A change is coming to Massachusetts motor vehicle inspection sticker rules, and it corrects a longtime “hack” that many Commonwealth drivers have employed for years.

State Representative Pat Haddad (D-Somerset) announced on her official Facebook page Thursday that “starting November 1, vehicles passing inspection will get a new sticker with the month the last sticker expired, valid for one year.”

That means the practice of waiting until the start of the next month in order to get a “bonus” month will no longer be in play. Previously, if your sticker expired, say, the last day of January, you could wait until February 1 to get an inspection in order to gain an extra month before it has to be renewed.

Now, this new rule means if your sticker expired in January, you get a sticker that expires the following January, no matter when you get the inspection done.

There is an exception, apparently. If you are more than a year late, you will automatically get a sticker that expires in January, not the month in which the inspection occurs.

“Any vehicle owner late in getting a vehicle inspected, beyond one year from the last inspection, will no longer get a sticker displaying the month the new inspection occurred,” Haddad posted. “Vehicles with inspection stickers that expired last year will receive a January sticker of the current year the vehicle is being inspected, no matter the month the vehicle is inspected this year.”

Haddad noted that the change “does not impact the requirements for newly purchased vehicles.”

“All newly purchased vehicles must be inspected within seven days of the vehicle registration date and will receive a sticker of the month in which it was inspected and is valid for one year,” she wrote.