Vermont Vehicle Registration Fee Calculator

Vermont charges $89.00 a year to register a pleasure car, or $163.00 for a two-year registration — which works out to $81.50 a year, so the biennial option is genuinely cheaper rather than just more convenient. We report the per-year figure so that multi-year totals cannot double-count. Number plates are delivered free of charge by statute (23 V.S.A. §304(a)), so the $0 plate line here is a verified zero rather than a gap in our data. A title is $42.00. On a purchase Vermont levies a 6% purchase and use tax on the taxable cost (32 V.S.A. §8903(a)(1)), and this is IN LIEU of general sales tax — §9741(12) exempts vehicles taxed under chapter 219 from the retail sales and use tax, so the two are never both charged. The EV fee is unusual in that statute expresses it as a formula rather than a fixed amount: a battery-electric vehicle pays an annual infrastructure fee EQUAL to the §361(a) registration fee ($89.00), and a plug-in hybrid one-half of it ($44.50). Because it is defined relative to the registration fee, it moves automatically whenever that fee changes. Note also that the battery-EV fee is conditionally repealed — it lapses when a mileage-based EV user fee takes effect, while the plug-in hybrid provision survives. Finally, Vermont's trade-in rule is more generous than most: beyond the ordinary credit for a vehicle accepted by the seller (§8902(5)(B)(i)), Vermont also allows a limited credit for the amount received when you sell your old vehicle SEPARATELY, provided that sale happens within three months of the taxable purchase and capped at the referenced clean trade-in value. Wisconsin, by contrast, gives nothing at all for a separate sale.