Commercial Vehicle Verification — At Your Yard
From a single box van to a whole row of rigs. A DMV-licensed verifier drives to your warehouse, lot or job site, inspects each unit where it sits, and hands you a completed REG 31 per vehicle. Nothing comes off its route, and nothing waits in a DMV inspection lane.
Rigs, Vans and Equipment
We verify
- Tractor trucks and semi cabs
- Box vans, box trucks and step vans
- Cranes, boom trucks and mobile equipment
- Tow trucks, dump trucks and specialty rigs
- Yard trucks and warehouse equipment
- Cargo vans, pickups and work trucks
What gets recorded
- Public VIN, plus serial and component plates on multi-stage builds
- Federal Certification Safety Label
- Emissions label and odometer reading
- Body type model, so the registration class comes out right
- Supporting ownership documents — title, MCO/MSO or out-of-state registration
What California Counts as Commercial
“Commercial” is a registration class, not a statement about your business. These are the definitions a verifier works from, straight out of the DMV’s Vehicle Industry Registration Procedures Manual.
- Motor truck
- Designed, used or maintained primarily to transport property. VIRPM 13.010
- Truck tractor
- Designed primarily to pull other vehicles rather than carry a load itself. VIRPM 13.010
- Tow truck
- Over 10,001 lbs GVWR, altered or built specifically to transport other vehicles. VIRPM 13.010
- Pickup
- A motor truck, two axles, unladen under 8,001 lbs (or GVWR 11,499 lbs or less), open box-type bed under 9 feet. Utility beds are excluded. VIRPM 13.010
- Yard truck
- Built to move cargo inside a warehouse or port rather than on the highway. VIRPM 13.010
- Water-well rig
- Treated as a commercial vehicle if it is driven on public highways. VIRPM 13.010
Yes — that includes your pickup
On the REG 31 body type model table, Pickup (PK) and Pickup Club Cab (PC) sit in the COMMERCIAL column. A half-ton pickup registers commercially and carries commercial weight fees even if it only ever runs to the hardware store. The inspection itself is identical to a car’s.
Weight decides which code applies: the GVWR comes off the US Federal Certification Label (not the GVAR, which is the axle rating). Pickups under 11,499 GVWR take BTM 3C, 4C, PK or SP; over 11,499 GVWR they become BTM VA and the vehicle has to be described on the form.
The one way a pickup leaves the commercial column is a mounted camper — BTM PM, which the form files under AUTOMOBILE. Take the structure off again and commercial registration and weight fees come back due. See the full classification breakdown →
One Visit, However Many Units
Pulling trucks off their routes one at a time to sit in a DMV inspection lane is the expensive way to do this. We schedule around your operation instead.
Send the list
Year, make and VIN for each unit, plus the yard address and the window when they are all on site.
We come to the yard
One appointment. We work down the row, inspecting each VIN, label and odometer where the vehicle is parked.
One stack of REG 31s
A completed, signed form per vehicle, handed over before we leave. Zero trucks off their routes.
Check This Before You Book Anything
A new commercial vehicle bought out of state may not need a REG 31 at all. The exemption applies only when every one of these is true:
- ✓Purchased out of state and never registered in California
- ✓Unladen weight of 6,001 lbs or more
- ✓Unmodified since it left the manufacturer
- ✓Meets California emission standards — by label or stated on the MCO/MSO
- ✓A secured MCO/MSO is submitted — one for the complete vehicle, or separate documents for cab/chassis and body plus a REG 256 certifying new components only
Miss any single one — most often the emissions standard — and the verification is required. Worth ten minutes of reading before you pay anyone, including us.
Read the full exceptions pageChanging a Commercial Vehicle’s Body Type
Converted a cargo van into a camper? Altered a body, or had a unit built out in stages? Whenever the owner modifies a vehicle in a way that changes its body type model, the DMV requires a REG 31 completed after the alteration — that is what moves a vehicle off commercial plates and off commercial weight fees.
Sleeper rigs are the exception that proves the rule. A truck tractor with living quarters stays commercial — BTM DS or TR — unless the living quarters permanently prevent it from towing or drawing other vehicles (CCR §150.08). Living space alone does not reclassify a rig the way a mounted camper reclassifies a pickup; it has to stop being able to pull.
Send us the unit list
Tell us how many units, what they are and where they sit. We will confirm which ones need a REG 31, which ones may be exempt, and what a single yard visit costs.