You’re all amped up about buying your new car. You negotiated its price, calculated your monthly payment, purchased insurance, and now it’s time to register it. But surprise! With the closing of registration loopholes in California and Utah that reduced some residents’ fees, these states will pull more cash out of their citizens’ wallets. Vermont, too, recently slammed its registration loopholes shut.
Like it or not, states have very variable registration costs. Some can be pretty reasonable, while others can set you back a considerable chunk of change. And as you can imagine, many factors go into how a state develops its fee structure for motor vehicle registration. What could be a relatively simple fee structure in one state can be completely different in another.
States often look at things like the car’s weight, age, value, miles per gallon, transportation improvement initiatives, and the county where the vehicle is to be registered. With all these variables, it’s somewhat difficult to pin down precisely what it’s going to cost you to get your ride on the road. So we’re going to take a look at the approximate average yearly car registration fee in the five most expensive U.S. states, and show you how much dough you’re going to have to take out of your piggy bank there to satisfy those fees.
What are the damages?
In fifth place is Alaska, with an average yearly cost of $100. It uses a simple flat base registration fee, which makes understanding how much the registration is going to cost you a breeze. There are other fees outside the base registration, but they’re relatively small.
The District of Columbia isn’t a state, but we should note that it costs $114 to register your car there. Then buckle up for the next most expensive state.
Big Sky Country holds fourth place. It’s an attractive place to register a car for some out-of-state people. That’s because Montana doesn’t have a sales tax, so some people have registered their cars there in an attempt to avoid paying the tax in their real home state. Lots of people take advantage of this scheme, but when analyzed, there are pitfalls to the Montana license plate scam. Registering your car in the lightly populated and wide-open spaces of Montana will set you back approximately $127 a year.
The third most expensive place is the Beaver State. If you’re not up on your tree-eating quadruped named states, Oregon is the median of this high-price grouping. It bases its fee rates not only on the car’s model year but also on the miles per gallon it’s rated for.
The heavy hitters
We’re now up to the two most expensive states to register your car in the U.S. One of the two states is highly populated, while the other is less so.
Coming in as the penultimate most expensive place to register your car is Illinois. Getting your car registered is going to set you back a flat fee of $151 each year. While Illinois’ car registration is pricey, at least you know what it will cost you when you step into the confines of the Department of Motor Vehicles each year, if the state don’t raise its fees.
Finally, winning the contest for the most expensive state to register your car in the U.S. goes to … North Dakota! Drivers registering their cars in this state will have to hand over an average of $162 per year. Fees are based on your car’s age and weight, and this formula makes North Dakota the most expensive state in the U.S. to register a car.
