The Lid Test

How to Check a Motorcycle Helmet's Age

Every helmet carries its birthday stamped inside it, and most riders have never looked. Here's where the date label hides, how to read the two formats manufacturers use, and what the number actually tells you — which is not quite what people assume.

By Stephen V.Last verified How we compare

Somewhere inside your helmet, almost certainly under the liner, there is a date. It is the day the helmet was made, and it is the single most useful piece of information about a helmet that nobody ever looks at. Riders will happily debate certifications and shell materials for an hour and have no idea whether the thing on their head is three years old or nine.

This guide covers where the date hides, how to read the two formats manufacturers use, and — the part that matters — what the number actually means. It is not an expiry date, and treating it as one leads people to both false confidence and unnecessary spending.

Where the date label is

There are three places to look, in this order.

1. Under the comfort liner, on the EPS shell.This is the most common location by a distance. Unclip the cheek pads and peel the crown liner off its press studs or hook-and-loop tabs, and you will expose the white polystyrene EPS shell underneath. The date is usually there — printed on a small sticker, ink-stamped, or molded straight into the foam as raised lettering. Look near the crown and at the back first.

2. On or near the chin strap. Many helmets carry a small sewn fabric label on the strap itself or where it meets the shell. On an ECE-certified helmet this is where the white approval label lives, showing the regulation number (22-06 or 22-05) and an approval code, and the manufacture date is frequently printed on it or on a second label beside it.

3. Inside the neck roll. Less common, but some makers tuck the label into the padded roll around the base of the helmet, where it is comfortably out of sight until you go looking.

Take your time getting the liner out. Press studs pull through fabric if you yank at them, and a torn liner is an annoying way to answer a question. Since it is out anyway, this is a good moment to wash it — our helmet-cleaning guide covers doing that without wrecking anything.

The two date formats

The printed date. The easy one. A month and year, printed plainly: 03/2024, MAR 2024, 2024-03. If that is what you find, you are done.

The molded clock face. The one that confuses people, and it is genuinely a small puzzle the first time. It is a dial: a ring of numbers from 1 to 12 around the outside representing the months, a two-digit year in the center, and an arrow, a punched hole or a molded triangle pointing at one of the month numbers.

Read the center for the year and the mark for the month. A 24 in the middle with the arrow at 3 means March 2024. Some makers invert it — years arranged around the ring with a month in the center — so read whichever numbers make sense: there is no month 24 and no year 3.

Once you have found it, that is the age of your helmet. Not the day you bought it.

Why the date is not an expiry date

Nothing about a helmet stops working on a particular morning. The reason the date matters is that the materials in a helmet age, and the industry’s five-year replacement guideline exists because of the following, all of which are gradual:

  • EPS foam— the crushable liner that does the actual energy management — slowly loses resilience with repeated heat cycling, and the sweat and body oils it absorbs do not help.
  • Adhesives and resins holding the shell laminate and the EPS together degrade with heat and time, particularly in a helmet that lives in a hot garage or on a bike in the sun.
  • UV exposureworks on the shell’s outer surface and its clearcoat continuously, and on polycarbonate shields especially.
  • Strap webbing and the retention system take sweat, salt and abrasion every single ride, and they are the part holding the helmet on your head.
  • The liner and padding pack down, which loosens the fit — and a loose helmet protects worse regardless of how good the shell still is.

So a helmet at five years and one day is not suddenly unsafe. But a well-used helmet at seven or eight years is measurably not the helmet it was when it left the factory, and the degradation is invisible from the outside. Our guide on when to replace a helmet works through the full decision, including the rule that overrides everything: replace after any impact, regardless of age or how the helmet looks.

The buying trap the date exposes

Here is the practical reason to care. The clock starts at manufacture, not at purchase.A helmet can sit in a distributor’s warehouse and then on a retailer’s shelf for a year or two before anyone buys it, and that time counts.

