Registering a Small Motorcycle in the State of Vermont

Registering a Honda CT90 in Vermont

This post shares in detail my experience in going through the process to register a Honda CT90 in the state of Vermont and then take that registration and use it to get a title here in the state of Washington.  I'll explain the process and then share actual copies of the my completed application and what I received back from the Vermont DMV.

I have purchased a number of CT90's that didn't have a title and with the ones that I planned on keeping, I have gone through the "Ownership in Doubt" process here in Washington State that enables you to register and license the bike so you can take it on the road, but there is a long delay in being able to obtain a title.  While the process works, it isn't cheap, and you have to go through a three year waiting period before being able to apply for an official title.  The three years is supposedly to allow time for a previous owner to come out of the woodwork and claim the bike.

I'm not a fan of Washington State process and had seen several postings on the internet about obtaining a Vermont registration for a small motorcycle and then using that registration to register and obtain a title in a state outside of Vermont, so I thought I would give it a try.

Fact #1 - Vermont does not title motorcycles with engines less than 300 cc's

Since Vermont doesn't title motorcycles with engines less than 300 cc's, I wondered what would happen if I brought in a Vermont registration for Honda CT90 to a Washington State Licensing Office and tried to register the bike in Washington, so during a visit to a local licensing office to renew the registration on one of my cars I asked that hypothetical question to the person who was helping me.

The answer I received was that Washington State respects other states licensing regulations and as long as the vehicle in question had all of the appropriate paperwork required for that state, it would be registered and "titled" in Washington following all of the appropriate Washington regulations.

With that confirmation I decided to proceed with getting one of my CT90's that didn't have a title registered in Vermont.

How to Register a Honda CT90 in Vermont

The process to register a small motorcycle is pretty straight forward and for reference here is a link to the page at the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles on the process for how you register a vehicle in Vermont that has not been registered before in Vermont.

Fact #2 - Vermont will register vehicles that are not in Vermont or may never be in Vermont.

Fact #3 - The person registering the vehicle in Vermont does not have to be a resident of Vermont or have an address in Vermont.

To apply for a registration of a small motorcycle like a Honda CT90 in Vermont you need the following:

1. You need a Bill of Sale and the Bill of Sale must contain sufficient information to identify the vehicle including Make, Year, VIN, Purchase Price, Mileage, Signature of Seller and Date of Sale

2. You need to complete the Vermont Registration Tax/Title/Application form, VD-119, that is available here at this link. Instruction for how to complete the form can be found here at this link.

3. Back-up documentation on how you established the value for your bike that was used to calculate the tax used on the application form. The NADA Guides are a good resource and here is a link to a page at the NADA website with the values for a 1974 Honda CT90.

4. A check made out to "Vermont DMV" for the total amount shown on the application form. Do not send cash.

5. A Cover Letter - While not required, a simple cover letter is a nice courtesy that helps tie your application package together

Fact #4 - Vermont will only register motorcycles/vehicles that are road worthy and meet all requirements for being able to be driven on the road in Vermont.  Vermont will not register a frame or parts bike.

Fact #5 - The Bill of Sale does not have to be notarized.

Once you have completed everything that is required for the application, you take the five items I outlined above and put them into an envelope addressed to the Vermont DMV at the following address:

Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles

120 State Street
Montpelier, VT 05603-0001

If you did everything correctly you should be well on your way to getting a registration back for your motorcycle.

A Real World Example

It's one thing to describe a process and then just leave it at that, but I thought I would go into detail and share with you my actual application package and some of the issues I ran into with getting one of my CT90's registered in Vermont.

Here is a picture of the completed Vermont Tax/Title/Application form that I submitted to the Vermont DMV for my CT90.  I crossed out any personal information that I didn't want to share as part of this post and this also applies to other forms that I will share below.

Most of the information you need to include on the above form is pretty straight forward with the upper section containing your personal information.  The middle section, and specifically in section 3B, you need to include the name and address of the person you you bought the bike from (should be the same as on your Bill of Sale), and also the date you purchased the bike.


Sections 4 and 5 are very straight forward and are basic information about the application you are making and specific information about you bike.

You need to state the purchase price of your bike in section 6.

In section 9 you need to include the registration fee of $48 which comes from the section on fees at this link and is for a one year registration for a gas or diesel motorcycle.

The tax in section 9 is calculated as 6% of the purchase price or NADA value, whichever is higher.  For the $54.60 tax I used 6% of the "Good" value I found at the NADA website for my 1972 Honda CT90 that I was trying to register.  The picture below is of the page I downloaded and printed out to include with my application package.  I marked up the page to show the value I was basing the tax on.

