Want to thank me? Buy me a coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/qroo Ready to Move to Mexico? The Mexico Relocation Guide bit.ly/3SICdD0

I didn't need this information, but I couldn't resist the title. This is so strange, but SD is smart. They get the cash, without the expense.

This ease of registration and license is one if the reasons i moved to SD. I used to be a truck driver for over a decade. While I was trucking my license was about to expire in 2019, so I called my state of CA, they said that they need: 1, 2 forms of proof of residence, my address at the time was my parents address. I cound do that. 2. They needed me to do my vehicle inspection and smog check every year. I was home once every 2 years. That didn't work for me. Then i found that SD can get you residency and registration in 24 hours. Me and my ex drove to sd and got it all done in 24 hours. We got SD CDL and plates in hand. Now I moved to SD cuz its beautiful here

SD is also a state that allows full timers to have a physical address without acutely owning property, this lets you have a PO Box to receive snail mail and other paperwork and registration of vehicles as your residence. America’s Mailbox Box Elder, SD check them out.

Actually I did notice that when I was in Los cabos Baja California, I saw hundreds of trucks with South Dakota license plates, I just thought ppl from SD were moving to Mexico in big numbers but now it makes sense

I've been running SD tags on my truck and motorcycle for years. Saved a ton of money.. good on SD!

The problem is not South Dakota's lack of tax & controls over the populous; the problem is other jurisdictions' repressive taxes & government control.

Bob Wells from Cheap RV living shared this information first for the Nomadic community. Love South Dakota!

It is also possible to get an SD driver's license after spending only ONE night in the state. I moved overseas (not Mexico) last September and swapped out my former state for an SD license after only spending one night there. You arrive in the afternoon, spend the night, and then go to the DMV in the morning (make an appt ahead of time - VERY important). Fill out the paperwork and you can walk out with a SD driver's license in hand. This will make you an SD resident from that moment. Depending on the state that you came from (laws vary from state to state), it is likely that if you have not spent more than 183 days of the current calendar year in your former state, you will be entitled to a full refund of all state taxes paid. Just did my federal and state taxes for 2023 and listed SD as my residence. I filed a part-time state return with my former state and was already approved for a full refund of all state taxes paid. This is not legal or financial advice. It is just my personal experience and knowledge of how the work the system in your favor.

Having done this in South Dakota i can say that the information here is absolutely correct. I can all be done online and the don't need to see your car ever since they have no mandatory smog checks. -Marc

I live in Hawaii. For the last few years I have wanted to have a small RV on the mainland but the insurance companies wouldn't allow that because logically the vehicle would never be at its "home". So the SD registration is what works.

I 'moved' to SD from CO prior to seeking residency in Mexico. I wasn't bringing a car, but I got rid of State Income Tax, only have to renew my ID every 5 years (spend one night), and I have virtual mail service.

I always thought SD residents liked to travel. Now I know.

The people at Clay County (shout out to Sarah and Danielle) are great to work with. The best part? No emissions or safety tests and renewals can be done over the phone/online.

One of my customers had South Dakota plates and I asked him if he had a second home in South Dakota and he said no. He had them specifically to avoid the excise taxes in our state.

South Dakota made a deliberate decision to be welcoming to full-time travelers, passing legislation to make it happen. More than just having a car registered there, I'm also a registered voter and have a SD drivers license (which I renewed ON LINE for the first time). I also renew my vehicle registration ON LINE, as well. The annual registration fee is higher than my previous residence, but there is no annual personal property tax and vehicle safety inspections. I use a mail forwarding service, so there is no issue getting all my important DOR/County Treasurer's Office information.

This doesn't even take into account how EFFING CHEAP our annual license plate fees are compared to most other states. Also, establish an address in SD as your home-of-record (but NOT in Pennington or Minnehaha counties) because we also have some of the cheapest insurance rates in the country.

