When Did Fireworks Become Illegal in Massachusetts?

Fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts. The state bans the sale, possession, use, and transportation of all consumer fireworks, and it is the only state in the country that prohibits even sparklers for private use. The ban applies whether you bought the fireworks here or legally in another state.¹

What Counts as Fireworks Under the Ban

Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 148, Section 39 defines fireworks broadly: any item designed to produce a visible or audible effect through combustion or explosion. The statute names firecrackers, cherry bombs, silver salutes, M-80s, sky-rockets, Roman candles, sparklers, fountains, and colored fires, then sweeps in “any fireworks containing any explosive or flammable compound, or any tablets or other device containing any explosive substance.”²

Sparklers surprise most people. In most states they sit on grocery store shelves next to the charcoal. In Massachusetts they are named directly in the statute and carry the same penalties as a Roman candle.

There is one narrow consumer exception. Toy pistols, toy canes, and toy guns that use paper or plastic caps are allowed, provided the device holds no more than twenty-five hundredths of a grain of explosive compound and each cap contains less than twenty hundredths of a grain of explosive mixture.² Nothing else sold to consumers is legal.

Penalties if You Get Caught

The statute treats a person lighting a sparkler very differently from a person running an illegal fireworks business. Both are violations, but the consequences separate sharply.

Possession or Use

If you are caught with fireworks or setting them off, the fine runs from $10 to $100. There is no jail time for simple possession or use. Police can seize the fireworks without a warrant, and on conviction the fireworks are forfeited and destroyed.²

Sale or Keeping Fireworks for Sale

Selling, or keeping fireworks with intent to sell, is punishable by a fine of $100 to $1,000, up to one year in jail, or both. Officers can arrest a seller without a warrant.²

Buying Fireworks in New Hampshire or Maine

Every summer, Massachusetts residents drive across the border to roadside shops in New Hampshire or Maine, where consumer fireworks are sold legally, and head home with a trunk full. That trip breaks Massachusetts law the moment the fireworks cross the state line. Transportation into the state is one of the four prohibited activities under Section 39, and a legal purchase in another state is not a defense here.

State Police know the pattern and patrol accordingly. In a single holiday weekend, troopers have seized more than a thousand fireworks items worth tens of thousands of dollars.¹ Seized fireworks are destroyed.

The Only Legal Way To See Fireworks in Massachusetts

Professionally run public displays are the one legal venue. They require a permit from the local fire department, the operator must hold a pyrotechnic user certificate or a fireworks certificate of competency, and the local fire chief has to certify that the display will not endanger people or property.³ As a spectator, that is your option. As a private citizen, you cannot run one yourself without the licensing and permitting that the state requires.

Is the Law Likely To Change?

Bills to loosen the ban appear in the legislature from time to time. In the 2023–2024 session, Bill S.1561 proposed legalizing novelty sparklers. None of these efforts have passed. The State Fire Marshal’s office and fire safety advocates have consistently opposed any rollback, and the law that took effect in 1943 has stayed on the books ever since. For now, if you want to light anything with a fuse in Massachusetts, the answer is still no.

1
Mass.gov. Leave Fireworks to the Professionals
2
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Part I, Title XX, Chapter 148, Section 39
3
Mass.gov. Blasting, Explosives, and Fireworks