How many vehicles can I register under my name in Virginia (USA)?

Question

I'm currently trying to move all my business cars under my name and I was wondering if there is any limit on how many vehicles I can have registered under my name or under my business?

I couldn't find any info on the DMV (Virginia) website.

Answer 1

The primary limit is the number of vehicles that you can afford. Not all businesses are entities and when a business is organized as a sole proprietorship rather than as an entity, registering a vehicle in your name and registering a vehicle in the business are the same thing in any case.

It is conceivable that Virginia has, or may have at some time in the future, different registration fees, for example, for vehicles owned for personal use and vehicles owned for business use, and that it might put a cap on the number of vehicles owned for personal use for that purpose (so far as I know, there is no such limit now, but I could imagine a state government doing something like that, much as they do for certain kinds of residential real estate property tax breaks).

But whether a vehicle is owned for personal use or for business use still wouldn't change the fact that a vehicle is owned by you individually.

As a matter of good business practices, registering a large number of vehicles used for business purposes in your personal name probably isn't wise (e.g. for liability and tax purposes), but that doesn't mean that it is illegal or prohibited.

The only thing I can think of that would be similar to the kind of limitation that you are worried about is that New York City has (and perhaps a few other jurisdictions have) a highly regulated taxi industry, and to operate a taxi you must have a taxi license. Taxi licenses in New York City are fixed in number and transferrable, and all of the licenses available have been issued, so the only way you can own a taxi and actually use it as a taxi is to buy a taxi license from someone who already has one and even in theory, you couldn't buy more than the total number of taxi licenses which are outstanding.

In many businesses where you need a license to operate (e.g. liquor stores and radio stations and TV stations) there are numerical limits on how many licenses any one person can own at one time in a particular territory.

But registering a car is not a discretionarily granted license in the same way that a taxi or radio license is, it is simply a way of formally registering ownership of a particular item of tangible personal property as owned by you (the registration laws were originally passed to discourage car theft).