How to Choose a Motorcycle Helmet

Most helmet advice starts with features and works backwards. That is why people end up with a helmet that has eleven vents, a photochromic shield and a shape that does not fit their head. The order below is the one that actually matters, and the first three steps decide almost everything. Type, certification, head shape. If you get those right, a $200 helmet will serve you better than a $700 one chosen in the wrong order.

We own none of the helmets on this site and we run no lab. Everything factual here is either a published standard or a specification the maker publishes for a specific model, read on a dated visit — our methodology page sets out exactly what that means and what we refuse to claim.

Step 1: Choose the type, from how you actually ride

Not from how you imagine riding. Be honest about the speeds, the weather and how often you stop, because the type decision constrains everything after it — including which certifications are even available to you.

• Full-face. The most coverage and the only type where the strongest certification pairs are common. If you have no specific reason to choose otherwise, choose this. Our full-face ranking is the page.
• Modular (flip-front).A full-face with a chin bar that lifts, for riders who stop often — fuel, tolls, glasses, conversation. Heavier, and with one catch most buyers miss: most modulars are certified closed only. See modular versus full-face.
• Open-face (3/4).Lighter, cooler, easier with glasses, and no protection for your jaw or face. A genuinely reasonable choice for low-speed city and cruiser riding, and a poor one above about 50 mph. We argue it honestly on open-face versus full-face.
• Dual-sport / adventure. A peak and a wide eyeport, so it works with goggles off-road and a shield on tarmac. Noisier at highway speed because the peak catches air. See the dual-sport ranking.

Step 2: Read the certification — for the model, not the brand

This is the step where most of the real safety information lives, and the most common mistake is reading it at brand level. Certification is per model. The same maker will sell you a DOT-only polycarbonate helmet and a dual-certified composite one with the same logo on the chin bar.

• DOT FMVSS 218 is the US legal minimum and is required for on-road sale. The manufacturer certifies its own helmet against it and NHTSA buys samples off the shelf to re-test. It is pass/fail, not a grade.
• ECE 22.06is the current UN regulation, tested by an approval authority before sale in that market, and the only common mark that added oblique-impact testing for rotational forces. On a US listing it is voluntary — and note that an unversioned “ECE” claim may be the older 22.05, which did not include that test. Our ECE 22.06 page separates the two across the whole registry.
• SNELL M2020 / M2025is voluntary, run by the Snell Memorial Foundation, and is the toughest energy-management and penetration protocol in common use — with production samples re-tested after certification. See the SNELL-certified ranking.

Two marks are better than one, and there is no US league table to rank them against each other. There is no government star rating for helmets sold in the United States — which is why our safest-helmets pageranks on published certification rather than on a score, and why any site showing you a numeric safety grade for a US helmet is quoting a foreign programme for a different variant. If rotational impact is the mechanism you most want addressed, look for ECE 22.06, or for MIPS and multi-density liners — explained in our MIPS guide.

Step 3: Match your head shape, before you think about size

Heads are not round, and makers build interiors to a profile. A helmet in the wrong shape will never fit properly at any size. The three profiles are round oval, intermediate oval (the most common, and what most helmets are built to) and long oval. The symptom of a mismatch is specific and easy to recognise: pressure on your forehead and the back of your skull with loose cheeks means the helmet is too round for you; pressure at the sides with a gap front and back means it is too long. Our head shapes guide covers how to work out which you are.

Shell count belongs in this step too, and nobody mentions it. A helmet offered in one shell size with different thicknesses of padding means a small head is wearing an oversized shell. Helmets built in three, four or five shell sizes are sized to the head rather than padded down to it — that is a genuine reason to pay more, and it is published.

Step 4: Size it, then test it with the strap done up

Measure the circumference of your head at its widest point, about an inch above your eyebrows, and compare it to that maker’s chart — helmet sizing is not standardised between brands. Then fit it properly:

1. The cheek pads should press your cheeks. A new helmet should feel snug; the liner gives slightly as it breaks in.
2. There should be no single pressure point anywhere. A hot spot on your forehead after ten minutes is a shape mismatch, not a break-in period.
3. With the strap fastened, try to roll the helmet forward off your head. If it moves, it is too big — this is the test that matters most and the one people skip.
4. Leave it on for fifteen minutes before you buy. Most fit problems only appear after ten.

Our sizing guide covers the measurement and the chart problem in full, and how to wear a helmet covers the strap.

Step 5: Check the published weight

Weight is a comfort and fatigue spec, not a safety spec — it comes from shell material rather than from protection level, and the lightest full-face in our registry publishes ECE 22.06 alongside DOT. What it affects is how your neck feels at hour six and how alert you are at the end of a long ride. Composite and carbon shells run lighter than polycarbonate at the same certification; a modular is always heavier than the equivalent full-face because of the hinge. Our weight ranking lists every figure makers actually publish, and is honest about how many publish nothing.

Step 6: Now look at features — these four, in this order

• A drop-down internal sun visor, if you ride in changing light. It removes the carry-and-swap problem that a tinted shield creates. See helmets with a sun visor.
• A Pinlock-ready shield, because an anti-fog insert is the only thing that reliably stops a shield fogging at a standstill — covered in our fogging guide.
• Removable, washable liners. This decides whether you still want the helmet in year three.
• Designed-in comms provision rather than a module clamped to the shell, if you ride with an intercom. See how to choose an intercom.

Vent counts, graphics and shield tints are where the marketing effort goes. None of them is in the first five steps for a reason.

Three helmets, three budgets

Here is what the sequence above produces at three price points. Each is drawn from a full ranking where the trade-offs are argued in detail — these are the shortcuts, not the whole answer.

Budget pick

HJC C10

DOT

HJC's entry full-face, and one of the cheapest DOT-approved lids from a major maker. An advanced polycarbonate composite shell and a proper removable liner — the honest floor for a first helmet.

See the full budget ranking

$119.99 · View on Amazon

$139.9914% off

Price as of October 4, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

Mid-range pick

Bell Qualifier DLX MIPS

DOT FMVSS 218

The value pick that adds MIPS — a low-friction liner designed to reduce rotational forces in an angled impact — to a DOT-certified full-face at a mid price. The most safety tech per dollar in this list.

See the full helmet ranking

$199.95 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 4, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

Premium pick

AGV K6 S

DOT + ECE 22.06

One of the lightest full-carbon-aramid lids you can buy at ~1,255 g, and it's certified to the newer ECE 22.06 standard on top of DOT. The sport-touring helmet for riders who notice weight on a long day.

See the full-face ranking

$639.00 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 4, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

Five things not to do

• Do not buy used. You cannot see the damage that matters. Compressed EPS looks identical to new EPS. Our guide to used gear covers what is and is not worth buying second-hand, and helmets are firmly in the second group.
• Do not buy a novelty helmet. Uncertified lids with counterfeit DOT stickers are a real market. See spotting a fake helmet.
• Do not size up for comfort. A loose helmet rotates under braking and can come off in a crash. Snug is correct.
• Do not paint it or stick things to it. Solvents attack the shell and the liner. The honest version of the custom-graphics question is on our custom helmets page.
• Do not keep it after an impact. EPS crushes once, by design, and it does not come back. See when to replace a helmet.