Buying and Registering

If your moving to TX your going to have to eventually license and title it in TX. So save yourself the hassles and do it in TX once and be finished with it.

I bought a truck from Texas and I registered my truck in Illinois and had my temp plate with me when I went to get it. It's best to contact Texas DMV and see what you'll need to do to register your rv.

oriole6 wrote:
We are current residents of Florida. We'll soon be building a home in Texas, where we will then reside. The Florida house won't be sold until the Texas home is finished. We're ordering a 2019 Fifth Wheel from a dealer in Illinois and will be moving the trailer to our lot in Texas to live in while we build. Our question: in which state should we register this trailer and thus pay sales tax for that state? Which is most advantageous money-wise?

Your dealer should be able to do the Texas registration and get the plates mailed to them to put on. We do all that at the tax office of the county you will reside in when you get here

What I are the registration fees in each state?

Looks like Florida is always higher than Texas but Texas is especially a better deal as long as your GVWR is under 10,001 pounds, only $54.

If it's going to remain parked on your property, and not pulled on the road once you get it to your lot, you may not need to register it with the Texas DMV at all. I assume Illinois, like most states, offers a temporary transit permit sort of registration which would suffice for getting it from there to Texas. (Whether it needs to be registered even if not driven mainly would depend on the zoning etc. restrictions of the locality, I think; some places forbid keeping unregistered vehicles out in the open in your driveway, etc.) Naturally, if you'll be pulling it some (maybe to dump the tanks or go camping), then it needs to be registered.

Intuitively, I agree that Texas would make the most sense; but occasionally the law does not agree with my intuition.

I'm with DrewE, don't register it if you're not going to have it on the road - if you can pull it off.

You may ask your Illinois dealer about your scenario. At the end, you got to process it at Texas.

azdryheat wrote:
I'm with DrewE, don't register it if you're not going to have it on the road - if you can pull it off.

^This. The IL dealer isn't going to want to register it in another state anyway. Sounds like a hassle. Buy it, get the bill of sale and signed MSO and take it to TX.

Thanks to everyone for your quick replies. We've decided to register in Texas and will do so on entering... we want to avoid the "you bought this when? So where's the registration for all that time?" questions.
Again, we appreciate the input.