Iridium and mirrored visors: not legal for road use in the

You already know what an iridium visor looks like. What is harder to find out, because most shops will not tell you, is where you can legally use one. So that goes first, and it comes down to a single test.

In Great Britain a visor may be used on the road only if it is a prescribed type under the Motor Cycles (Eye Protectors) Regulations 1999. In practice that means the visor itself carries a BS 4110 grade alongside an approved certification mark, such as a BSI Kitemark or an approved EEA equivalent, or it carries a UNECE Regulation 22 approval (the 1999 Regulations as published name the 22.05 series). The test is the marking on the individual visor in your hand. It is not the tint name, not the brand, and not what a listing says.

Colour is not the test, but it has a consequence. The standard behind those regulations sets a 50% light-transmission floor, which comes from UNECE Regulation 22 rather than from the Act itself. Mirrored, iridium, chrome and dark-smoke finishes transmit less light than that, so they are essentially never legal for road use in the UK, day or night. That is not a quirk of our catalogue. SHOEI UK labels its own mirrored and Spectra visors as not legal for road use.

Our own position follows from the marking test rather than from around it. These are unbranded aftermarket visors and we cannot confirm the marking on any individual item we ship, so we do not offer any visor on this site as authorised for road use, in any tint. The same wording appears on our visor product pages. If you want a visor for track days, closed circuits, private land, display or photography, this is the right page. If you need a visor to commute in, what you need is a visor whose marking you have checked yourself. None of this is legal advice.

The one test that decides it

Two routes make a visor a prescribed type for road use in Great Britain, and both are properties of the physical visor:

A BS 4110 grade marked on the visor, together with an approved certification mark: a BSI Kitemark, or an approved EEA equivalent.
A UNECE Regulation 22 approval marking. The 1999 Regulations as published name the 22.05 series. Regulation 22.06 is the later series and we are not going to guess how it maps, because the sources we could reach conflict and we could not check the primary text. We publish no 22.06 transmittance figure anywhere.

A visor carrying neither is not a prescribed type. That holds even if the visor is perfectly clear. An unmarked clear visor is no more prescribed than a mirrored one, which is why we do not describe any tint band in our catalogue as road-suitable.

There is a second reason we are careful with the wording. Section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 creates a separate offence for a seller who offers an eye protector as authorised for use when it is not a prescribed type, carrying a level 3 fine, a maximum of £1,000. That is our exposure rather than yours, and it is the reason you will not find the words road legal anywhere on this site attached to a product.

What you are actually buying

An iridium visor is a tinted visor with a thin reflective coating on the outer surface. The coating produces the mirror finish and the colour shift, whether silver, blue, gold, red, purple or a rainbow blend, and the colour you see changes with the viewing angle and the light. Photographs rarely match what you get in the hand. A gold visor in overcast light does not look like a gold visor in low sun.

These are aftermarket replacement visors. Helmet brand names are used to say what a visor fits. Nothing on this site is made by, supplied by or endorsed by AGV, Shoei, Shark, Bell, HJC, Scorpion, KYT or any other helmet manufacturer.
The tint is fixed. It does not lighten as the light drops.
Looking out through a mirrored visor is closer to a dark sunglass lens than to a light smoke tint. In shade, under trees or in a tunnel you lose a lot of detail.
You can change the display currency using the switcher in the header.

The UK position, in plain terms

Four things get muddled constantly, so here they are separately.

Wearing eye protection is not compulsory in Great Britain. A helmet is. The rule bites on which eye protector you use, not on whether you use one.
No regulation bans a mirrored finish by name. The problem is transmittance. A mirrored or iridium coating puts a visor below the 50% floor, and below that floor there is no road-use route.
“Daytime use only” does not rescue a dark visor. It is a marking category applied to the visor and defined by how much light the visor lets through, not by its finish. If a visor carries that marking it is marked for daytime use and should not be used at night. It is not a general permission to wear a dark visor in daylight, and it is not a marking you should expect to find on the visors on this page.
BS 6658 is a helmet standard, not a visor standard. If a listing anywhere describes a visor as BS 6658 compliant, that tells you nothing about the visor. BS 4110 is the visor standard.

