It depends entirely on where you are, and the range is wider than the question suggests. Among the jurisdictions we have read, one requires a helmet at every age, another only under 19, and several have no rule naming the device at all — which does not mean no helmet rule reaches you, only that no state statute puts one there.
| Jurisdiction | Helmet | Minimum age |
|---|---|---|
| California | Required at every age: a properly fitted and fastened bicycle helmet meeting the standard in section 21212. | Not specified |
| Michigan | “A person less than 19 years of age operating an electric skateboard shall wear a crash helmet on his or her head.” Riders 19 and over are not required to. | “A person under the age of 12 shall not operate an electric skateboard on a public highway or street.” |
Only jurisdictions whose law names the electric skateboard can appear here. Where a state regulates a neighbouring device — a scooter with handlebars, say — its helmet rule does not automatically reach a board, and treating it as though it did would be an interpretation rather than a reading.
The most common finding on this whole subject is that no state statute names the device. It is tempting to read that as permission, and it is not.
A vehicle code is one layer of several. Below it sit municipal ordinances, which regulate sidewalks, parks, trails and campuses, and which very often name these devices precisely because the state did not. Above it sits the question of what the device is classified as when nobody has said — and in at least one state, the answer to that question is an unregistered motor vehicle, which is a prohibition rather than a permission.
So the honest reading of a blank row is not “anything goes”. It is “the answer is not in the vehicle code, and you have to look one layer down”.
Two jurisdictions that both wrote a statute can still disagree about the machine itself. California's definition caps the motor at an average of less than 1,000 watts; Michigan's allows up to 2,500. The same board can therefore be a regulated electric skateboard in one state and outside the definition entirely in the other — not more or less legal, but a different legal object.
The helmet rules diverge along a different axis. California requires one at every age and points at a specific bicycle-helmet standard. Michigan requires one only below 19, and pairs it with a minimum riding age of 12 that California does not have at all. Neither approach is a stricter version of the other; they are answers to different questions about who needs protecting.
This is worth understanding before reading any national table. A source that reports “helmet required” or “no helmet law” per state is flattening a definitional question, an age question and a standards question into one column, and the flattening is where the errors come from.
In some places and not others, and the rules that exist are not similar to each other. California requires a properly fitted bicycle helmet at every age under Cal. Veh. Code § 21292; Michigan requires one only for riders under 19 under Mich. Comp. Laws § 257.658. Many states have no rule naming the device at all.
Where a statute names the device, sometimes. Michigan sets 12 as the minimum for public highways and streets. Most jurisdictions we have read set none, because most have not written about the device at all.
“No state statute” is not “no rule”. Your municipality may require one, a park or campus almost certainly can, and none of that appears in a vehicle code. This page reads state and provincial law only.
Where a statute specifies, it usually points at a bicycle helmet standard — California names the standard in § 21212 explicitly. Where no statute names the device, there is no legal answer to give, and we will not invent one.
Because we only publish a jurisdiction once we have read a primary source and can link it. The full list, including everything we have not read yet, is on the where-can-I-ride page.