Vehicle Registration Exemptions - Michigan

Every motor vehicle, recreational vehicle, trailer, semitrailer, and pole trailer, when driven or moved on a street or highway, is subject to the registration and certificate of title requirements except the following:

• A vehicle driven or moved on a street or highway in conformance with the requirements relating to manufacturers, transporters, dealers, or nonresidents.
• A vehicle driven or moved on a street or highway only to cross that street or highway from one property to another.
• An implement of husbandry.
• Special mobile equipment.
  • The secretary of state may issue a special registration to an individual, partnership, corporation, or association not licensed as a dealer that pays the required fee, to identify special mobile equipment that is driven or moved on a street or highway.
• A vehicle propelled exclusively by electric power obtained from overhead trolley wires though not operated on rails.
• Any vehicle subject to registration but owned by the government of the United States.
• A certificate of title is not required for a trailer, semitrailer, or pole trailer that weighs less than 2,500 pounds.
• A vehicle driven or moved on a street or highway, by the most direct route, only for the purpose of securing a scale weight receipt from a weighmaster for purposes of section 801 or obtaining a vehicle inspection by a law enforcement agency before titling or registration of that vehicle.
• A certificate of title is not required for a vehicle owned by a manufacturer or dealer and held for sale or lease, even though incidentally moved on a street or highway or used for purposes of testing or demonstration.
• A bus or a school bus that is not self-propelled and is used exclusively as a construction shanty.
• For three days immediately following the date of a properly assigned title or signed lease agreement from any person other than a dealer, a registration is not required for a vehicle driven or moved on a street or highway for the sole purpose of transporting the vehicle by the most direct route from the place of purchase or lease to a place of storage if the driver has in his or her possession the assigned title showing the date of sale or a lease agreement showing the date of the lease.
• A new motor vehicle driven or moved on a street or highway only for the purpose of moving the vehicle from an accident site to a storage location if the vehicle was being transported on a railroad car or semitrailer that was involved in a disabling accident.
• A boat lift used for transporting vessels between a marina or a body of water and a place of inland storage.