This matters most on discounts. A helmet that is heavily marked down is often being cleared because the model is being replaced — which means the stock is old. Save $150 on a helmet manufactured two and a half years ago and you have bought half a helmet’s service life at a 30% discount, which is a worse deal than it looked. Ask the retailer for the manufacture date before you buy; a reputable one will check the box or the label and tell you.

The same logic is the strongest argument against used helmets, alongside the more obvious one. The date tells you how old it is; nothing tells you what has happened to it. EPS that has been compressed by a drop or a minor knock looks exactly like EPS that has not, and a helmet that has absorbed one impact cannot absorb another. Buy new.

What else is printed in there

While the liner is out, the labels around the date are worth reading — they are the helmet’s actual credentials rather than its marketing. You are looking for the DOT FMVSS 218 sticker on the back of the shell, a white sewn ECE approval label on the chin strap showing 22-06 or 22-05, and a Snell sticker inside the shell if the helmet carries one. Our safety-ratings guide explains what each of those certifications actually tests, and the certification ranking shows how the helmets we cover compare on them.

One warning worth repeating: novelty helmets are sold with counterfeit DOT stickers, and they carry no manufacture date because no manufacturer stands behind them. A shell that is unusually thin, unusually light and unusually cheap, with no interior labeling, is not a helmet. Its only function is to look like one to a police officer.

A three-minute habit

Check the date when you buy the helmet, write it somewhere you will find it — the inside of the helmet bag works — and check it again each spring when you go over the bike. It takes three minutes and it converts “I think it is a few years old” into a real number you can act on. If the number is getting on and the fit has gone soft, our helmet rankings are organized by how you ride, and the budget roundup shows how little a properly certified replacement now costs.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the manufacture date on a motorcycle helmet?

Usually under the comfort liner, printed or molded into the white EPS foam shell, and often near the crown or at the back. If it is not there, check for a small sewn label on or near the chin strap — ECE-certified helmets carry their approval label there and the date is frequently on or beside it. You will normally have to take the cheek pads and crown liner out to see it, which is why most riders have never found it.

How do I read the clock-face date on a helmet?

It is a dial: a ring of numbers 1 to 12 representing months, with a two-digit year in the center, and an arrow, punched hole or molded mark pointing at one of the months. Read the year from the center and the month from whatever is marked. A 23 in the middle with the arrow pointing at 9 means September 2023. Some makers print the year around the outside instead, in which case the same logic applies in reverse.

Is the manufacture date an expiry date?

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. Nothing about a helmet stops working on a particular day. The date is a reference point for the industry's five-year replacement guideline, which exists because EPS foam, adhesives, shell resins and strap webbing all degrade gradually with heat, UV, sweat and time. A helmet does not become unsafe overnight at five years, but a well-used one at seven or eight is measurably not the helmet it was when it was made.

Why does the date matter more than when I bought it?

Because a helmet can sit in a distributor's warehouse or on a shop shelf for a year or more before anyone buys it, and the clock starts at manufacture, not at purchase. If you buy a heavily discounted helmet, check the date before you commit — a deep discount is often a sign the model is being cleared, and buying a two-year-old helmet means starting your five-year window three years in. Ask the retailer; a good one will tell you.

My helmet has no date label. What now?

First check thoroughly — under the crown liner, on the EPS at the back, on the chin strap, and inside the neck roll — because it is almost always there and easy to miss. A DOT-compliant helmet is required to carry manufacturer and date information, so a helmet with genuinely no date and no certification labeling should be treated as a novelty item rather than a helmet, and not ridden in. If it has certification labels but the date has worn off, treat its age as unknown and replace it.

Should I buy a used motorcycle helmet?

No. The manufacture date tells you how old a helmet is, but nothing tells you what has happened to it — and the damage that matters most is invisible. Compressed EPS foam from a drop or a minor impact looks identical to intact foam from the outside, and a helmet that has done its job once cannot do it again. Checking the date on a used helmet answers only half the question, and the other half is unanswerable.

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