This is great info for active duty military members where it's normal and legal to have different state tags on their cars than the state they live in. I have one car tagged with Texas and one with NC where I'm currently stationed. NC has annual taxes (though it can get reimbursed with contacting the local county office with military pay LES) and annoying auto safety inspections. I could get a South Dakota tag and avoid both of those.

some do Montana, we all want no smog ck every 2 yrs , safety inspection ,low low lic fees , no income tax , no to low sales tax only way we can afford to retire

The best part about registering is SD is putting Sioux nation plates on your Jeep Cherokee!

I registered my dirtbike as an on-road motorcycle thru SD. (I don't live in SD). The folks at the Pennington County Treasurer's office are super nice too. That reminds me, I have to call and renew my registration!

Getting a South Dakota address and a driver’s license were almost as easy. The hard part was taking the time to fly into Rapid City for the driver’s license.

Paul - great information as always!! Thank you

This was an incredibly helpful video, and answered all questions i had about trying to take a car from Virginia and was wondering who to ask 😊

When I lived in SD I owned a business where I scanned mail and emailed it to people.

There used to be a business in Madison, SD that basically did all of this for you, very similar to the privately owned license plate service places in a lot of other states. It was called MyDakotaAddress and they were great. I used them for several years as a full-time RVer. There are others out there now but I can't vouch for them as haven't used them. They work pretty much the same way though. Oddly, the only thing that turned out to be a bit more than what I was used to in AZ was car insurance. I think had something to do with hail and/or deer but that might be something I dreamed.

You do a great job making informative videos.

Extremely valuable info. Thank you 😊 for sharing

I think I’ll just buy my next vehicle in South Dakota from a dealership there might make the paperwork even easier

What is so wonderful and accomodating about South Dakota is #1, you get a human being on the phone! #2 is that they allow one to legally register their car, regardless of its physical location (you are subject to local laws and Mexico doesn't care, as long as it is legally registered) under their "Vagabond Provision." You are supposed to be insured where you drive and you cannot insure a non-registered car. This provision kindly allows us to insure our cars and drive with insurance, basically required everywhere. Also, the importation of older cars is now available for certain non-luxury, recently titled cars. In Baja the import fee is just 1500 pesos, plus a valid Baja drivers license and residency. Im thinking of doing this.

Thanks for explaining the SD Plate process. I hope you get the 100k subscribers

As always, great informative video

This would may be useful for buying a schoolbus and titling it as an RV, if your state is restrictive about such things. Get the SD title - registering it as an RV - then use the SD title to re-register where you live.

Thanks for a good video, very informative. Man, I wish I knew about this a year ago! I had to spend over $1,800 to get a trivial system (automatic grill shutters) on my car repaired last year, so that I could pass an emissions test before I renewed my car's IL tags.

I got South Dakota plates when I got a SMOG notice on my Nevada renewal. The costs of both time and money traveling to Nevada for such a small detail would have been significant.

Thanks for this information much appreciated 🙏🏾💯

As a South Dakota resident, I love that we allow this! Actually, there's a billion advantages to living here but taking money from other states residents in return for a couple of metal plates while avoiding the increased expenses to infrastructure to support them all is a win for both parties. If you are looking for a great state to move to though, I strongly suggest you add SD to the short list!

The legislature of South Dakota just meet and changed some of the laws concerning people coming and getting residence here and not living here. I'm not sure what changed but people need to check how this affects what just passed and the governor signed it into law.

We Travel Cross Country Once a Year. ALL our vehicles are registered in South Dakota. No Mandatory Insurance and No Bi Yearly Smog Checks. The Registration Fee$ Are Much Less Expensive. It's NEVER Been a problem.

Great information. Thanks Paul!

used to live in Watertown , SD... great place!

So much effort +intent put into collating all this critical info! And so seamlessly +simply presented. THANK YOU for saving the people all the running around from one office to another, all the dead-end phone calls, all the red tape!

Definitely looking into this I'm currently living in California, and California DMV is a big cartel annually registration can cost most $700 depending how new your vehicle is.

