Sunday Car Shopping? Not in These 13 States, Where Old 'Blue Laws' Still Apply

If you’ve ever tried to visit a car dealership on a Sunday and found the lot empty, you might have chalked it up to a sleepy sales team. But in more than a dozen states, the reason isn’t laziness, it’s the law. These are so-called blue laws, rooted in America’s early Christian traditions, that restrict or outright ban certain commercial activities on Sundays.

S. Supreme Court upheld their legality back in 1961, ruling that they serve as a uniform day of rest for workers, separate from any religious mandate.

Today, 13 states still enforce a full ban on car sales on Sunday: New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, for example, you can’t buy, sell, or trade any new or used motor vehicle or trailer on a Sunday, and the transaction must involve a notary authorized by the state’s Department of Transportation, which is nearly impossible to find on a Sunday.

Other states take a softer approach. Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Texas, and Utah limit dealership hours on Sundays. Texas lets dealers choose either Saturday or Sunday as their mandatory day off, and Utah has a similar rule. Maryland leaves it up to individual counties, which can impose a full ban, restricted hours, or designate a different day off.

Interestingly, not all these laws are ancient. Illinois didn’t pass its Sunday car sales ban until 1984. Since then, proposals have emerged, modeled after Texas and Utah, to allow dealers to choose a different day off, recognizing that not everyone observes Sunday as a holy day.

Whether you see these laws as a quaint relic or a real inconvenience, they’re still very much on the books. So if you’re planning to buy a car and need to travel across state lines, check the local rules before you head out on a Sunday, or you might end up with nothing but a long drive.