Michigan wants you open 30 hours a week, 48 weeks a year.

Every state on this site tells you what a dealership has to be. Michigan is the one that tells you how much of your life it has to take.

Thirty hours a week, 48 weeks a year, fifteen of those hours inside a normal working day, posted on the door and filed with the state. No other state here publishes anything close. Texas asks for 16 hours a week and says nothing about weeks per year. Ohio asks for five.

This page is the Class B licence, the used vehicle dealer licence. Everything below comes from Michigan's own dealer manual, application packet and FAQ, listed at the bottom. Where Michigan does not publish a figure, this page says so instead of guessing.

The hours, which are the real commitment

• Not less than 30 hours a week
• Not less than 48 weeks a year
• Fifteen of the 30 hours between 8am and 5pm Monday through Friday
• Posted conspicuously, and filed with the Business Licensing Section so the state holds a record of them
• Four weeks of relief. You may drop below 30 hours for up to four weeks per calendar year, in one-week increments, with seven days' notice through e-Services. The notice can be waived for a medical emergency or other extenuating circumstances

Thirty hours a week for 48 weeks is 1,440 hours of somebody standing in a building. If that somebody is you, it is most of a job. If it is not you, it is a wage. Either way it is the largest hidden cost in a Michigan licence, and it does not appear on any fee schedule.

One more clause that catches people in smaller counties: the state may act against a dealer for dealing on a Sunday, and Sunday sales are permitted only in counties with fewer than 130,000 inhabitants at the latest federal census.

The repair facility

This requirement is unique to Michigan among the states covered here, and it is the one people discover late.

A Class B dealer must have a registered repair facility on the premises, or a written servicing agreement with a registered repair facility at a location no more than 10 miles away. If you use an agreement, it must be conspicuously posted in the office. It applies even if every car you sell is sold as-is or wholesale.

So before you sign a lease, you need a shop within 10 miles that will sign a servicing agreement with you, and the state has a registration form for the facility itself.

The building

• A permanently enclosed building you own, lease or rent, continuously occupied in good faith for dealing in vehicles. Not a residence, tent, temporary stand or any temporary quarters
• An office of at least 150 square feet
• Standard office furniture, working utilities, a working restroom and a working telephone listed in the name of the business on the licence. A cell phone is acceptable
• Books, records and files kept in that building during the posted hours, or with approval at a dealer-owned secondary location within a 15-mile radius
• An exterior sign with the dealership name, permanently affixed to the building or land, with letters clearly visible from the roadway
• Zoning and municipal approval, on the state's own forms, signed by the local authority within 90 days of the application

Michigan is the only state here that names a restroom. It does not publish a sign size or lettering height, which Texas, North Carolina and Ohio all do.

The lot, in two numbers

Both outdoor areas must be adequately surfaced and well lit during business hours. Michigan does not specify a surfacing material.

And you cannot split the cost with a neighbour. The address cannot be the same as another licensed dealer's established place of business, two dealers in close proximity need a clear separation with separate addresses, inventories, office spaces, customer parking and restrooms, and the manual states plainly that businesses cannot share or pool resources to meet the requirements.

The bond and the insurance

The bond matters more here than elsewhere because of what happens when it stops. If the surety cancels, the licence is summarily suspended on the effective date of the cancellation and the dealer must immediately cease operations. A paid claim that drops coverage below $25,000 has the same effect: you are only authorised to conduct business while a full $25,000 bond is in effect.

The insurance has to be evidenced on an ACORD 25 certificate showing either "any vehicle" or "all owned vehicles". If it says neither, the application cannot be processed. A copy has to travel in every vehicle that leaves the lot, including on test drives.

Michigan prints the insurance limits only as 20/40/10, so that is how this page prints them.

The training

Class B is the only class Michigan requires training for, and the requirement attaches to people, not to the business.

• Each individual who is the applicant, each partner and each officer must attend prelicensure dealer training within the six months before the application date
• Sessions run over Microsoft Teams, with pre-registration by email to the Business Licensing Section
• After the licence is issued, a designated individual must complete the continuing education programme within 90 days, one per retail sales location, and no individual may be the designated individual for more than three locations
• A self-guided platform called MiTrain issues a certificate on completion

Michigan does not publish a number of hours, a cost, or any exam. The FAQ describes half-day sessions, and the only stated condition for credit is signing in and out properly.

What you actually pay

Here is where Michigan is less forthcoming than it looks. The dealer FAQ carries no licence fee and no plate fee, and the application packet tells you to calculate the fees from the information on the application form rather than printing a figure. So this page does not state one.

What Michigan does publish:

• No fee to add a supplemental location in the same county
• A late renewal fee of 50 per cent of the licence renewal fee, during the 30-day window after expiry
• A 1.45 per cent convenience fee on credit card payments at checkout in e-Services
• Application fees are non-refundable

If a guide quotes you a confident Michigan licence fee, ask where it came from, because the state's own two public documents do not print one.

The calendar, and the sales minimum

Licences expire on 31 December each year and must be renewed before expiry, through e-Services only. Paper renewals are no longer accepted, and multi-year renewals are encouraged.

Miss it and there is a 30-day late window with the 50 per cent fee. Miss that, and you apply for a new licence rather than renewing: a lapse of more than 30 days ends the licence. Unrenewed dealers cannot operate, and Secretary of State offices will not accept transactions from them.

Then the clause that surprises people. The state shall not renew a dealer licence if the licensee has not bought or sold more than five vehicles during the 12 months before the renewal application. Michigan and Texas are the two states here that attach a sales minimum to keeping the licence, and both land at five.

One honest note: the manual states this rule twice more in inverted wording, so the sentence contradicts itself in print. Five a year is the figure to plan around either way.

Before and after the application

• Five cars is the line. There is a rebuttable presumption that anyone selling five or more vehicles in a 12-month period without a licence is operating as an unlicensed dealer, and fines may follow
• A pre-licence inspection of the business location is conducted before a licence is issued
• Fingerprints and a background check for every owner, partner, officer, member and director. Do not get fingerprinted until the state sends the instructions
• Up to 30 days to process, and incomplete documents delay it
• One county per licence. Additional locations in the same county are supplemental and free; selling at retail in another county needs a separate licence
• A business email address and a physical address. A rural route or PO box alone will not be accepted
• Three designated branch offices must be chosen, changeable only once each calendar year

What this costs you before the first car

Michigan's published costs are small and its unpublished ones are not. The bond premium is a percentage of $25,000. The training is half a day per owner. The fee is whatever the application calculates.

The real figures are the lease on roughly 2,000 square feet of surfaced, lit land with a 150-square-foot office and a working restroom on it, the servicing agreement with a shop within 10 miles, and 1,440 hours a year of somebody being there.

Which is the part most new dealers get wrong. The licence is a fixed cost you pay once a year. The money is decided car by car, by costs that arrive one receipt at a time and are almost never all written down, and in Michigan you also have to be able to show you moved more than five of them. 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, with sales by month on the same screen.

Comparing states? Dealer license requirements by state puts the bond, the office, the sign and the course side by side. Texas measures the ceiling, Florida inspects before you file, California gives you an exam you can fail, North Carolina rations your plates, Ohio counts the chairs, and Arizona lets the lot be a vacant lot. Do you need a dealer license to flip cars covers the threshold question first.