Standard motorcycle helmets do not have air filters. They have vents, and no helmet standard asks for filtration. For filtered air you have three routes: a helmet with a built-in filter, a mask under your helmet, or a clip-on system that feeds HEPA-filtered air into the helmet you already own.
Part of our Helmet air filter guide.
Slide the vent on the crown of your helmet open with your thumb. Behind it is a moulded plastic channel and, if you are lucky, a coarse mesh sized to stop a wasp. That is the whole air-handling system of your helmet.
This guide is for scooter and motorbike riders who want cleaner air inside the helmet. It covers why helmets have no filter, the three ways to add one, how full-face and open-face shells change the picture, and what to check before you buy.
Key takeaways
- No mainstream helmet, open-face or full-face, has an air filter. Vents move air for cooling and to stop the visor fogging. They do not clean it.
- ECE 22.06 tests helmet vents only as structural projections that must not snag in a crash. There is no filtration clause (SHARP / DfT).
- Two production helmets filter: the Shellios Puros (H13 HEPA, India only) and the Zyon (four-layer cartridge, deliveries from mid-2026). Both use a powered fan.
- A mask under the helmet cut PM2.5 by roughly 33 to 43% for riders in a Ho Chi Minh City study (ScienceDirect).
- Shell type barely matters. The measured air-quality difference between open-face and full-face helmets is "marginal", according to mask maker R-PUR.
Standard motorcycle helmets have vents, not air filters
A helmet sold for impact protection has no filtration stage. Its vents are openings with ducting behind them. Whatever is in the air outside, combustion particles, brake dust or exhaust gas, reaches your nose and mouth unchanged.
Helmets do contain things that look like filters. The mesh behind a chin vent and the comfort liner stop insects and grit. That is coarse-debris capture, a different job from catching fine particles.
Even the people selling filtering helmets say so. Tanguy Uzel, CEO of Spanish startup Zyon, explained why he built one: "Cars, trucks, and buses all have air filters, but on motorcycles there is no solution." (MCN, September 2025)
The car next to you has a rated filter. Your helmet has a snag test.
Car cabin filters are tested to ISO/TS 11155-1. It makes the maker state filtration efficiency for particles above 0.3 microns, plus pressure loss and dust-holding capacity.
A standard cabin filter is about 98% efficient in the 5 to 100 micron range. A premium HEPA cabin filter reaches 99.97% at 0.3 microns (AAA).
ECE 22.06, the current European helmet standard, looks at vents only as projections that could catch during an impact. How much air moves through them, and what it carries, is out of scope (SHARP / DfT). That is why no helmet sold today carries a filtration rating.
Riders breathe the worst air on the road
In Ho Chi Minh City, motorcyclists had the highest particle exposure of any commuter group, ahead of bus and car users (ScienceDirect). In Hanoi, motorcyclists recorded much higher black-carbon exposure than other commuters (ScienceDirect).
Rider-average PM2.5 from helmet-mounted sensors in Bangkok and Chiang Mai on 30 January 2024, against 88.1 from static sensors. The WHO 24-hour guideline is 15 (WHO).
Source: MobileSense, ACM COMPASS 2025Why a helmet vent cannot simply become a filter
Putting a filter in a helmet is a hard engineering problem. The reasons explain which fixes work and which do not.
- A filter needs a sealed path. A helmet is open at the chin, around the visor and at the neck. Put media across one vent and the air takes an easier route.
- A filter needs pressure, and a vent has none to spare. Passive vents run on ram air from your forward speed. At a red light, where traffic exposure peaks, that flow is close to zero. Media adds resistance on top.
- A filter needs a grade. PM2.5 is 2.5 microns and smaller. A bug mesh and a HEPA sheet share a word and little else.
- A filter needs space. Media, a fan, power and ducting all have to fit a shell whose shape is fixed by impact certification.
That is why every working design adds a fan.
Why a filter in a vent does not filter the air you breathe
Side view of a full-face helmet, rider facing left
Three ways to get a motorcycle helmet with air filter protection
Every option that works does two things a vent cannot. It pushes air with its own pressure, and it puts clean air where you breathe. They differ in where the filter lives.
1. A helmet with the filter built in
Shellios Puros launched in India in 2022 at ₹4,500. It uses an H13 HEPA element rated to EN 1822, a brushless blower fan and a built-in battery, and claims to cut exposure to toxic pollutants by up to 80%. It is sold only in India (Visordown; Green Car Congress).
