Both the federal government and U.S. states collect tax revenue on gasoline sales to pay for road maintenance and improvements, but as more and more electric vehicles are sold, collecting the gas tax will get harder and harder. As a result, states have begun charging an extra fee to register an EV to compensate for lost gas taxes.
In this blog post, we cover electric vehicle registration fees from coast to coast.
The current federal gas tax is $0.18 per gallon for gasoline and $0.24 per gallon for diesel fuel. The gas tax varies widely for all 50 states; from a low of $0.09 to a high of $0.65, and we’d be willing to bet you can guess which state is the lowest (Alaska) and which is the highest (California). Nice job!
By the way, the first state to enact a gas tax was Oregon, which began collecting 1 cent per gallon, all the way back in 1919!
As of August 2022, there were 30 states that impose a special registration fee for electric vehicles as well as plug-in hybrids. Most states put EV fees into the same fund as the gas tax to maintain their roads and infrastructure and some states allocate part of EV registration revenue to support EV infrastructure.
Here are some highlights of EV registration fees:
- Utah started charging $60 extra for electric vehicles in 2019, but that has doubled to $120
- Georgia charges $200 extra for EVs; Alabama too
- Illinois residents pay an additional $100
- Michigan adds $135 extra per year for EVs less than 8,000 pounds and $235 for those heavier than 8,000 pounds
- Oregon charges $110 more per year, but that can go as high as $316, depending on county of residence
- Washington has an additional $225 per year charge for EVs
- In Indiana and Mississippi, it’s an additional $150
- Colorado adds an extra fee of $50 for EVs and uses 40% for the EV Grant Fund while the rest goes to the Highway Users Fund
- Minnesota adds $75 a year, as does Missouri and Nebraska
- Virginia adds EV fees of $64 per year
- California, the state with the most EVs, requires an additional $100 per year
Other interesting EV fee information:
- In Idaho, pending legislation would increase EV registration fees from $140 to $300 annually but EV users could elect to pay an alternative 2.5 cents per mile fee in lieu of the $300 fee.
- As mentioned, a few states allocate some EV registration fee revenue to support EV infrastructure, including Alabama ($50 of its $200 fee), Washington (an additional $75 fee), and Colorado ($20).
- Five states (California, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, and Utah) have tied additional registration fees to the consumer price index so that it increases over time.
- At least seven states (Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and Washington) have enacted Road User Charge laws which link transportation taxes to actual miles driven.
As EV sales increase, so will the number of ways states charge vehicle owners to recoup lost gas tax revenue, but ATC will always know what additional EV fees are required for your out of state transactions.
ATC provides the industry’s most accurate tax, title, and registration fee information to make the car buying experience easier for your shoppers and more profitable for dealers, lenders, and auto technology companies.
The truth is in the data: ATC is the fastest, most accurate TT&L data provider and when you GO ATC, you get the Greatest Of All Titling Companies!
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