Montana car-buying rules
These are the rules the Before the Lot planner uses for Montana, with the source and date for each. They describe the rules and the planner's estimate; they are not legal or tax advice, and the dealer's quote and your state's documents are what count.
Dealer doc fee in Montana
No dollar cap, with rules on how the fee is shown.
Law: Admin. R. Mont. 23.19.204(11).
No cap. Adding a documentary fee to the cash price is an unfair practice unless it's fully disclosed in every binding contract on the vehicle's selling price.
Sales tax in Montana
- Tax: None (no sales or titling tax).
- State rate used: 0%.
- Local add-ons: None on cars.
- Dollar cap on the tax: none in the data.
No sales tax on cars. You pay registration fees only (plus $825 a year if MSRP is over $150,000).
Trade-in tax credit
No. Montana does not take the trade-in value off the taxed price.
Does a maker's rebate lower the taxed price?
Not confirmed. No sales tax. Registration fees and local option taxes are based on MSRP or age, not the selling price.
Cancellation and return rights
No Montana-specific right to cancel or return a dealership purchase is in the planner's data.
There is no federal cooling-off period for buying a car at a dealership; the FTC's door-to-door Cooling-Off Rule excludes dealers with a permanent place of business (16 CFR 429.3(a)). The FTC CARS Rule was vacated by the Fifth Circuit in January 2025 and formally withdrawn effective Feb 12, 2026 (91 FR 6507). No other state with a general used-car cooling-off right was found; NCLC calls California's the first in the nation.
Worked out-the-door example: a $35,000 vehicle
Built with the planner's own out-the-door formula: the tax is the state base rate times the vehicle price plus the doc fee, with no trade-in, rounded to the cent. Local taxes are not included.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Vehicle price (example) | $35,000 |
| Doc fee (the planner's default, an example amount only; there is no cap) | $450 |
| Sales tax at 0% on $35,450 | $0 |
| Title and registration (the planner's default estimate) | $250 |
| Out-the-door total | $35,700 |
Title and registration fees differ by state and vehicle; $250 is a placeholder, not a Montana figure.
Plan a purchase in Montana
Plan a purchase in Montana opens the free planner with Montana already chosen. Nothing is sent to a server; the choice rides in the link's fragment.
These rules feed two steps of the method: set your numbers and let dealers compete. To read a dealer's quote line by line, see reading an out-the-door quote. All states.