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If drivers don’t receive their permanent plates within by the time the temporary plates expire, Meihls continued, the DMV branches will provide extended temporary plates.

After the local DMV mails that Title Complete Notice, the process to get permanent plates varies by county. In Denver County, for example, buyers can either register their vehicle over the phone or visit a branch o ce. Buyers may be required to bring documentation, like proof of ownership and insurance, into their local DMV o ce.

All that’s left to do is pay for registration fees, which can vary depending on the age, weight and value of the vehicle. Fees can amount in the low hundreds, while some vehicles may garner a nal fee of well over $1,000. Fees help pay for vital infrastructure across the state.

“What most people don’t realize is that a signicant portion of [registration fees] goes to the county, so that pays a lot of your county taxes,” Wilms said. “In addition to that, it’s your road and bridge taxes and fees. A lot of the money goes to the highway user tax fund and funds the repairs and the creation of our roads and bridges throughout Colorado.” e road to obtaining permanent plates should take 60 days, at most. But for Kyle Spence, it took six months.

“As soon as I actually purchased the car and left with it, that’s when everything started falling to pieces,” Spence said.

When his rst set of temporary tags expired in November, he called his dealership, a national chain, in orton which told him they hadn’t submitted any documents to the state.

“ ey never really gave me a reason for it,” he said. By January, Spence’s second set of temporary tags were due to expire, and he hadn’t received the Title Complete Notice from the DMV. So, he took matters into his own hands.

“ ere’s a way that you can look up your VIN number of your vehicle, [and] whether or not you have a title number,” he said. Spence took the title number to the tax collector’s o ce without his Title Complete Notice and eventually got his permanent plate. He acknowledged, however, that persuading the o ce to go through the process without the notice was di cult.

For Kate McElhaney, the road to permanent plates has been similarly rocky. In November, she bought an electric vehicle and by February, she was still waiting to obtain permanent plates.

“I don’t know where the holdup is. Is it with the dealership? Is it with the DMV? I’m not really sure,” she said.

Neither her dealership nor the DMV have answered her questions. And with the tax deadline quickly approaching, she isn’t sure how to le to get the state’s electric vehicle tax credit.

“If I don’t get my car registered until after April 15, what does that mean?” she asked. “Do I just surrender my tax credit or can I go for it in this calendar year? I don’t know and I can’t really nd any information on that.”

But what about people driving around with longexpired temporary plates, or cars with no plates?

Until recently, Colorado only penalized people with expired vehicle registration. But earlier this month, a new law went into e ect that aims to reduce the number of cars with expired temporary license plates by introducing new nes to people late with the registration of their temporary plates, as well as permanent ones. e Denver Police Department, however, signaled that unregistered vehicles are low on their priority list. at division — the Right of Way Enforcement — issued about 92,000 citations in 2022 to cars breaking municipal code 54-62, which prohibits having either an expired license plate or no front license plate. at’s about 7,000 more citations than were issued in 2019.

In response to the DMV’s renewed hard stance on all unregistered vehicles, some state law enforcement agencies said they would take more consistent action against cars with expired plates or no plates. Colorado State Patrol, the Douglas County Sheri ’s O ce, and other police departments recently said they will begin pulling over people for unregistered vehicles.

“Consistent with our commitment to Vision Zero, Denver Police O cers generally focus on safety violations when conducting tra c enforcement. When they are not responding to reports of crime, o cers are encouraged to engage in proactive e orts, to include enforcing tra c and parking violations,” DPD said in a statement.

Police departments aren’t the only entity with the authority to enforce registration laws. In Denver, a division of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure handles parking violations and citations around the city.

John LeDrew has received several of those tickets. About a year ago, he began leasing a plug-in hybrid and has been driving with expired temporary license plates since they rst expired. He wasn’t told by his dealership or the DMV that he could obtain more temporary license plates.

“I did the calculation, the fees were like $600. I went [to the DMV] to register and get those tags, but it turned out to be closer to $1,400,” LeDrew said. “I couldn’t a ord that at the time. So, I asked what my options were and he said, ‘you just drive around with expired tags.’ I said, ‘alright, cool.’ And I just left.” is story is from CPR News, a nonpro t news source. Used by permission. For more, and to support Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org.

LeDrew has been trying to save up to a ord his permanent plates, but owning a small business and having a commission-based salary makes his nances di cult to predict. He believes he’s close, but more tickets could set him back.

“It’s just one of the constant battles we have to manage,” he said.