California tests you before it ever looks at your lot.

Texas hands you a two-page premises checklist. Florida sends an examiner to your site before you file. California does neither. It puts a written examination in front of you, administered by your local Occupational Licensing Inspector, and it publishes remarkably little about what your building has to be.

That second part catches people out, because the absence of a published number is not the absence of a rule. The rules live in the Vehicle Code and the California Code of Regulations, and the inspector arrives knowing them.

This page covers the used vehicle dealer licence, including wholesale-only. Everything below comes from the DMV's own pages and forms, listed at the bottom. Where the DMV does not publish a figure, this page says so instead of guessing.

The test, which is the part people fail

Before you apply you attend a DMV-approved dealer education program and pass the Vehicle Dealer Written Examination. The examination is taken in person with your local Occupational Licensing Inspector, and a current California driver licence or ID card is required to sit it.

• Three attempts. The DMV states that each applicant may make three attempts to pass the test
• $16 a go. The examination fee is $16, and each retest is another $16
• A week between tries. After a failure you pay the fee and wait one week to re-test
• Fail three times and you start over. You take the dealer education program again, and the testing process restarts with another three attempts
• The certificate expires. The dealer education certificate of completion is valid for one year from the course date

Three failures is six weeks, two course fees and a fresh set of attempts. It is the single most expensive way to get this wrong in California, and it costs time rather than money, which is worse when you have already signed a lease.

The DMV does not publish the number of instruction hours, a passing score, or whether the pre-licensing course can be taken online. Its provider directory marks online delivery in a column labelled for continuing education, and says classes are held in a classroom unless noted.

The bond

Form	Amount	Who it covers
OL 25	$50,000	Dealers, under Vehicle Code section 11710
OL 25B	$10,000	Motorcycle dealers, motorcycle lessor-retailers, all-terrain vehicle dealers, and wholesale-only dealers selling fewer than 25 vehicles a year

Both bonds are continuous in form. They run concurrently with the licence period granted and every succeeding licence period, rather than expiring on a date. Neither form prints a cancellation notice period in days; both cross-reference the Code of Civil Procedure instead.

At $50,000, California matches Texas and asks double what Florida does. The premium you actually pay is a percentage of that, set by your credit, not by the state.

What you pay the DMV

Line	Published figure
Application fee	$175, non-refundable
Family support program fee	$1
Each branch location	$70
Written examination	$16, and $16 per retest
Each dealer plate (auto)	$92, plus county fees. Plates are optional
Each motorcycle plate	$94, plus county fees
Autobroker endorsement	$100
Fingerprint card, out-of-state applicants	$42 per person
Renewal	$125

One caution on the plate figures. The DMV's licensing page lists $92 for an auto plate and $94 for a motorcycle plate. Form OL 248B, last revised in April 2020, lists $90 and $92. The web page carries the more recent modification date, so those are the figures above, but if plates matter to your budget it is worth confirming the current numbers before you order them.

Name changes, address changes, adding a branch and officer changes are each $70 after you are licensed. The $425 new motor vehicle board fee applies to new vehicle dealers, not to a used licence.

The building, and what the DMV will not tell you about it

This is where California is thinner than Texas and Florida. The licensing page states standards and cites the code rather than giving measurements.

• The office must be established to the extent that its construction is not temporary, transitory or mobile in nature, at a place of business actually occupied either continuously or at regular periods by the dealer
• The display area must be of sufficient size to physically accommodate vehicles of a type the dealership is licensed to sell, and clearly for the exclusive use of the dealer for display purposes only. Wholesale-only dealers do not need one
• Extra display areas are allowed within a radius of 1,000 feet of the principal place of business or a licensed branch, without separate licensing, but they still have to meet the signing requirement
• The sign must be permanent, erected on the exterior of the office or on the display area, and constructed or painted and maintained to withstand reasonable climatic effects and stay readable. A temporary sign may suffice while a permanent one is on order, with evidence of the order given to the DMV first. Wholesale-only dealers are exempt

What the DMV does not publish on these pages: a minimum square footage, a sign size or lettering height, required wording on the sign, posted business hours, a zoning requirement, or whether a residence can be used. Texas and Florida both put numbers on most of that. California leaves it to the inspection.

The inspection comes last

After the DMV processes your application you get an email telling you to schedule an inspection of your business location. You create a DMV online account and pick a time slot. The inspector looks at the main business office, all books and records pertinent to the business, the display area and the signs.

This is the reverse of Florida, where the premises have to be approved before the application is filed. In California you commit to the location first and are inspected on it afterwards, which makes the vague premises standards above more of a risk, not less.

What you have to hand in

Beyond the application itself, the used dealer checklist calls for:

• Evidence of passing the written examination, and the original dealer education certificate of completion
• Live scan fingerprinting with a copy of the DMV 8016 request for each person listed under ownership, and a personal history questionnaire from each of them
• The surety bond, or a deposit agreement in its place
• The most recent Statement of Information filed with the Secretary of State for a corporation, or the equivalent for an LLC or LLP
• A copy of your fictitious name statement, unless your surname is in the business name
• A copy of your resale permit from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which is what lets you collect sales tax
• Photographs of the business location

Out-of-state applicants submit a fingerprint card instead of live scan, at $42 per person.

After the licence

The DMV does not state the licence term in years on these pages. It does state that renewal costs $125 and that proof of continuing education is required every two years. Wholesale-only dealers have exemption applications available for both the continuing education and the bond, if they qualify.

What this costs you before the first car

The DMV's share is modest: $175 to apply, $16 to sit the test, $1 for the family support programme, and $92 a plate only if you want plates. The bond premium and the education course are the next two lines, and neither is set by the state. Rent and the sign are the real numbers, and both are local.

Which is the part most new dealers get wrong. The licence is a fixed cost you pay once. The money is decided car by car, by costs that arrive one receipt at a time and are almost never all written down. What a good gross profit per car looks like works through why the headline figure overstates what a small lot actually keeps, and Deelary keeps every cost on the car it belongs to, so the margin on screen is the margin you bank.

Comparing states? The Texas GDN requirements and the Florida VI requirements run the same checklist for two states that publish far more about the building and far less about the exam. How to get a dealer license sets several states side by side, and do you need a dealer license to flip cars covers the threshold question first.