Mo G
Last verified: September 18, 2026
Every few months someone forwards me a screenshot with a headline like “California to tax EVs by the mile,” and every few months I have to write the same reply. The story is real. The tax is not, at least not yet. Here is what actually exists, what is still being studied, and what the Road Improvement Fee on your renewal notice is really doing.
California does not charge drivers by the mile. The state tested a per-mile road charge in a pilot that ran August 2024 through January 2025 under SB 339, and Caltrans owes the Legislature a report by December 2026. What electric vehicle owners pay today is a flat $121 Road Improvement Fee, collected at registration renewal.
What a road charge actually is
Definition: a road charge, also called a road user charge or a mileage-based fee, is a system in which drivers pay for road maintenance based on the miles they drive rather than the gallons of fuel they buy. Caltrans describes it as a “user pays” system where “all drivers pay to maintain the roads based on how much they drive, rather than how much gas they purchase.”
The reason the state keeps studying it is arithmetic, not ideology. California funds highways and local streets largely through a per-gallon excise tax. As of July 1, 2026, that tax is 63.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 48.2 cents on diesel, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. A driver who buys no gasoline contributes nothing through that channel. The more efficient the fleet gets, the less the per-gallon tax collects.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office breaks the state gasoline excise tax into three pieces that are each adjusted for inflation every July: a base tax, an incremental tax (formerly the “swap tax”), and a Senate Bill 1 component that flows into the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account. That structure is why the number at the pump creeps up every summer without anyone voting on it.
What California charges EV drivers right now
The per-mile charge is hypothetical. These fees are not. Every figure below is published by DMV on its Registration Fees page, last modified June 30, 2026, and confirmed against DMV memo VIN 2025-10, which set the January 1, 2026 amounts.
| Fee | 2026 amount | Who pays it |
|---|---|---|
| Road Improvement Fee (RIF), VC 9250.6 | $121 | Zero emission vehicles, model year 2020 and later |
| Registration fee | $76 (includes the $3 alternative fuel and technology fee) | Everyone |
| CHP fee | $34 | Everyone |
| Transportation Improvement Fee (TIF) | $33 to $231 by vehicle value | Everyone |
| Vehicle License Fee (VLF) | 0.65% of purchase price or value | Everyone, with listed exemptions |
Two details on the Road Improvement Fee that catch people out, both straight from DMV:
- It is a renewal fee, not a purchase fee. DMV states plainly that the RIF “is not assessed on the initial registration of a newly purchased ZEV from a licensed vehicle dealer.” Drive a new EV off the lot and you will not see it. You will see it at your first renewal, which is where a lot of surprise comes from.
- It goes up on its own. The RIF rose from $118 to $121 effective January 1, 2026, under the Consumer Price Index adjustment DMV applies to a long list of fees. The Transportation Improvement Fee tiers moved in the same memo, from $32 to $33 at the bottom and from $227 to $231 at the top.
If you would rather not think about which of these apply to your car, Sticker Quicker’s California registration renewal service calculates the whole stack and posts the fees the same day, with your sticker on next-day FedEx. No office visit, no guessing which line on the notice is the EV fee.
Where the per-mile pilot actually stands
California has been studying this for more than a decade, in two distinct rounds.
- SB 1077 (DeSaulnier, Chapter 835, Statutes of 2014) required the state to design, implement and evaluate a road charge pilot. That first pilot tested mileage reporting methods, including at least one that did not rely on vehicle location data.
- SB 339 (Wiener, Chapter 308, Statutes of 2021), signed September 24, 2021, directed the state to run a second pilot focused on the harder problem: actually collecting the money.
That second pilot, the Road Charge Collection Pilot, ran for six months from August 2024 through the end of January 2025. Participants reported miles and paid real road charges every month, then received a credit for the gas tax they had paid on fuel used during the pilot. Electric vehicle participants received partial credit of the Road Improvement Fee, which tells you how the state itself views the RIF: as the EV stand-in for the gas tax.
Participants chose one of three ways to report mileage: a plug-in device that could use GPS or not, vehicle telematics through an automaker account, or a monthly photograph of the odometer. Incentives ran up to $400 in gift cards. Caltrans states that any participant location or personally identifiable data collected during the pilot is protected and then destroyed.
The report is the thing to watch. Caltrans must deliver the study results to the Legislature by December 2026. Nothing becomes law on that date. A report is a report. But it is the document any future road charge proposal will be built on, and it lands this year.
Two official Caltrans pages disagree about where the program is
This is worth knowing before you go looking for answers yourself, because the state publishes two versions of its own program status.
The California Road Charge program site documents the SB 339 collection pilot as complete, with the report due December 2026. That is current.
The Road Charge FAQ page on dot.ca.gov, which is the FAQ Caltrans links from the program’s main page, tells a different story. It describes the 2017 pilot as the pilot, says “In 2021, California will test collecting a road charge through emerging technologies” in the future tense, and cites Utah’s 2020 launch as recent news. It does not mention SB 339 anywhere. It does not mention the pilot that ran for six months, collected real payments from Californians, and finished more than eighteen months ago.
