Buying a car in Montana
Every figure below is sourced to Montana’s own revenue or motor vehicle publications and dated. Estimates only.
Auto loan calculator
The real out-the-door number — including whether your state credits your trade-in against the sales tax.
Auto lease calculator
Money factor, residual, and the payment — taxed by your state's actual method, since some states tax a lease's full value upfront instead of each payment.
Loan payoff calculator
What paying extra actually saves you — in interest and in months — on a car loan, a personal loan, or anything else that amortizes.
0% APR vs. cash rebate
Which dealer offer actually costs less over the life of the loan, and the rate at which they tie.
Personal loan calculator
Payment, total interest, and the effective APR once an origination fee is deducted from what actually reaches your account.
Debt consolidation calculator
Whether one loan actually beats paying your existing debts off as they are — measured against the best you could do without consolidating.
Auto refinance calculator
Whether refinancing your car loan is worth it — including whether a lower payment is being bought with a longer term on a depreciating asset.
Lease vs. buy a car
The same car both ways over the same months, with the resale value credited to the buyer — the part most comparisons leave out.
Montana at a glance
- State sales tax
- 0%
- Trade-in credit
- Not applicable
- Montana charges no sales tax on a car, so there is nothing for a trade-in to reduce.
- Dealer doc fee
- Not confirmed
- We have not confirmed a cap for this state, so we do not claim one.
- Title and registration
- $229.00
- $12.00 title + $217.00 registration.
Montana taxes the car every year, not just at purchase
A recurring annual tax on the vehicle’s value applies here — assessed at 90% of value at a representative 0.7% rate. It never appears in a monthly payment and is easy to miss when comparing states.Models the COUNTY LOCAL OPTION MOTOR VEHICLE TAX only — Montana's one genuinely value-based recurring vehicle tax. FOUR CAVEATS. 0.7% is the STATUTORY MAXIMUM under MCA 61-3-537, not an average: counties may impose less, may impose a flat fee instead, or may impose nothing, so this overstates for some. assessmentRatioPct 90 is the MCA 61-3-503 depreciation multiplier for a NEW automobile (age 0) as a percentage of MSRP; it declines with age and varies across four body types, so 90 is correct only for a new car — a 5-year-old truck is 66%, a 10-year-old van 22%. There is a floor: a computed value of $500 or less is deemed $500, and vehicles 17 years and older depreciate the 16-year figure 10% a year down to it. Finally this tax is SEPARATE FROM AND ADDITIONAL TO the flat registration fees and the $825 luxury fee — not an alternative to them. The flat fees are not value-based and so are deliberately not modelled here.
Local tax in Montana
MONTANA HAS NO GENERAL SALES TAX — no state or local sales tax on a vehicle purchase, which is why the rate is a hard 0 rather than absent. What is charged instead is a value- and age-based registration regime: a flat annual light vehicle fee stepping down with age ($217 at 4 years or less, $87 at 5-10 years, $28 at 11 or more, MCA 61-3-321); a LUXURY VEHICLE FEE of an additional $825 a year on any light vehicle over $150,000 MSRP that is 10 years old or less; and a county local option motor vehicle tax of up to 0.7% of depreciated value (MCA 61-3-537), captured in annualVehiclePropertyTax. A few resort communities levy local resort taxes, but those do not generally reach vehicle purchases.