Vermont Tax, Title and License Calculator

How much is tax, title and license (TTL) in Vermont?

On a $25,000 car, tax, title and license in Vermont is about $1,633: $133 in fees and $1,500 in tax. The fixed fees stay about the same at any price; the tax is what moves with what you pay.

Use the full Vermont calculator to enter your own price, trade-in and vehicle details. The table below shows the total at common prices.

Tax, title and license in Vermont by price

Used vehicle, first registration in Vermont, at the state tax rate.

Where the money goes

On a $25,000 car in Vermont, tax is $1,500 of the $1,633 total and the fixed fees are $133. The tax scales with the price of the car. The fees do not, which is why tax, title and license is a much bigger number on an expensive car and barely noticeable on a cheap one.

Sales tax on a car in Vermont

Vermont does not call it a sales tax; it charges the Purchase and Use Tax, which is the figure people mean by Vermont car sales tax. The rate is 6%. source 2 It is the biggest part of the bill on an expensive car, and the calculator above works it into your total. How a trade-in changes it is covered in trade-ins below, and every state's rate is on the car sales tax by state page.

Two ways to cut Vermont's purchase and use tax

The 6% is charged on the price you paid or the J.D. Power clean trade-in value, whichever is higher, and a Vermont Dealer Appraisal (VD-012) can bring the value down if the car is worth less than the book says. Two breaks then reduce it:

• A trade-in at the dealer comes straight off the taxable amount.
• Selling your old car yourself within three months, before or after the purchase, earns the same kind of break. Sell first and it is a credit at registration; sell after and you apply for a refund within a year. The credit uses the J.D. Power book figure for the car you sold.

On a $30,000 car the tax is $1,800. Sell your old car privately two months later, with a J.D. Power value of $12,000, and you can claim back $720. It is one car sold against one car bought, and service members get the three months extended for deployment plus 60 days after returning.

Does a trade-in reduce your tax in Vermont?

Yes. Vermont subtracts the trade-in allowance from the price before the tax is worked out. The bigger the trade-in, the smaller the tax bill.

Buy a $28,000 car and hand over a trade-in worth $8,000 and you are taxed on $20,000, not $28,000. That is $480 you do not pay.

Here Vermont is kinder than most states. Selling your old car yourself does not cost you the break: sell it within three months of the purchase, before or after, and you get a credit at registration or a refund instead.

Buying from a dealer? Put the doc fee and any add-ons on top of these figures with the out-the-door price calculator, set to Vermont.

The Vermont documentation fee, and what else is not TTL

Everything the state charges is fixed. The dealer's own lines are not, and the documentation fee is the one worth reading closely in Vermont.

Vermont does not cap the dealer documentation fee. It is set by the dealer and shown on the sale paperwork, and figures of a few hundred dollars are common. source 1

No state makes a dealer charge this, and Vermont puts no ceiling on it, so of everything on the sheet it is the line with the most room to push back on.

For the full list of what belongs to the state and what belongs to the dealer, see what dealers add that is not tax, title and license, and how Vermont's doc fee rule compares with the rest.

Motorcycles, leases and other cases

Three situations where the figure above does not apply:

• Motorcycles. Vermont DMV registers them on a different and much cheaper schedule. The tax works the same way, on the purchase price.
• Leases. A lease is not a purchase, and several states tax the monthly payment rather than the value of the car. If you are leasing, the number on this page is not your number.
• Gifts and family transfers. No sale means no sales tax in most states, though the title fee still applies. The Vermont title transfer page has the rule and the form.

Questions about Vermont TTL

Work out the rest of the Vermont bill

The generic explainers, on what tax, title and license means, how to check a dealer's quote, and whether to finance the tax, live on the tax, title and license hub. For Vermont specifically, these are the pages worth having open:

How Vermont compares at one price

The table above runs Vermont at prices from $3,000 to $40,000. To see the same bill in every state side by side, there is tax, title and license on a $30,000 car, state by state.

Nearby states

Or compare all 51 on the tax, title and license by state page.

Where these numbers come from