Zyon is a modular helmet from Spain with a four-layer cartridge in the chin guard: a layer for water and large particles, one for fine particles, activated carbon for gases, and a protective fabric layer (New Atlas).
MCN reports lab tests showing it filters more than 80% of fine particles, with a battery lasting up to 18 hours. Early orders were €720, rising to €799 at release, with deliveries from mid-2026. Zyon does not claim a HEPA grade (MCN). We look at its running costs in Zyon helmet price vs the real cost of clean air.
2. A respirator or mask under your helmet
This is the cheapest route, and it does help. In the Ho Chi Minh City commuter study, a face mask worn while riding cut PM2.5 exposure by roughly 33 to 43%, and surgical masks beat cloth ones (ScienceDirect).
The weak point is the seal. The chin bar, cheek pads and strap press on the mask and shift it, and in heat a mask gets uncomfortable fast. Rider masks from brands such as R-PUR, Respro and Airinum improve fabric and fit, but still depend on that seal.
There is no helmet with a certified respirator, because no helmet standard has a filtration test to certify against.
The closest industrial relative is a PAPR (powered air-purifying respirator), a blower that pushes filtered air into a hood or helmet. NIOSH sets a minimum of 115 litres a minute for a tight-fitting PAPR and 170 for a loose-fitting one (National Academies). OSHA gives a loose-fitting helmet PAPR an assigned protection factor of 25 (OSHA). Those are ratings for certified workplace gear, so a riding helmet with filtered air should not claim one.
We compare the mask options in our guide to pollution masks for riders.
3. Clip-on filtered airflow into the helmet you own
The third route leaves your helmet alone and supplies filtered air to it. This is what a clip-on helmet air filter like Easi Breezi does.
The unit mounts on your bike's wing mirror or handlebar and runs from the bike's battery, so there is nothing to charge. A fan pushes air through an H11 HEPA filter that stops 95% of PM2.5.
A braided tube carries the clean air to a small attachment under your helmet's chin bar. The tube's magnetic end clips on in seconds.
Because the fan does the work, the airflow keeps going at a red light, where a passive vent stops. It is built for scooter and motorbike riders only, because it needs the bike's power.
| Option | Filter | Airflow at a red light | Keeps your helmet | Main drawback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built-in filter helmet (Zyon, Shellios Puros) | Four-layer cartridge with carbon (Zyon), H13 HEPA (Puros) | Yes, battery fan | No, you buy a new helmet | New fit to accept, limited availability, battery to charge |
| Respirator or mask under the helmet | Depends on the mask | Your lungs do the work | Yes | Seal breaks under the chin bar, hot to wear |
| Clip-on filtered airflow (Easi Breezi) | H11 HEPA, stops 95% of PM2.5 | Yes, fan powered by the bike | Yes | Adds a tube and a helmet attachment |
An "80%" helmet and a "95%" filter can be ranked against each other.
The 80% figures are whole-system claims that already include leaks around the seal. A media grade such as H11 at 95% describes the filter material alone. They measure different things.
A helmet and a filter wear out on different clocks
Whether to buy a filtering helmet or add filtration to your own comes down to replacement cycles, not features.
Fit is the safety variable, and you cannot transfer it. A helmet protects you only if it fits your head. After a year, the cheek pads have taken the shape of your face. A new filtering helmet means accepting a new shell, shape and retention system.
Three parts, three lifespans. The EPS liner lasts years. A fan and battery module is consumer electronics with a shorter life. Filter media is a consumable measured in days or weeks: Zyon ships 12 filters with the helmet and sells more on subscription (MCN).
Bond all three into one product and it is governed by whichever part runs out first. Keep them separate and each one is replaced on its own schedule.
The honest counterpoint: any add-on puts extra hardware on or near a certified helmet.
Ride with filtered air
Filters haze PM2.5 on every ride
Easi Breezi mounts on your scooter or motorbike and feeds H11 HEPA-filtered air into your helmet. Bike-powered, no batteries, no charging.
Full-face, modular or open-face: the shell barely changes what you breathe
Many riders assume a bigger, more enclosed shell means cleaner air. The evidence says otherwise.
R-PUR, which makes anti-pollution masks for motorcyclists, says full-face helmets give "an impression of isolation", but air still enters through "peripheral openings, particularly around the chin and neck". The measured difference in air quality between open-face and full-face helmets is "marginal". Helmets are "neither airtight nor designed to be so".
