States With the Most Registered Vehicles
The United States has approximately 297.5 million registered motor vehicles, according to Federal Highway Administration data. This includes passenger cars, SUVs, motorcycles, and commercial trucks.
California has the most of any state, with 36,190,654 vehicles registered. That is more than the bottom twenty states combined. Texas ranks second with 23,606,401, and New York is third with 20,991,098 vehicles.
The states with the most registered vehicles are:
- California
36,190,654 registered vehicles
- Texas
23,606,401 registered vehicles
- New York
20,991,098 registered vehicles
- Florida
19,696,080 registered vehicles
- Ohio
11,366,695 registered vehicles
- Pennsylvania
10,612,158 registered vehicles
- Illinois
10,546,027 registered vehicles
- Georgia
9,309,408 registered vehicles
- Michigan
9,253,000 registered vehicles
- North Carolina
8,862,420 registered vehicles
Data is based on the latest available data from the FHWA, the California DMV, and the Michigan Department of Transportation. The figures cover private, commercial, and publicly owned vehicles of all types.
Population and Ownership
The majority of the list above correlates with population. California has 12.6 million more vehicles than Texas, and that gap alone is larger than the entire vehicle count of most states.
However, drivers who own more than one vehicle lift some states up the list. Ohio is a good example. It ranks fifth in registered vehicles despite being the seventh most populous state.
Nationally, 36% of households own two vehicles, another 22% own three or more, and in rural states, that share runs even higher.
The top ten states hold more than half of every registered vehicle in the country, at 53.9%. The remaining 137 million vehicles are split across the other forty states and Washington, D.C., which has the fewest in the country, with 302,647 registered vehicles.
States With the Fewest Registered Vehicles
The states with the fewest registered vehicles are Rhode Island, Alaska, Vermont, and Delaware. Each has fewer than 900,000, reflecting small populations rather than low car ownership.
Rhode Island
838,866 registered vehicles
Alaska
683,022 registered vehicles
Vermont
671,376 registered vehicles
Delaware
447,094 registered vehicles
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