How to Register Your Bus as a Motorhome in New York

We were worried about registering our bus in New York. We kept seeing other skoolie owners say that the registration process was really long and difficult. A lot of skoolie owners even do the “Vermont loophole:” register the bus in Vermont and then simply transfer the motorhome registration to New York (apparently a much easier and cheaper process). Unfortunately, we aren’t residents of Vermont (assuming that’s a requirement), and we didn’t have the energy to drive up there after our 6-day road trip from Arizona to New York. So, we committed to registering the bus in NY.

With that in mind, I wanted to know exactly what needed to be done in order to register the bus. I spent over 2 hours on hold with the DMV as we were driving back to Arizona, only to find out that the woman on the phone didn’t know anything about motorhome registration. She gave me the number for the Albany headquarters office, which led to another 45 minutes on hold. Albany then transferred me to another department, and at that point, I was exhausted. Thankfully, this last phone call was exactly what I needed! The individual on the phone knew about the skoolie community and emailed me the exact forms I needed to fill out, as well as a list of required modifications in order to be classified as a motorhome.

When we purchased the bus, we received a bill of sale and an Arizona title. The DMV took our Arizona title and filed it in their system, telling us we would receive our corresponding New York title in up to 12 weeks. In order to register the bus in New York, we filled out the MV-82 form so we could get permanent NY plates. We also had to get the bus weighed at an official weigh station (the weight determines how much money you owe at registration, so it’s in your best interest to empty the bus as much as possible beforehand). In addition to the MV-82 form, we filled out the DTF-804 form, which calculated the sales tax we paid in Arizona and told us if we owed any remaining sales tax in New York (we did). Finally, we presented photos of the required modifications we made to the bus in order to classify it as a motorhome.

These modifications are a little bit of a joke, because it’s clear that we aren’t anywhere near done with our bus build. To qualify as a motorhome, the bus had to have at least 4 of the following:

• Cooking with an on-board power source;
• A gas or electric refrigerator;
• A toilet with exterior evacuation;
• Heating or air conditioning or both from an on-board power source separate from the vehicle engine;
• A potable water supply system including a faucet, sink and a water tank with an exterior service connection; and
• A 110-125 volt power supply separate from the vehicle engine.

This list can be found here under section (e). None of our modifications were permanent; our toilet was actually just an empty paint bucket with a toilet seat on top. Nevertheless, it checked boxes off of a list, and the DMV approved everything. I am proud to announce that we are officially registered as a motorhome in New York!

I made sure to print out the photos of our modifications and label them to match the corresponding bullet point above. This made things much easier at the DMV; we were registered and plated in 20 minutes!

If you’re considering registering your skoolie in New York, feel free to use the DMV links above or email us with any questions! Good luck!