The short answer
Motorcycle visor tint options are not stocked evenly, and the gap between what is easy to buy and what you can actually use on the road in Great Britain is wider than most riders expect. We counted every finish offered across all 648 published listings on this site. Clear leads at 272 listings, but mirrored silver is close behind at 250.
Four of the seven finishes below are mirrored, iridium or dark smoke. Those are not legal for road use in Great Britain, at any time of day. So a large part of the range in front of you is built for track days, sunny back roads on a bike you trailer, or for looking good parked up.
The ranking below is by availability: how many of the 648 listings offer that finish. It is not a ranking of quality, and it is deliberately not a ranking of legality, because the legal test is the marking on the individual visor and we do not verify markings on individual items.
- Most available: Clear, on 272 of 648 listings.
- The surprise: mirrored silver is second at 250, and it is not road legal in Great Britain.
- Rarest of the seven: photochromic, at 71 listings, and the only finish that changes as you ride.
- The practical shortlist for road riding: clear, light smoke, or photochromic.
- Check first: 58% of listings do not offer a clear option at all, so your helmet may not have one.
Source for every figure on this page: our own live catalogue, read on 8 September 2026 across all 648 published listings. The section below sets out exactly how the counting was done.
How we counted the motorcycle visor tint options in this range
Every figure on this page was read off our own live catalogue on the day of writing. We pulled all 648 published listings and counted, for each finish, how many separate listings offer it as an option. The numbers are counts of listings, not of individual visors, and not of sales.
Two things are worth knowing before you read the table. First, the option names come from the listings exactly as they are written, and the range uses several names for what is really one kind of finish. Second, we have grouped those names into families but we have not added them together.
Each entry below leads with a single named option and its exact count. Where other names belong to the same family, they are listed separately with their own counts. Adding them would double-count listings that offer more than one name from the family, and that would overstate the range.
If you want the plain definitions of what smoke, iridium and photochromic denote on a listing, our visor tint and finish index covers that and is not repeated here.
The seven finishes compared
| # | Finish | Option name counted | Listings (of 648, per our catalogue) | Share of range | What it does to your view | Where it makes sense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clear | Clear | 272 | 42% | No tint added | Night, dawn, dusk, rain, winter commuting |
| 2 | Mirrored silver | Silver | 250 | 39% | Reflects a large part of the light away | Track and closed circuit only |
| 3 | Dark smoke | Deep Black | 162 | 25% | Heavy, even reduction across the view | Bright daylight, off road, track |
| 4 | Light smoke | Light Black | 157 | 24% | Mild, even reduction across the view | Bright daylight, if the visor is marked for road use |
| 5 | Iridium | Rainbow | 138 | 21% | Reflects light and shifts its colour | Track and closed circuit only |
| 6 | Gold mirror | Gold | 83 | 13% | Reflects a large part of the light away | Track and closed circuit only |
| 7 | Photochromic | Photochromic | 71 | 11% | Darkens in sunlight, clears without it | One visor across a whole ride |
Every count above comes from that one source, our own catalogue on 8 September 2026. Read the fourth column as availability, not popularity. A finish that appears on many listings is one you are likely to find for your helmet; it says nothing about how many riders buy it, and we do not publish sales figures.
The share column is that count as a proportion of all 648 published listings. No listing offers every finish, and a good many offer only one.
1. Clear, on 272 listings
Clear is the most widely stocked finish in the range, offered on 272 of the 648 published listings. It is the reference point for everything else on this page: no tint is added, so nothing is taken away from what reaches your eyes.
That matters more than it sounds in a British riding year. For most of the autumn and winter commuting season the useful light is already marginal, and a tint you fitted in July is working against you by October. A clear visor never has to be swapped because the light dropped, and over a British winter that is worth more than any tint.
The trade is that there is no tint to hide wear behind. Every fine scratch scatters oncoming headlights into a star, and a visor that looks acceptable in daylight can be genuinely poor on a dark wet road. The Highway Code makes the same point in its rules for motorcyclists, noting that scratched or poorly fitting eye protectors can limit your view when riding, particularly in bright sunshine and the hours of darkness.
So the honest advice with a clear visor is to treat the surface as the consumable. Keep it clean, and replace it when it hazes rather than polishing it. We cover the point at which a visor is finished in our guide on when to replace a motorcycle visor.
One caveat worth taking seriously before you assume clear is available: per the catalogue count above, 42% is a large part of the range, but it is not most of it. Just under six listings in ten do not offer a clear option at all, usually because that listing exists to sell a mirrored or iridium finish for a specific helmet. Our clear visors page is the direct route, and the visor finder will tell you what exists for your model.
2. Mirrored silver, on 250 listings
Mirrored silver is the second most available finish in the whole range, on 250 of 648 listings, and it is worth pausing on. A finish that cannot be used on the road here is stocked at nearly the same depth as clear.
A mirror finish works differently from a tint. Rather than absorbing light in the body of the visor, a reflective coating on the outer face turns a large part of it away before it gets in. The visual effect from outside is the point of it for most buyers.
It is not legal for road use in Great Britain, and that is true in daylight as much as after dark. We are not softening that with any advice about daytime use, because there is no daytime exception to soften it with.