Thank you so much for the info!

Good info Paul gracias amigo

One time a old MexicanAmerican man had his pickup registered in both countries every time he crossed the border he change the plates. One day the border patrol saw this and they hold him for a while but when they checked everything they let him go.

What if you want to stay in the US and register vehicles in SD for the purpose of avoiding your state of residence personal property tax? Some states tax nearly everything you own (vehicles, boats, RVs, trailers, etc) every single year. You pay sales taxes at the time of purchase, license fees and then they charge you every year for the priveledge of owning it and living in their state. It's frequently hundreds of dollars based upon the value of the vehicle.

You're up to 103 K now, :)...Congrats!

I was in San Felipe Baja & saw the same thing... really cool to know!

Rooting for you, hope you get to 100k

It’s also the easiest way to get a plate and make a dual sport out of dirt bikes. Especially here in California it’s next to impossible to take an old bike and register it for the road. Just go through SD haha I have many friends with plated 2 strokes! 😂

Thanks for your effort to get all this info

Thank you for this video. Subscribed.

Due to your information, I got now have an SD license plate and and driver's license.

And this marks the beginning of the end of the SD plate scheme

Very informative thanks

Great content

SD plates are the best and kudos to you for a perfect detail of how to do this...also can't say enough about Clay Countys staff, you can actually TALK to someone if you call! Go ahead and do this.

This is some good info.

This is a great share! Thank you!

Its the best thing ever! I set mine up last year. #cabolife

Bob Jankovic old school NY guy lives in Cabo san lucas Baja Sur in mx he does this just did it on my Range Rover solid dude! he has lived in Cabo for 20 years thats why every single car you see if sd plates I travel to Cabo every winter I finally asked someone there like bob is the man go visit him at his office LOL

Congratulations! I'm sure you will hit your goal very soon! I really enjoy your teaching style for learning Spanish, the way Mexican people speak it.

So cool, thanks

Excellent presentation.

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When I lived in Connectishit, I paid for emissions tests, registration, AND property tax. Even for a not so new car it would still be in the hundreds of dollars every year. Some states even have vehicle inspections. That's a definite ripoff for consumers, and also a nice subsidy for the repair shops. Theyll say it's for safety but the worst part of inspections is that there's ZERO evidence that vehicle inspection states are any safer than non inspection states. At least I was never subjected to that. When I moved to Tennessee, the registration was about the same, but no property tax, and no pesky emissions tests. In fact even house property taxes are roughly 10% of the taxes in Connectishit. Blue states tend to have the most expensive government fees and higher taxes. They also tend to regulate you to death.

Interesting information.

Thank you, great video. I gave a thumbs up and I subscribed !

I know is is not apples to appels, but careful. My son in law did this in Missouri. He was stoped for speeding and 3 weeks later dept of motor vehicles sent an agent out to his house. Lucky enough for him Missouri said they would go after SD for what he paid there. All he had to do is pay the difference to Missouri and a 25% penalty. Moral of the story. Missouri has a department set up for seeking SD tag owners who live in MO. if you think other states don’t have have this then you don’t understand how bad they want the taxes.

I had read years ago Clay County had discontinued new out-of-state registrations, and that they would continue to honor and "grandfather" cars already with SD plates and allow them to re-register. I guess it was incorrect info or Clay County reversed their policy. What ex-pats in Mexico need to know is Mexico prohibits foreigners with permanent residency from driving foreign plated vehicles. Foreigners with temporary residency or 6 month tourist visas may drive foreign plated vehicles. The prohibition is almost never enforced. When Mexican police do detect this violation, they are more likely to solicit a bribe, than take official action. If a bribe is solicited and you decide to pay one, I recommend you say to the cop you only have $200 pesos (about $12 USD), and as long as the cop doesn't see that you have more, they are likely accept whatever you say you have. I know of a Mexican who paid as little as $50 pesos (about $3 USD) bribe. I'm amazed at how small a bribe Mexican police are willing to accept. So, when foreigners gain permanent residency they must either nationalize their vehicle and pay a high import tax, or, sell it or stop driving it. Before, the vehicle had to be driven to the border, but I read somewhere that Mexico had relaxed that requirement.