If you are stopped using a non-prescribed eye protector, the offence under section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 is a summary one carrying a level 2 fine, a maximum of £500 at the time of writing. It is non-endorsable, so it carries no penalty points. The widely repeated claim that a tinted visor is worth three points is wrong. That is the only comfort available here, and it is not much of one.

One more caveat worth having. An E mark on its own is not a statement of UK road legality, because approval markings also cover daytime-only categories. Read the full marking rather than the presence of an E in a circle.

Everything above covers England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland has separate legislation which we have not researched. We ship UK-wide, so if you ride in Northern Ireland, check the position there before you rely on anything on this page.

What we can and cannot tell you about these visors

This is where listings for mirrored visors usually overstate things, generally by repeating whatever the supplier wrote. We are not doing that.

We do not hold measured light-transmission figures for these visors. We are not going to estimate one, and you should be sceptical of any seller who publishes a percentage without saying how it was measured.
We do not describe any visor on this page as approved, certified, ECE approved or E marked. We make no approval claim for any of them, and we have not verified any approval claim made further up the supply chain.
We do not present any visor here as authorised for use on the road. We sell them for closed-circuit, track, private-land, display and photography use.
If you want a definitive answer on a specific product, the sources that count are the marking on the visor itself, a BS 4110 grade plus a certification mark or a UNECE Regulation 22 approval number, together with a statement from the manufacturer for that exact part. Not a retailer’s summary, including ours.

Being blunt about that is the point. The marking test is the whole of the law here, and a shop that cannot check the marking has nothing else honest to offer you.

Where these visors get used

Closed-circuit track days, race paddocks, riding on private land, plus display, photography and building a helmet you are not going to ride in. That is the honest list. Public byways and green lanes are not private land: where there is a public right of way for traffic, treat it as road use.

Circuits, track-day organisers and race clubs set their own eye-protection requirements, and some ask for a recognised approval marking. We make no approval claim for these visors, so confirm what your organiser accepts before you rely on one for a booked session.

Two things worth thinking about before you order:

You cannot ride home in it. Sessions end, the light goes, and a mirrored visor is unusable after dark or in heavy rain. Plan for a second visor in the van, not for one on the bike.
Cloud counts. A mirrored visor that feels right in strong sun feels dark under UK overcast. If most of your riding is grey, a lighter tint will serve you better than the finish will.

Photochromic visors get suggested as the legal way to have a tint. Be careful with that. Approval and road legality are not the same thing, and a photochromic visor’s dark state can fall below the transmission floor even where its clear state is fine. Check the marking on the specific visor and the stated range for it, particularly the dark end, rather than assuming the category is sorted. The same marking test applies, and we cannot confirm it on any item we ship.

Iridium versus dark smoke, and choosing a colour

Neither is offered here for road use, so the choice is about what you can see and how the helmet looks.

Dark smoke is tint alone. It cuts light evenly and reads as black from outside.
Iridium is tint plus a reflective coating. The coating turns away part of the light before it reaches the tint, so on the same base tint an iridium visor reads darker from the inside than the plain smoke version. Base tints differ between products, though, so we will not tell you that one category is always darker than the other.
Colour is a coating choice, not a darkness choice. Silver and blue are the most conventional, gold and red run warmer, and rainbow shifts across the range as you turn your head. If you are matching a paint scheme, expect the match to hold at some angles and not others.

Mirrored visors also reflect more of your own eyes back at you in low light than a plain tint does. On durability, a mirror finish is a surface coating and we make no scratch-resistance or lifespan claim for it. Rinse grit off before wiping, use plenty of water and a soft cloth, never wipe a dry visor, and keep solvents and screen cleaners away from the coating. Store it in a soft bag rather than face-down on a bench.