Where it genuinely makes sense is a track day or a closed circuit, where road traffic law does not apply and the light is controlled and bright. Riders who do both usually keep a mirrored visor for track use and a clear one for the ride there.
The reason for its shelf presence is worth understanding, because it explains most of this table. The listings in this range are built around aftermarket visor production, and appearance finishes are what that production is largely aimed at. Availability is a fact about manufacturing, not a recommendation. If you want the detail, our guide to where iridium and mirrored finishes stand under Great Britain road-use rules covers it, and the range itself is on the iridium visors page.
3. Dark smoke, listed as Deep Black, on 162 listings
Dark smoke sits third at 162 listings, under the option name Deep Black. Unlike a mirror it is a tint through the material itself, cutting light fairly evenly across the view rather than reflecting it off the front.
An even cut is easier to look through than a mirror of the same strength, because it does not throw the reflections a coating does. That is the argument people make for it, and on a bright closed circuit it holds up.
On the road in Great Britain it does not, and a dark smoke visor is not legal for road use here. The practical hazard is separate from the legal one and worth stating on its own: a dark tint that is comfortable at midday becomes a serious problem the moment the light drops, and you cannot change it while you are moving.
That is the trap riders actually fall into. An afternoon ride that runs long turns into a dusk ride with the wrong visor fitted and nowhere to swap it. Anyone using a dark visor for track or off-road work should be carrying the clear one in the top box, not hoping the light holds.
Nearly a quarter of the range offers this finish, so it will not be hard to find for a common helmet. Related names in the same family push that further: Black appears on 87 listings and Dark Black on 17, counted separately here rather than added in.
4. Light smoke, listed as Light Black, on 157 listings
Light smoke is fourth at 157 listings, one place and five listings behind its darker sibling. It is the same kind of finish, a tint through the material, applied far more gently.
This is the finish most road riders are actually looking for when they start shopping for a tint. It takes the hard edge off bright daylight without the wholesale cut that makes a dark visor unusable as the sun goes down.
Here is where we have to be careful, and where we would rather be useful than confident. We cannot tell you whether a particular light smoke visor may be used on the road, because that is decided by the certification marking on the individual visor and we do not verify markings on individual items. We never describe anything we sell as approved or certified.
What you can do is check the visor itself. The marking is moulded or printed onto the visor, usually near an edge, and it is the only thing that answers the question. Our reference on visor markings and road use in Great Britain sets out what is there to read, and our guide to tinted motorcycle visors and the law covers the wider position.
The other honest limit on a light tint is that it is still a tint. It is a summer and bright-daylight answer, and it is the wrong thing to be wearing on a dark ride home. Riders who want one visor to cover both should look at entry seven instead.
5. Iridium, listed as Rainbow and the Revo names, on 138 listings
Iridium is fifth at 138 listings under the name Rainbow, and it is by some distance the largest family of names in the whole range. The finish comes from a thin multi-layer coating that reflects some wavelengths more than others, which is why it shows colour that shifts with the angle you look at it.
That optical trick is also why the range carries so many names for it. Revo Red appears on 136 listings, Revo Blue on 133, Revo Silver on 88 and Revo Purple on 23, with a scatter of one-off names beyond those. Revo is simply the word the listings use for this coating family.
Counted as separate names rather than summed, no single iridium name outranks the two smoke finishes above it. What sets this family apart is the number of names it runs to, which is greater than any other finish on this page. If you have browsed a visor listing for a popular helmet and felt the choice was mostly colours you would never ride in, this is why.
Like a mirror, an iridium visor is not legal for road use in Great Britain, at any time of day. It is a track and closed-circuit finish, and we would rather say that plainly than let the colour range imply otherwise.
The concentration is easy to see on a single listing. The AGV K6 replacement visor carries fourteen tint options, and exactly one of them is named Clear. The full family sits on the iridium visors page, and more visors that fit that helmet are under AGV.
6. Gold mirror, on 83 listings
Gold is sixth at 83 listings. It works on the same principle as the silver mirror at number two, with the coating tuned so the reflected light comes back warm rather than neutral.
It is roughly a third as available as silver, which puts it in an awkward spot: common enough that you will see it offered for popular helmets, rare enough that it may simply not exist for yours. Related names sit close by, with Red Gold on 71 listings, Deep Gold on 24 and Revo Gold on 15.
Everything said about mirrored silver applies here. A gold mirror visor is not legal for road use in Great Britain, day or night, and it belongs to track riding or to a bike that is not being ridden on the road.
The choice between gold and silver is one of appearance rather than of function, and either way it is a closed-circuit choice. We have no basis for telling you that one outperforms the other, and we are not going to invent one.
If you are drawn to the look but ride mostly on the road, the useful comparison is not gold against silver. It is whether you want a second visor for occasional track use at all, or whether one road-usable visor and a clean surface would serve you better for the money.
7. Photochromic, on 71 listings
Photochromic is the rarest of the seven at 71 listings, and the only one that does not stay the same from the start of a ride to the end. The material darkens when ultraviolet light falls on it and clears again when it does not.