Nice!!!! Will do!

My wife and I established our Domicile in Box Elder, SD when we were full time RVers. 2 other big domiciles for RVers are Texas and Florida. But SD was the cheapest at the time (low tax rates), so we went with them.

You mentioned as an aside that many people in Mexico have LLCs -- not sure if US, Canadian, or Mexico. I'd love to see a video about that....How do people handle their affairs, 183-day rule vs. paying Mexican taxes, what are the implications...??

Can you get handicapped plates as well? My wife is disabled and both our vehicles have hc plates. It is a nightmare getting them here in CA...well everything at the DMV is a nightmare here.

Thank you, Paul

Yes that's great. my thoughts are like where I live, your required to get this states tags and registration transferred onto this state after 30 or 60 days. they do enforce it.

I live in America and I want to do this hell yeah ! THANK YOU !!!

What if your vehicle was previously registered in a no sales tax state, ie ..NH , DE, MT? Will you pay sales tax to register in SD or even FL for that matter?

You're the man!!!

Thank you!

There's another workaround to this, in NJ at least. In NJ if you don't have personal car insurance, the insurance companies report you to DMV and they suspend your license and registration. If you have the car in the name of a business, that doesn't happen.

We were in Sequoia National Park and I saw a car with Hawaii plates. I asked her how her drive from Hawaii was? She said her husband was in the military and it was shipped from Hawaii for free.

We used to register vintage mopeds in Vermont if you didn't have a bill of sale. Just send them the form and you'll get a registration in the mail even if you lived in Idaho.

Congrats on 100K

So what address would you use on the DL if you do not own a home/Rent in SD?

The big questions are; Do you need a SD address? Can I transfer my current (not recently purchased) vehicle thats currently registered in another state (CA) and list my current address (not in SD)? Thank you - if anyone replies.

Wow this is such a a process. Like damn.

Mind Blowing.

Hi - thanks for this. I understood a car Imported as a residente temporal would be allowed to remain US-tagged and legal in Mexico only until you become a residente permanente. Might you know if this is an acceptable path to take once you've become a residente permanente? I have a car that had permission to remain in Mexico only until my residente temporal expired... and I'm not sure registering it in SD solves the problem. Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

Personally we found it easier to sell our US cars in the states and buy a new car in Mexico. The Mexican made cars are great and priced lower than the US. If you're going to live full time in Mexico why not go legal and not take the easy way out. The SD plates I see here in Playa stand out like a sore thumb......will the policia pick on you? Maybe.

Thanks. I live in Baja, 2 years. Mt registration, insurance and dl are NY...3 more months

That's great !

As always, great video. A question: I have permanent residency in Mexico and was under the impression that I could not import my car. Is that the case?

Hi great information thank you what address does SD put on your new titile and how do you register the vehicle every year ??? I'm In corrupt CALIFORNIA

I want to import one of my older civics into Panamá. They too have a restriction on importing cars older than 10 years. So I'm thinking about just driving it down through Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica into Panamá on the US plates, then see if I can finagle something at the vehicle registration office in Panamá (bribe 😂).

We lived in Baja and we got South Dakota plates, we also had SD drivers licenses. It was very easy and worth the time to do it.

As you know I did it and its easy, renwal is easy too, no smog checks or vehicle inspections

This is awesome!!! In New York, they take away your registration for not paying red light camera tickets. F New York.

The borough where I live in Alaska gets a large amount of the registration fee to pay for police and emergency services. If the vehicle is more than 6 years old we pay a one time registration fee of $100 and get a forever registration as long as we own it. We get the letter Z to,put where the year goes on the license plate. All our vehicles, utility trailer and camp trailer have the Z.