- Full-face: air enters at the vents, the visor edge and the neck opening.
- Modular: the same three routes, plus the chin-bar hinge seam. This is our structural observation, not a measured figure.
- Open-face: no visor to seal at all, plus the same neck opening.
The pollution comes from the traffic around you, not the shell you chose. Road transport produces 67% of Jakarta's PM2.5 emissions, per the 2019 inventory WRI Indonesia cites (WRI Indonesia).
Only active filtration has shown a measured drop. A battery-powered anti-pollution helmet cut PM2.5 by 80% in controlled testing (Eco-Business, 2022).
Because the clip-on route targets the air path and not the shell, the Easi Breezi helmet attachment fits most full-face, modular and open-face helmets. It sits under the chin bar, out of your line of sight.
Keep the helmet that fits you. Shell type makes a marginal difference to the air you breathe, while a bad fit costs you crash protection.
What to look for in a helmet air filter
Whichever route you choose, check these five things before you pay.
- The EN 1822 filter class. The word HEPA alone tells you little, so ask for the grade. H13 captures at least 99.95% at the hardest particle size and H11 at least 95%. Higher grades also resist airflow more. We compare them in H11 vs H13 HEPA for a helmet.
- Powered airflow. A fan keeps air moving when you stop. A passive vent does not.
- Delivery into your breathing zone. Filtered air must reach your nose and mouth. Blowing it into the back of the shell does little.
- Your fit stays intact. Nothing should change the helmet's shape, padding or strap.
- Filter swaps you will keep up with. Media loads up with dust. Easi Breezi filters are sold in 10-packs and we suggest a fresh one every week, or sooner if airflow drops.
For the physics behind all of this, start with our helmet air filtration guide.
Which option fits your riding
Buy a built-in filter helmet if you need a new helmet anyway, it fits your head, it is sold where you live, and you are happy to charge one more battery.
Wear a mask if you ride short trips, want the lowest cost today, and can live with the seal and the heat.
Choose a clip-on filtered airflow system if your current helmet fits and is in date, you ride in haze or heavy traffic now, and you want the helmet and the filter replaced on separate schedules. That is the gap Easi Breezi, a motorcycle helmet air purifier powered by your bike, was built to fill.
Frequently asked questions
Do motorcycle helmets have air filters?
No. Standard helmets have vents for cooling and fog control, not filters. Only a few specialist helmets, such as the Shellios Puros and Zyon, build filtration in.
Is there a full-face motorcycle helmet with an air filter?
Yes. The Zyon is a modular full-face helmet with a cartridge in the chin guard, and the Shellios Puros is a full-face helmet with a rear HEPA filter. Both use a battery fan. Mainstream full-face helmets have no filtration.
Is there a motorcycle helmet with a respirator?
Not a certified one. No helmet standard includes a filtration test, so riders either wear a mask under the helmet or add powered, filtered airflow to it.
Does a full-face helmet protect you from air pollution better than an open-face?
Only marginally. R-PUR reports the measured air-quality difference is marginal, because air enters around the chin and neck on every shell type.
Can I add an air filter to my existing helmet?
Yes. A clip-on filtered airflow system feeds clean air into the helmet you own. Easi Breezi's helmet attachment sits under the chin bar and fits most full-face, modular and open-face helmets.
Is it hard to breathe with a filter in a motorcycle helmet?
Not with a powered system. A fan pushes air through the filter, so the resistance is handled by the fan, not your lungs. A mask is the option where you feel the effort.
How often do you change a helmet air filter?
For Easi Breezi, fit a fresh H11 filter every week, or sooner if you notice the airflow drop. Filters come in 10-packs.
What to do next
- Check your helmet's fit and date. If both are good, keep it and add filtration rather than replacing it.
- Close your vents in stopped traffic. Unfiltered vents pull in the air at exhaust height.
- Ask any filter seller for the EN 1822 class. A product that will not state one is asking you to trust a word.
- Pick powered airflow over a passive filter. It keeps working at the lights, where exposure peaks.
- See how the Easi Breezi system fits. How it works shows the mount, tube and helmet attachment.
Your helmet already fits and is already certified. Adding filtered air leaves that untouched.
Written by Ash, mechanical engineer and founder of Easi Breezi, building an active HEPA filtration system for motorcycle helmets (patent pending). Based between Hong Kong and Bali, riding daily in the traffic this blog writes about.