida Statute 320.061 introduces new penalties for anyone who alters, obscures, sells, or uses devices to cover their license plate,” the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said in an X post after the law went into effect. “What used to be a traffic ticket can now land you with criminal charges, up to a second-degree misdemeanor. And if you’re using one of these plates to commit another crime, the penalties get even worse.”
Previously, intentionally obscuring your license plate (and creating what has been called a “ghost car”) was a noncriminal traffic infraction. Not anymore.
What is Florida’s law on license plate covers?
HB 253: Offenses Involving Motor Vehicles bumped up penalties for obscuring identification of a vehicle.
Buying or possessing a “license plate obscuring device” is now a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine, up to 60 days in jail, or both.
If you use one while committing or fleeing a crime, it becomes a third-degree felony and you can face fines up to $5,000 and/or up to 5 years in jail.
Manufacturing, selling, offering to sell or otherwise distributing such devices is now a first-degree misdemeanor, which means up to a year in jail or up to a $1,000 fine, or both.
Knowingly altering a vehicle registration certificate, license plate or specified sticker, or knowingly covering or interfering with the legibility of a license plate is also now a second-degree misdemeanor.
The bill also increases the penalties for anyone using prohibited vehicle lights (red, red and white, or blue) to impersonate an officer from first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.
How do license plate covers work? How do they hide numbers?
Liecnse plate covers are made of clear polycarbonate with a thin layer of prismatic material over where the letters and numbers go, according to radartest.com. The plate is visible when viewed from directly behind, but the more you move to the side or above (such as the angle, say, a red light or speed camera might be using), more of the characters may be obscured, although RadarTest’s tests didn’t find them particularly effective.
However, some are tinted so that even from behind the vehicle, glare from the Florida sun may make the plate illegible.
At least two companies market spray coatings they claim cause law enforcement cameras to overexpose their pictures, thwarting attempts to identify the vehicle.
“We find that it takes more than a can of clear spray paint to neutralize a $50,000 computer-controlled camera system,” RadarTest said.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Beware, Florida drivers. Tinting your license plate could mean fines, jail under new law
Reporting by C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
