California has not passed a mileage tax. There is no law requiring drivers to pay a per-mile fee for road usage, and no bill creating that requirement has reached the governor’s desk. What exists is a voluntary pilot program studying whether a per-mile road charge could someday replace the state gas tax. The most recent pilot round ended in January 2025, and a final report to the legislature is due by December 31, 2026.
If someone tells you the state is already collecting a per-mile fee from every driver, they are wrong. No current law lets California fine or penalize anyone for not paying a mileage-based charge.
Where the Rumor Comes From
Three pieces of legislation get mixed up in the retelling, and each one sounds more sweeping than it is.
In 2014, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 1077, which created a Road Usage Charge Technical Advisory Committee within the California Transportation Commission. The committee’s job was to study whether a per-mile fee could work and to design a pilot for testing it. The law called for a pilot, not a mandate.1California Legislative Information. California Vehicle Code 3090
Three years later, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 (Senate Bill 1) raised the state gasoline tax by 12 cents per gallon and added new vehicle registration fees for road repairs. SB 1 had nothing to do with per-mile charges. It did introduce a $100 annual registration fee for zero-emission vehicles starting with model year 2020, and some drivers have confused that flat fee with a mileage tax.2LegiScan. California SB1 – Transportation Funding
In 2021, Senate Bill 339 extended the road charge pilot through January 1, 2027, and expanded it to include actual revenue collection rather than only simulated billing. Participation stayed voluntary. SB 339 also set the December 31, 2026 deadline for the California Transportation Agency to deliver its final report to the legislature.3LegiScan. California SB339 – Chaptered
The Pilot Program Is Voluntary
California has run two major rounds of road charge testing. The first, completed in 2017 under SB 1077, enrolled more than 5,000 vehicles that reported over 37 million miles across nine months. That round used simulated invoices and mock payments.4LegiScan. California AB1421 – Introduced
The second round, the Road Charge Collection Pilot, ran from August 2024 through January 2025 under SB 339. Caltrans administered this phase and tested actual revenue collection instead of billing simulations.5California Road Charge. Road Charge Collection Pilot
Volunteers in both rounds had to own a California-registered vehicle and agree to share driving data for the duration of the test. Nothing about either pilot obligated drivers outside the program to do anything. If you did not sign up, the program did not touch you.
How Much Volunteers Are Charged
Under SB 339, volunteers are split into two groups. One pays a flat per-mile rate set by the Technical Advisory Committee. The other pays a rate calculated individually as the state gasoline tax divided by the EPA fuel-economy rating for that driver’s specific vehicle.3LegiScan. California SB339 – Chaptered
California’s state gasoline excise tax is 61.2 cents per gallon as of July 2025 and adjusts annually for inflation.6California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Fuel Taxes Under the individual formula, a car rated at 30 mpg would owe about 2 cents per mile. A vehicle at 20 mpg would owe about 3 cents. The official California Road Charge website uses hypothetical rates of 2, 3, and 4 cents per mile to illustrate the math.7California Road Charge. California Road Charge
Any actual rate for a future mandatory program would be set by the legislature, not by pilot administrators. The numbers above describe what pilot volunteers see, not what any Californian is required to pay.
The pilot also credits drivers for gas tax already paid at the pump, so gasoline vehicle owners are not billed twice for the same road use. If the per-mile charge comes out lower than what was paid through fuel tax, the volunteer receives a credit.
What EV Owners Already Pay
California does not wait for a mileage tax to collect road funding from electric vehicle owners. Under SB 1, owners of zero-emission vehicles from model year 2020 and later pay an annual Road Improvement Fee at registration. Originally set at $100, the fee currently sits at $121 after inflation adjustments.8California DMV. Registration Fees
This is a flat fee, not a per-mile charge. A driver putting 5,000 miles a year on an EV pays the same $121 as someone driving 25,000. It is the real, existing charge that most closely resembles what people mean when they ask about a mileage tax, but the amount is fixed at registration and has nothing to do with how far you actually drive.
If California eventually adopts a road charge, the existing ZEV registration fee would likely be restructured or eliminated so drivers are not stacked with both. That restructuring, though, would take new legislation.
What Could Change and When
The road charge pilot’s statutory authority expires on January 1, 2027, unless the legislature extends it.3LegiScan. California SB339 – Chaptered Before that, the Transportation Agency must deliver its final report by December 31, 2026, drawing on findings from both the 2017 simulation and the 2024-2025 collection pilot.
After the report lands, the legislature has a few options. It could extend the pilot for more testing. It could pass a mandatory road charge for certain vehicle classes, most likely starting with EVs, as other states have done. Or it could shelve the concept. Any mandatory program would require a new bill to pass both chambers and be signed by the governor.
Because the final report has not yet been delivered, a statewide mandatory mileage tax is at least a full legislative session away, and probably further. Until that legislation exists, the answer to “does California have a mileage tax” stays no.