Fitment, shipping and the clear visor you will still need

Visors are model-specific. A visor is designed around one shell and one mechanism, and a visor from a different model in the same range often will not lock, seal or sit flat even when it looks close.

Match the visor to your exact helmet model, including the variant and revision. Check the model name printed inside the shell or on the strap label, and check the old visor for a part code.
Some visors fit more than one helmet in a range. Each listing names the models it fits. If yours is not named, do not assume it.
If you are unsure, ask us before you order rather than after.

Shipping is free to the UK, the United States and Europe, and the delivery estimate for your address is confirmed at checkout. This is not an express parts service, so order a track visor ahead of the day you need it rather than the week of.

One last practical point. A mirrored visor cannot get you home. If it is the only visor you own you will also need a clear one, and for road use that clear visor has to carry a BS 4110 grade with a certification mark, or a UNECE Regulation 22 approval marking. Check the marking on the visor in your hand. We cannot confirm the marking on any individual visor we ship, our own clear visors included, and we would rather say so than sell you a sentence that is not true. None of this is legal advice.

Visors in this finish

Every listing below is an aftermarket replacement visor. Check the fitment on the product page against your exact helmet model and generation before ordering.

Common questions

Are iridium and mirrored visors road legal in the UK?

No. To be used on the road in Great Britain a visor must be a prescribed type under the Motor Cycles (Eye Protectors) Regulations 1999, meaning it carries a BS 4110 grade with an approved certification mark, or a UNECE Regulation 22 approval (the 1999 Regulations name the 22.05 series). Separately, the standard behind those regulations sets a 50% light-transmission floor, and mirrored, iridium, chrome and dark-smoke finishes fall below it, so they are essentially never legal for road use in the UK, day or night. We sell them for closed-circuit, track, private-land, display and photography use. This is not legal advice.

Can I use one in daylight only?

No. “Daytime use only” is a specific marking category applied to a visor and defined by how much light it lets through, not by its finish. It applies above the 50% transmission floor, which is not where mirrored and iridium finishes sit, so there is no road-use route for them in daylight either. It is also not a marking you should expect to find on the visors on this page.

How do I tell whether a visor is legal for road use?

By the marking on the visor itself: a BS 4110 grade alongside an approved certification mark such as a BSI Kitemark, or a UNECE Regulation 22 approval marking. A visor carrying neither is not a prescribed type, even if it is clear. We cannot confirm the marking on any individual visor we ship, which is why we do not offer any visor on this site as authorised for road use. This is not legal advice.

What happens if I am stopped wearing one?

Using a non-prescribed eye protector is a summary offence under section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, carrying a level 2 fine, currently a maximum of £500. It is non-endorsable, so there are no penalty points. The frequently repeated claim that a tinted visor is worth three points is not correct. Again, this is not legal advice.

Is iridium darker than dark smoke?

On the same base tint, yes: an iridium visor adds a reflective coating that turns away some light before it reaches the tint underneath. Base tints vary between products, so it is not a rule across the whole category. Neither finish is offered here for road use, so the practical difference is what you can see and how the helmet looks.

Are these visors ECE approved?

We make no approval claim for any visor on this page. We do not hold measured light-transmission figures for them, and we have not verified any approval claim made further up the supply chain. The marking on the visor itself, plus a statement from the manufacturer for that exact part, is the only thing worth trusting on approvals. Many circuits and track-day organisers ask for an approved visor, so check what your organiser accepts.

Are they legal elsewhere in Europe, or in Northern Ireland?

We will not give you a single yes or no for either. EU member states apply UN Regulation 22, but enforcement and national rules vary and we have not researched them country by country. Northern Ireland has separate legislation from England, Scotland and Wales, and we have not researched it. Check the rules where you ride, and assume a mirrored visor is track use there too.

How much is shipping, and how long does it take?

Shipping is free to the UK, the United States and Europe. The delivery estimate for your address is confirmed at checkout. This is not an express service, so order ahead of the day you need the visor rather than expecting it for the coming weekend.