Sunscreen Rules for Surf Trips: 6 Places Where Certain Sunscreens Are Banned (2027)

Certain sunscreens are banned in six places we could confirm from official sources: the state of Hawaii, Maui County, Palau, the US Virgin Islands, Aruba and Thailand's national parks.

The rules differ. Hawaii's state law is aimed at shops, Maui County's ordinance also covers what you put on at the beach, and Palau's customs officers can take a bottle out of your bag.

This guide is about travel rules, not health or science. Every rule below comes from a government, a legislature, a park authority or an official tourism board, and we left out the rest. Rinsed doesn't sell sunscreen, so we have nothing to push. Still choosing where to go? Start with our best surf destinations in the world.

Where are certain sunscreens banned?

In six places, and each rule covers something slightly different.

Place	What the rule covers	In force since
Hawaii (whole state)	Selling or distributing sunscreens that contain oxybenzone or octinoxate, unless prescribed	1 January 2021
Maui County, Hawaii	Sale, distribution and use of non-mineral sunscreens, unless prescribed	1 October 2022
Palau	Importing, selling, manufacturing or bringing in sunscreens the law calls reef-toxic	1 January 2020
US Virgin Islands	Sunscreens containing oxybenzone, octinoxate or octocrylene	Already law in February 2020 (no start date on the official pages)
Aruba	Sunscreens containing oxybenzone	2020 (announced November 2019)
Thailand (national parks)	Bringing in or using sunscreens that contain oxybenzone, octinoxate, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor or butylparaben	3 August 2021

"Banned" means three different things here: selling (Hawaii), using (Maui County and Thailand's parks) and bringing in (Palau). All six places are outside the EU, so check your own government's travel advice before you book.

What does Hawaii's sunscreen law ban?

Hawaii's state law bans the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone or octinoxate without a prescription, and Maui County goes further by banning the use of non-mineral sunscreens too.

The state rule comes from Senate Bill 2571, passed in 2018. Its text makes it unlawful "to sell, offer for sale, or distribute for sale in the State any sunscreen that contains oxybenzone or octinoxate, or both", unless a licensed healthcare provider has prescribed it, beginning 1 January 2021. A later Senate bill refers to it as Act 104 of 2018. The text is about selling: it doesn't mention the bottle that's already in your bag when you land.

Maui County is where the rule reaches you personally. Its Ordinance 5306, in force since 1 October 2022, prohibits the sale, distribution and use of non-mineral sunscreens without a prescription. The permitted kind is sunscreens made with non-nanotized zinc oxide or titanium dioxide.

Note the word "use". Say you surf a few days on Oahu and then hop over to Maui: the county ordinance applies the moment you put sunscreen on at a Maui beach.

What are Palau's sunscreen rules?

Palau bans importing, selling, manufacturing and bringing in sunscreens that its law calls reef-toxic, and has done since 1 January 2020.

The rule goes back to the Responsible Tourism Education Act of 2018, which prohibits sunscreens containing ten listed ingredients from being imported, distributed, sold, manufactured or brought into the country. Later regulations tightened it: legal sunscreens use only zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide as active ingredients and can't contain parabens, triclosan, triclocarban or phenoxyethanol.

This is the rule that applies at the border. Banned products may be confiscated at customs, and government travel advice for Palau puts it bluntly: it's illegal to bring reef-toxic sunscreen into the country. If the half-used bottle from last summer lists a banned ingredient, expect it to end the trip in an airport bin.

Which Caribbean islands ban certain sunscreens?

The US Virgin Islands prohibits oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene, and Aruba bans sunscreens containing oxybenzone.

The territory's official tourism site asks visitors to use only mineral sunscreen, and adds that this is the law in the US Virgin Islands. It names those three ingredients as prohibited.

That page gives no start date, and we couldn't load the act itself. A press release from the territory's government dated 26 February 2020 shows the governor vetoing a section that would have given sellers of sunscreen products more time to clear their shelves, so the rule was already law by then.

On Aruba, the island's tourism authority announced on 28 November 2019 that sunscreens containing oxybenzone were banned, with a transition phase first and a full ban the following year. The announcement doesn't say whether that's aimed at shops or beach bags, so the simple reading is: don't pack one with oxybenzone on the label.

Is sunscreen banned in Thailand's national parks?

Yes: since 3 August 2021, sunscreens containing four named chemicals have been banned in Thailand's national parks.

The rule comes from Thailand's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. The four are oxybenzone, octinoxate, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor and butylparaben, and anyone who breaks the rule can be fined. The notification, as listed in an international environmental law database, is titled as a ban "at All Marine National Parks".

So the rule follows the park boundary, not the national border: a surf in front of your guesthouse is one thing, a boat day to islands inside a marine national park is another. Our guide to the best surfing destinations in Asia covers the wider region.

Why aren't Bonaire or Europe on the list?

Because for Bonaire we found an official request instead of a law, and for Europe nothing official at all.

