Virginia’s Car Tax is the Highest in the Nation and Democrats Want to Keep it That Way
Just paid off your $40,000 car? Expect to pay perhaps $8,000 in taxes just to hold on to it.
Originally published at American Greatness (May 4, 2025)
It’s tax season, and we’re reminded that Virginia leads the nation in something every Virginian hates: the car tax.
On average, Virginians pay $1,139 in personal property tax just to own a car, even if they’ve already paid it off. That isn’t registration fees, sales tax, or loan costs—it’s just pain for little gain.
Small wonder Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin called it the commonwealth’s “most hated tax” since the tax on tea that sparked the American Revolution. Virginia counties tax car owners at a higher rate than the tax-loving blue states of Massachusetts, California, and Maine. We pay more than our neighbors in North Carolina or West Virginia, while Marylanders and Delawareans pay nothing.
While Virginia averages 3.97% statewide, the tax rate varies by county and independent city. And surprise, surprise—the tax is highest in Democrat-run blue strongholds such as Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax Counties, which give a snapshot of life under permanent Democrat rule.
Just bought a new Toyota Corolla for $20,000? Expect to pay $3,400 in taxes just to keep it over the next decade—about the average length of car ownership in Virginia—if you live in Arlington County. That’s 17% in additional costs just to keep your car, even after it’s paid off.
It only ramps up from there. A $40,000 Honda CR-V will run you $7,800 in tax in Arlington, adding 19% to the total cost of the car over a decade.
Or maybe you’ve saved up for a shiny new Ford F-150. Arlington’s tax on that $60,000 pickup truck will run you a staggering $13,000 over ten years, adding 22% to the cost of owning the truck for absolutely nothing in return.
Sales tax and interest on loans only add to the misery. Someone buying that $40,000 CR-V in Chesterfield County can expect to pay $1,660 in sales tax, $5,300 in car tax if he owns it for ten years, over $8,000 in interest over 5 years at current lending rates, and $12,000 in insurance payments—a grand total of $27,000, adding 67.5% to the car’s total cost even after he’s paid it off.
In other words, he’s really buying a $67,000 car—to say nothing of maintenance and fuel costs.
This tax burden is comparable across the rest of the commonwealth. We crunched the numbers in Chesterfield, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Fairfax, and Prince William Counties, and the result is the same: A crushing tax burden on the vehicles Virginians rely on to work and live. And that’s if you can afford to pay it at all.
By law, Virginia may confiscate vehicles for unpaid taxes until the owner appears before a judge, storing them at the owner’s expense. If he fails to pay, he risks losing the right to drive in Virginia and a Class 4 misdemeanor, yielding more fines.
That means you could lose your job and then lose your paid-off truck because you can’t afford a $1,000 tax bill. Working Virginians will ask, “Is that fair?”
Democrat politicians seem to think so. When Gov. Youngkin (R) proposed a $1.1 billion tax credit for Virginians earning less than $50,000 (or $100,000 for couples), the Democrat Senate Majority Leader called it “a zombie gimmick that got rejected in the 90s.”
Far from it. Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore was elected governor on a platform of abolishing the hated car tax in 1997 and secured legislation to phase it out over 5 years. Then came Democrat Gov. Mark Warner, who froze car tax relief rates and eroded the phase-out altogether. Ever since then, taxes have risen. For that, Democrats promoted Warner to the U.S. Senate.
With Youngkin set to retire after 2025, this is a major campaign issue opportunity Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears can’t afford to miss in her race against leftist Abigail Spanberger.
Sears and Youngkin, with Gilmore’s support, succeeded in eliminating the equally hated grocery tax exactly as they promised to do on the 2021 campaign trail, and voters ate it up. Now, Sears has vowed to end the car tax and tax on tips if elected in November. “We fought to end the car tax, but Democrats, with their slim majority, stripped it from the budget,” she pointed out in March.
Republicans in the General Assembly have tried twice to kill or provide relief from the car tax since 2023, and both efforts were quashed by Democrats, who want the money for wasteful projects that benefit special interests, radical teachers unions, and even illegal aliens.
But Sears faces an uphill climb to win in purple Virginia. Her opponent, ex-Rep. Abigail Spanberger, will be backed to the hilt by the Democrats’ powerful get-out-the-vote machine. It’s going to take every Republican and independent vote to overcome that built-in advantage, so conservatives must get to work.
Give Virginians their money back—they’ll thank you for it with their votes.
(READ MORE: Abigail Spanberger Swore Off Corporate Money. Her Top Donors Are All Big Business Insiders.)