I also include a copy of the Bill of Sale shown below.  I purchased seven parts bikes (these bikes were a great deal!) with this bill of sale so I marked it up to show the specific bike I was trying to register.

I included a person check for the total on the application form and then assembled all of the information above and attached the following cover letter and then sent the package to the Vermont DMV at the address I shared earlier.

While I didn't realize it at the time I sent my package in to the Vermont DMV, I ended up shooting myself in the foot with how I worded my cover letter.


I submitted my application package in early January 2020 and about three weeks later I received the letter below from the Vermont DMV indicating that they were unable to process my application package.

My cover letter had left the impression that the bike I was trying to register "may" not have been a road worthy bike due to me sharing that when I purchased the bike it was a "parts bike".  The Vermont DMV was nice and didn't outright reject my application, but just asked me to verify that the bike meets all Vermont highway standards, which I was happy to do.

The Vermont DMV had sent back my entire application package which was interesting as they had marked up the basic application sheet and the NADA page that I had used as a reference for the value of the bike.

With the NADA page they actually had marked it up to reflect that my bike wasn't in as good of condition as I had indicated, which hurt a little, but given it would reduce the tax I would have to pay I wasn't about to argue.

Here is a copy of the marked up application sheet that was returned to me.

The marked up form is interesting as it shows the new tax with the overall lower total, but the other mark-ups or checks give you an idea of the items that are checked with each application package.


The Vermont DMV had also returned the personal check I had sent with the original application, so I voided out that check and then wrote another check for the new lower total and then also wrote a new cover letter to explain that the bike I had rebuilt and was applying to register was road worthy and also included a picture as proof.

Here is a copy of the second cover letter I sent out with the new check and I also included the marked-up  application form and NADA page, along with the bill of sale that had been returned to me.

Another couple of weeks went by and then I received the envelope in the picture below in the mail and my started to get a good feeling that I had succeeded.

And I had, as the envelop contained my Vermont license plate along with the final dated application form which is a temporary registration.

Then about a week and a half later I received the letter below in the mail from the Vermont DMV

This ended up being my final official registration and tabs for my license plate.

With the registration card removed from the letter and placing the tabs sticker on my license plate, Was complete and now my CT90 was officially registered in the state of Vermont.

The next step will be to go through the process to transfer my Vermont registration over to Washington state and get my CT90 registered with a Washington State title.  I plan on doing that in the next month or so and will come back and update my post at that time.

Status as of July 6th, 2020

With things now getting a little more back to normal I was able to get to my local Washington State Licensing office to request a Washington title using the registration I received from Vermont.  

The initial person that helped me at the licensing office was a new trainee, so my request was a challenge for her as she had never gone through the process, but once a more experienced person stepped in to help things progressed well and I received my registration and temporary license for my bike and the title is being sent to me along with my final Washington State plates.

The only quirk I had in the process was that I needed to go back home and get a copy of the Bill of Sale from when I had purchased the bike as part of a group of parts bikes here in Washington.  The reason I needed the Bill of Sale was that the second person that helped me indicated that they were going to have to charge me sales tax on the value of the CT90 and without the Bill of Sale they would be using a value of around $900.00 which would have resulted in an addition $90.00+ dollars to the bill.  The bike I was seeking a title for was part of a group of CT90 parts bikes I bought where the price averaged out to $57.00 a bike and I was specific when I helped right the Bill of Sale to make sure it reflected $57.00 a bike.  So with the Bill of Sale I only ended up paying several dollars for theses tax and the total bill ended up being $174.00.  That final bill included a $35.00 fee for what is known as "collector plates" here in Washington that results in me never having to pay any additional registration fees, ever!

So my total bill going through both the Vermont and Washington processes was about $260.00 which I think is pretty good and not much more then what I would have had to pay to go through the Washington "Ownership in Doubt" process and eliminates the three year wait to get a real title.

I think the primary lesson learned from that last part of this overall effort is to find a Washington State licensing office that has someone who is experienced and knows the process.  My first couple inquires at a couple local offices were met with some blank stares, but once you find the person who has the experience and understands nuances of other states, they just process your transfer request like any other request they receive.

I hope this post was helpful in showing you what is involved with registering a small motorcycle in the state of Vermont.


Helpful Links (Shop Manuals, Wire Diagram, Model Information, etc.)

Link to page with listing of CT90 and CT200 parts available on Amazon