Both pages are Caltrans. Both are live today. A reader who lands on the FAQ first walks away believing California is still years from the stage it has already passed. When you are checking where a policy stands, check the program site, not the FAQ, and check the date on whatever you are reading.
The arithmetic nobody publishes: $121 versus a tank of gas
Here is the comparison that actually answers “am I paying more or less than my neighbor.” The numbers below are straight multiplication using the verified July 1, 2026 state gasoline excise tax of 63.4 cents per gallon. They cover the state excise tax only, not federal tax, sales tax, or any of the registration fees in the table above, which gas and electric vehicles both pay.
| Vehicle | 12,000 miles in a year | State gasoline excise tax paid |
|---|---|---|
| 25 mpg gas car | 480 gallons | about $304 |
| 30 mpg gas car | 400 gallons | about $254 |
| 40 mpg gas car | 300 gallons | about $190 |
| 50 mpg hybrid | 240 gallons | about $152 |
| Model year 2020 or later EV | 0 gallons | $121 flat, whatever the mileage |
Two things fall out of that table. First, at typical mileage an EV owner contributes less through these two channels than a comparable gas driver, which is the gap the road charge study exists to examine. Second, and less obvious: because the RIF is flat, the break-even point moves with efficiency. A 50 mpg hybrid has to cover roughly 9,500 miles in a year before its state gasoline excise tax passes the EV’s flat $121. A 25 mpg truck passes it at under 5,000 miles.
That flatness is the real argument for a per-mile system, and it cuts both ways. An EV driver who covers 4,000 miles a year pays the same $121 as one who covers 40,000.
Whatever you owe, you should not have to stand in line to pay it
The Road Improvement Fee, the Transportation Improvement Fee and the Vehicle License Fee all land in the same place: your annual renewal. Here is how the three realistic ways to handle that compare.
| Option | Typical wait | Office visit | Documents |
|---|---|---|---|
| DMV field office | Appointment or walk-in queue | Required | Handed over the counter |
| DMV online renewal | Standard mail processing | No | Mailed, allow standard delivery time |
| Sticker Quicker | Same-day fee posting | No | Next-day FedEx delivery |
Sticker Quicker is a licensed California DMV Business Partner with full online access, DMV Occupational License #90656, one of only a handful in the state at that level. That access is why fees post in real time rather than sitting in a mail queue, and it is why the documents move on FedEx instead of through standard mail. More than 500,000 customers have gone through it.
Related reading: how to pay your DMV registration online in California, the five holds that block a California renewal, and why California registration fees run high.
Frequently asked questions
Will California charge electric vehicles a road tax?
California already charges electric vehicles a road-funding fee, just not a per-mile one. Model year 2020 and later zero emission vehicles pay a flat $121 Road Improvement Fee at registration renewal under Vehicle Code 9250.6. A per-mile road charge has been studied in two pilots but has not been adopted.
How much is the California Road Improvement Fee in 2026?
The Road Improvement Fee is $121 in 2026, up from $118, according to the California DMV. It applies to zero emission vehicles of model year 2020 and later and is collected at renewal. DMV adjusts it annually for inflation, so it rises without new legislation.
When will California decide whether to charge by the mile?
No decision date is set. Caltrans must report the results of the SB 339 Road Charge Collection Pilot to the Legislature by December 2026. That report is research, not a proposal that takes effect. Any actual per-mile charge would require separate legislation after that.
Does a brand new EV pay the Road Improvement Fee?
No. California DMV states the Road Improvement Fee “is not assessed on the initial registration of a newly purchased ZEV from a licensed vehicle dealer.” The fee first appears at your next registration renewal, which is why many new EV owners are surprised by it a year after buying the car.
Does an EV pay more or less toward California roads than a gas car?
It depends on mileage and efficiency. Using California’s July 2026 gasoline excise tax of 63.4 cents per gallon, a 30 mpg car driven 12,000 miles pays about $254 in state excise tax, against an EV’s flat $121 Road Improvement Fee. A 50 mpg hybrid does not pass $121 until roughly 9,500 miles.
Primary sources
- California DMV, Registration Fees (modified June 30, 2026): Road Improvement Fee, Transportation Improvement Fee, registration and CHP fees, Vehicle License Fee rate.
- California DMV, Vehicle Industry News memo VIN 2025-10, Miscellaneous Fee Increases (issued December 3, 2025): the January 1, 2026 fee amounts and the CPI adjustment mechanism.
- California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, Fuel Tax Rates: state gasoline and diesel excise tax rates effective July 1, 2026.
- California Road Charge, Road Charge Collection Pilot: SB 339, pilot dates, reporting methods, report due date.
- Caltrans, Road Charge FAQs: definition of a road charge, SB 1077 background.
- Legislative Analyst’s Office, Transportation FAQs: components of the state gasoline excise tax and how the revenue is allocated.
About the author
Mo G is the founder of Sticker Quicker, a California vehicle registration and title service headquartered in Fremont and serving all of California online. Sticker Quicker is a licensed California DMV Business Partner with full online access under DMV Occupational License #90656, with DMV-connected real-time processing and next-day FedEx delivery of registration documents.
Renewing soon? Renew your California registration with Sticker Quicker and skip the office visit entirely. Fees posted the same day, sticker on next-day FedEx.