Bonaire asks. The island's visitor pledge, the Bonaire Bond, invites you to use reef-friendly, biodegradable sunscreen, and the organisation that manages the island's parks tells beach users to choose one free of oxybenzone and octinoxate. We'd follow that, but we couldn't load a law with a start date, so Bonaire isn't in the table.

Europe is a blank. We haven't confirmed a sunscreen ban from an official source for any European surf coast. That isn't proof that no local rule exists, so read the signs at the beach and the park authority's page. For trips closer to home, see when to surf in Europe and where to surf in summer in Europe.

How do you check your sunscreen against the rules?

Read the ingredients list, not the front of the bottle, and compare it with the names in the table above.

None of these rules tests a slogan on the packaging. Most name ingredients that are out. Maui County and Palau work the other way round and name the only active ingredients that are in: zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.

The same ingredient can hide behind another name. Oxybenzone is also listed as benzophenone-3 or BP-3, and octinoxate as ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate. So a bottle that never says "oxybenzone" can still fail the rule.

We won't tell you which sunscreen to buy or how to use it. Rinsed doesn't sell sunscreen, and sun protection isn't our field. For that, go to an official health source, such as the one listed in the sources at the end of this article.

How do you pack sunscreen and a wash kit?

Check the label at home, put liquid sunscreen in your liquids bag if you fly with hand luggage only, and keep the rest of your wash kit solid.

The EU hand-luggage rule is this: no container may hold more than 100 ml, and liquids go in a transparent plastic bag with a maximum capacity of 1 litre. The official examples include cosmetic creams and gels, so a tube of sunscreen lotion belongs in that bag.

That bag fills up fast. A solid bar isn't a liquid at airport security, so one 3-in-1 bar for hair, body and face keeps the shampoo, the shower gel and the face wash out of the bag altogether.

That leaves room for the sunscreen that matches your destination. Our carry-on surf trip wash kit walks through the rest.

Showers and wet kit after the session

Rinse off with plain water at the beach, and save the proper wash for a shower that drains into the sewer.

Here's our house rule: don't rinse shampoo or soap directly into the ocean or into beach showers that drain to the sea. Lather only where the water goes into a drain. That applies to any soap, ours included.

The proper wash usually happens somewhere small. A surf camp shower tends to come with one narrow shelf and five people's bottles already on it. One bar for hair, body and face takes up a corner of that shelf and leaves with you.

Then there's everything that's still wet. Boardshorts, a rash vest, a towel and maybe a wetsuit all go into one bag for the drive back, and that bag gets squashed under boards and backpacks. Anything in a bottle can open in there. A solid bar has nothing to leak in a wet bag.

Hang everything up when you're back. The full surf trip packing list has the rest of the kit.

Locals and the environment

Respect the locals

Every rule in this guide was decided by the people who live there. Maui County explains its ordinance in terms of what its reefs do for the community: it says they support marine life, the local economy and cultural practices, and protect the coast against storms and erosion. So follow the rule the way you'd follow the line-up, without arguing. Our surf etiquette rules cover the in-water side.

Respect the environment

Palau describes its approach as precautionary: it bans ingredients suspected of being reef-toxic without waiting for conclusive proof. That's Palau's reasoning, not ours: we're a soap brand, not a lab. Where there's a law, follow it. Where there's only a request, as on Bonaire, treat it like a rule anyway.

Summary

Six places have a sunscreen rule we could confirm from an official source. Hawaii's state law targets sales, Maui County and Thailand's parks cover use, and Palau stops banned sunscreens at the border. Read the ingredients list against your destination's rule before you pack. And if a place only asks, as Bonaire does, treat the request like a rule.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

The facts in this article are based on the sources below, checked in October 2026.

1. Senate Bill 2571 CD1, relating to water pollution. Hawaii State Legislature, 2018.
2. Senate Bill 20, relating to sunscreen. Hawaii State Legislature, 2021.
3. Mineral only sunscreen, Maui County. County of Maui, 2022.
4. Palau adopts the world's strictest national sunscreen standard. Government of Palau, 2026.
5. Palau sunscreen ban: what visitors need to know. Palau Visitors Authority, 2026.
6. Palau travel advice: entry requirements. UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 2025.
7. USVI travel tips and FAQs. Visit USVI, 2026.
8. Governor Bryan takes action on 18 bills. Government of the United States Virgin Islands, 2020.
9. It's official: Aruba bans all single-use plastic. Aruba Tourism Authority, 2019.
10. Make sure your sunscreen is not on the banned list in Thailand. Tourism Authority of Thailand, 2021.
11. Notification on sunscreens at all marine national parks. UN Environment Programme, 2021.
12. Bonaire Bond. Tourism Corporation Bonaire, 2026.
13. Beach usage. STINAPA Bonaire, 2026.
14. Luggage restrictions. Your Europe, European Union, 2026.
15. Sunscreen and sun safety. NHS, 2026.