South Carolina car-buying rules
These are the rules the Before the Lot planner uses for South Carolina, 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 South Carolina
No dollar cap, with rules on how the fee is shown.
No hard cap. The dealer must file its maximum 'closing fee' with the SC Department of Consumer Affairs before charging it. $225 or less is automatically approved; a higher fee may be reviewed for reasonableness and is allowed if the department doesn't act within 30 days. The fee must be on the contract, posted in the dealership, and in ads for a specific vehicle (S.C. Code 37-2-307). Each dealer's filed fee can be looked up on consumer.sc.gov.
Sales tax in South Carolina
- Tax: Infrastructure maintenance fee (IMF).
- State rate used: 5%.
- Local add-ons: None on cars.
- Dollar cap on the tax: $500.
Replaces sales tax. 5% capped at $500, so any price over $10,000 pays $500. Trade-in deducted. No local tax.
Trade-in tax credit
Yes. South Carolina takes the trade-in value off the taxed price.
Does a maker's rebate lower the taxed price?
Not confirmed. 5% infrastructure maintenance fee capped at $500, so the rebate question is moot above $10,000 (likely taxed before, inference). Code: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t12c036.php
Cancellation and return rights
No South Carolina-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 The FTC CARS Rule was vacated by the Fifth Circuit in January 2025 and formally withdrawn effective Feb 12, 2026 (91 FR 6507).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, limited to the state's $500 cap, 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 5% on $35,450 (limited by the cap) | $500 |
| Title and registration (the planner's default estimate) | $250 |
| Out-the-door total | $36,200 |
Title and registration fees differ by state and vehicle; $250 is a placeholder, not a South Carolina figure.
Plan a purchase in South Carolina
Plan a purchase in South Carolina opens the free planner with South Carolina 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.