Moving a BMW leased in CA to NY

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Hello everyone,

I recently leased a BMW 330xi in NorCal but now am considering a move to NY in the next couple months because of my new work. Has anyone successfully done this before? If so, what would be some immediate next steps. Where do I check in my lease agreement if taking it out of state is allowed. Any advice would be appreciated :slight_smile:

It’s allowed, don’t worry about it. People move within the USA all the time

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Do with it what you please, it’s not a rental.

Also when the lease is up you don’t have to return it to the original dealer, anyone can take it off your hands

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Thanks @max_g and @Hawkeye81. That’s good news! Are you by any chance familiar with how taxes would work since CA does tax on monthly payments whereas NY does not! Thanks again for your comments!

Change your address on your BMWFS online account, they should adjust the difference in taxes

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Not sure exactly how Cali and NY work but I did move a leased car from South Carolina to Florida. Call BMW finance and ask them what the process is on their end and inform them that you will be moving. They will need to give you power of attorney to transfer the registration etc. I mistakenly went to the local DMV and thought I could just do it on my own and wasted 1 hour waiting in line just to be given a piece of paper with instructions. I had to have Nissan Finance, in my case, send everything over for the transfer to a specific DMV branch in my county. Once the DMV received this they called me to inform me and I returned. I had to bring proof of my new address (changed my drivers license at the same time) and then paid the taxes/fees to register the car, was issued a new license plate, and paid for the car registration. In my case, my lease payment went up about $30 a month as Florida charges tax each month and South Carolina had a one time tax cap of $300-400 but has property tax which I don’t pay in Florida.

Also depending on how many months you have on your Cali registration you may be able to file for a prorated refund if they do that there. I got about 9 months prorated returned to me from SC.

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Thanks for sharing your experience. I had no idea about the refund and the DMV process. This is super helpful. I shall give BMWFS a call later this week to discuss. I will be officially moving in Jan but I am not sure if DMV in NY is open for business yet. They maybe doing stuff by appointment only so I may have to keep CA plates on the car for a bit longer due to COVID.

My guess on how this will work is BMWFS will remove the California taxes from your monthly payment. New York will then get the sales tax from you when you register the car. The total of the lease payments will be taxed at the rate in the county that you are moving to.
Here is an annoying link.

Call BMWFS as soon as you can to get the ball rolling for the documents you will need.

Here is another good link on NY taxes. There is also an excellent thread here at leasehackr if you do a search.

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This is brilliant. Thanks for taking the time to share this.
Will definitely help me figure this stuff out :slight_smile:

Unfortunately CA DMV does not refund nor prorate anything…

I don’t live in California but it does seem you can get a refund.

“## Are you eligible to request a refund online?

You ARE eligible…

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If you are requesting a refund of vehicle/vessel license fees charged for late payment and you know that the payment was made on time.

If you are requesting a refund of vehicle/vessel license fees for a vehicle/vessel that left California and was registered in another state before the registration period expired.”

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/customer-service/payments-refunds/simple-refund-online-request/

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Interesting 3 scenarios… if anyone has success with that, please share…

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