That is what makes it worth its scarcity. It is the one finish here that answers the problem every other entry runs into, which is that a fixed tint is chosen for a light level you will not have all day. A single visor covers a bright afternoon and the ride home after it.
It is worth knowing the limits before you buy one, because they are real and they surprise people. It responds to ultraviolet rather than to brightness, so it stays clear behind a car windscreen and does not darken as much as you might expect on a hot hazy day. In cold weather the change back to clear is slower.
Related names again spread the family across the listings: Photochromic Red on 43, Photochromic Clear on 43, Photochromic Blue on 35 and Photochromic Black on 31. Those are tinted variants of the same changing material, not separate technologies.
The Shoei NXR2 and RF-1400 photochromic visor is one example of how these are listed, and the range is on the photochromic visors page. If you are weighing one against simply buying a second tinted visor, we compared the two directly in photochromic versus tinted visor.
What the numbers mean when you are choosing
The availability ranking is useful in a way a quality ranking would not be, because it tells you what you are likely to be able to buy rather than what somebody thinks is best. Read it as a map of the shelf.
What the map shows is a range weighted towards appearance. Clear leads, but the very next finish down is a mirror, and four of the seven entries here cannot be used on the road in Great Britain at all. We have not added those four together, because a listing offering two of them would then be counted twice.
That has a practical consequence when you are shopping. The wide choice you see on a listing for a popular helmet is often wide in exactly the direction you cannot use, and the one or two options that are relevant to a road rider are easy to miss among a dozen colours.
So the sequence that works is to settle fitment first, then narrow to the finishes you can actually ride in, and only then choose between them. Working the other way round, picking a finish you like and hunting for it, is how riders end up with a visor that does not fit or does not suit the riding.
If your riding is mostly commuting and year-round, the shortlist is short: a clear visor, kept clean. If you ride in bright daylight often enough to want a tint, look at a light smoke visor whose marking you have checked, or at a photochromic one so you are not carrying a spare.
Start with fitment. Our guide to what visor fits my helmet walks through finding the model and the mechanism, which is the part that actually limits your choice.
If you only change one thing
For most riders on British roads, the highest-value change is not a different tint at all. It is a clear visor in good condition plus something to stop it fogging, because fog and scratches cost you far more vision in practice than the difference between two tints ever will.
A pin-style anti-fog insert fits inside the visor and holds a second surface just off the main one. The pin-style anti-fog inserts we list are grouped by the helmet they suit. Not every visor is prepared to take one, which is worth checking before you buy.
What this page does not tell you
It does not tell you that any particular visor is road legal, and it is not able to. Under section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 it is an offence to sell an eye protector as authorised for use by persons on motorcycles when it is not of a type prescribed as authorised for such use. The test is the marking on the individual visor.
Because we do not verify markings on individual items, we never describe anything in this range as approved, certified or road legal. Where we can be definite is in the negative: mirrored, iridium and dark smoke finishes are not legal for road use in Great Britain, at any time of day.
Everything here is scoped to Great Britain, and only to Great Britain. We have not researched the position anywhere else and make no claim about it.
Nor does this page rank anything on quality, durability or how well a finish is liked. We do not hold that data. On-site reviews came in with the catalogue from the supplier and are not reviews from ClearLine customers, so no rating appears in the table and none is implied by the order.
Frequently asked questions
Which motorcycle visor tint options can I use on the road in Great Britain?
The answer comes from the marking on the individual visor rather than from the name of the tint, so we cannot answer it for a product on our shelf. What we can say without qualification is that mirrored, iridium and dark smoke finishes are not legal for road use in Great Britain, at any time of day. Clear and light smoke are the finishes worth checking the marking on.
Why does my helmet only have one clear option?
Because aftermarket visor production is weighted towards appearance finishes, and a given listing often exists to sell those. Clear appears on 272 of our 648 listings, which means just under six in ten do not offer it. If your helmet is one of those, the visor finder will show you what does exist for it.
Can I fit an anti-fog insert to a tinted visor?
Often yes, provided the visor itself is prepared for one, which usually means it carries the pins or the recesses an insert needs. That is a property of the specific visor rather than of the tint, so a tinted visor may or may not take one. Check the listing for the visor you are buying rather than assuming.
Do photochromic visors replace having a tinted visor?
For a lot of road riding they do, because one visor covers a bright afternoon and a dark ride home without a swap. They are not a like-for-like substitute in every case, since a photochromic visor needs ultraviolet light to darken and reacts more slowly in the cold. We compared them directly against a second tinted visor in a separate guide.
Are the counts on this page the number of visors you have in stock?
No. They are counts of published listings that offer a finish as an option, taken across all 648 listings on the site on the day this was written. A listing can cover several helmet models, and stock levels are shown on the listing itself.
Where to start
Settle what fits your helmet before you think about the finish, because fitment is the constraint that will not move. The visor finder is the quickest way to see what exists for your model, and shipping is free.
From there, the road-usable shortlist is genuinely short, and that is the useful thing this count shows. Clear, a light smoke visor whose marking you have checked, or a photochromic one if you would rather not carry a spare.