License plate changes, smartphone filters: All these new Utah laws will go into effect in 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — It's been months since Utah lawmakers met on Capitol Hill, but several new laws passed in the last year will become official when the new year rings in on Wednesday.

From changes to license plate requirements to smartphone protections for children, here are all of the new laws taking effect on the first day of 2025:

License plates and vehicle registrations

License plates have been one of the most frequently addressed topics in the Utah Legislature in recent years, with lawmakers running a series of bills creating specialty license plates honoring the Great Salt Lake, promoting suicide prevention and commemorating the state's Dark Sky Initiative. With SB45, Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, and Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, approved an omnibus license plate bill that creates a board to review the approval of new license plates, while making a series of other changes to license plate laws.

Beginning Wednesday, most private vehicle owners will no longer be required to have a front license plate, and the government will no longer issue two plates to those who register vehicles. Commercial vehicles will still be required to display both license plates.

"(The bill) arguably reduces the scope of government by 50% to a degree on all of our vehicles by cutting in half the number of license plates that need to be issued by the Motor Vehicle Division, as well as ... eliminating the requirement that you have a front license plate," Eliason said when presenting the bill on the House floor.

The cost of registering vehicles will be reduced to account for the elimination of the front license plate, with half the cost being returned to the taxpayer and the rest being distributed to the state's fund on highway safety.

The state's registration decal system — which currently requires separate decals for the month and the year — will also be consolidated into one decal that signifies the month and year of registration.

Eliason said Utah is one of the last remaining states that stamps license plates, and said the bill allows for digital printing of license plates, which will make it easier and cheaper for the state to print new designs. He said new designs currently need 500 drivers to sign on before it is worth the investment to the state. With digital printing, the state will be able to fulfill smaller orders for new and specialty plates.

"This is going to move us into a modern age of license plate production technology," Rep. Norm Thurston, R-Provo, said. "It will allow our license plates by purpose to be more beautiful because they will have had somebody who knows what they're doing help with the design. They'll be prettier, they'll be modern, they'll look great."

Other vehicle changes include HB184, which allows drivers of off-road vehicles and boats to show proof of registration in the form of a digital copy or photograph of the registration card; and HB441, which lets owners of novel, street-legal vehicles to register them with the state in order to operate the vehicles on state lands.

Business regulations

As part of the Legislature's ongoing attempts to protect young Utahns online, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, passed a bill in 2024 that requires manufacturers of smartphones and tablets to enable "obscenity filters" on devices used by children. Many devices already have such filters installed, but they are often not enabled upon purchase.

The Children's Device Protection Act allows the attorney general to sue device manufacturers who are deemed out of compliance with the law.

"The idea is to provide minors with protection and opportunities that they deserve as children to protect them from developing maybe an addiction to pornography before they're even adults and allow them time to develop good online habits while they're still young," Weiler said in January.

Rep. Cheryl Acton, R-West Jordan, sponsored a consumer protection bill to address subscriptions and free trials that renew automatically. HB174 requires companies to notify consumers when a free trial ends and tell them how to cancel. It requires similar notice before subscriptions renew but applies only to irregular or long-term subscriptions that don't renew on a monthly basis.

The policy applies only to businesses that sell subscriptions to the general public, not business-to-business sales.

"We've all been in that situation, probably, where something renewed unexpectedly. Some of them can be very expensive," Acton said. "It applies to renewals that don't happen every month, so it's not a hassle either. That wouldn't be convenient to receive notice that it's going to renew if it renews every month."

"It's a consumer protection bill really for all of us, but especially for the elderly and for others who may not be really proactively watching for these renewals and able to navigate phone trees, etc., to cancel," she added.

Lawmakers also addressed business regulation by raising the amount of THC in industrial hemp products that companies can transport in the state with HB52, standardizing statewide regulations for stormwater monitoring on construction sites through HB507, and prohibiting the use of certain foreign-made drones over critical infrastructure sites with SB135.

Law enforcement and safety

Beginning Wednesday, state employees will receive one week of additional paid safety leave if they have been the victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking. SB174 allows employees to use the extra leave only if they have exhausted all other paid time off. The leave may only be used for specific activities meant to improve personal safety, such as applying for a protective order, moving from an unsafe environment or testifying at trial.

Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Salt Lake City, sponsored the bill, with Provo Republican Rep. Tyler Clancy serving as the floor sponsor. Clancy said the state Division of Human Resource Management can absorb the cost of the additional leave in its current budget.

"We want to make sure that we do everything within our power to make sure that our state employees who are victims of these crimes are safe and taken care of," he said.

With HB469, lawmakers voted to consolidate various law enforcement personnel in the Department of Natural Resources under the same roof, rather than assigning officers to the various divisions within the agency. Sponsor Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, said conservation officers in rural areas are likely to be the first responders to active shooter incidents in schools or other public spaces, and said the bill will improve the effectiveness of those officers when responding to critical incidents.

"This will allow us to help to train them, to help integrate them into our safety plans and take advantage of that resource that we already have in place," he said.

Tax changes

Myriad changes to Utah's tax code are considered and passed each session. The following changes will take effect in the new year:

• HB89 limits the amount of interest that accrues on overpaid taxes if residents don't immediately collect the amount owed to them by the state. Eliason, the bill's sponsor, said the state sometimes pays higher than the market rate on interest of overpaid taxes, and said his bill disincentives taxpayers from holding off on collecting overpaid taxes as an investment strategy.
• Utah taxes farmland at a lower rate than other property types, but if landowners sell portions of agricultural land they can be subject to up to five years of rollback taxes. HB288 allows landowners to sell portions of farmland to cities or counties without being subject to the rollback tax. Sponsor Rep. Jason Kyle, R-Huntsville, said the bill seeks to stop punishing landowners "just for doing their community a favor" by selling land to the municipality.
• SB29 will "expand the notice and advertising requirements" when government entities propose tax increases, according to sponsor Sen. Chris Wilson, R-Logan. It also allows county auditors to audit compliance with the public hearing requirements and prevents the Tax Commission from certifying tax rate increases if compliance is not met.
• SB132 lets counties use local tax funds to pay out property tax refunds and gives taxing entities more time to pay back taxpayers who are granted a reduction in taxes after winning an appeal on their tax amount.
• SB148 specifies that certain aircraft in the state are subject to taxation, while others are registered with the state and subject to registration fees. Another aircraft-related bill, SB243, gives the state Tax Commission authority to assess taxes on aircraft while allowing the counties to assess taxes on ground equipment and property owned by airports.
• Salt Lake County voters reauthorized the county's Zoo, Arts and Parks, or ZAP tax, for another decade in November. The tax is collected on sales tax in the county and spent on various programs in the county. Salt Lake County oversees most recipients, but the state allocates money for Utah's Hogle Zoo, the Living Planet Aquarium and Tracy Aviary. The zoo has received a majority of the funding over the past decade, but through SB245, lawmakers will allocate the increase in the tax this year to the aquarium, which has grown significantly in the last 10 years and is now comparable in scope to the zoo, per bill sponsor Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan.

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