page_title: Department of motor vehicles
section_title: Organization within state government
hierarchical_section_title: Department of motor vehicles / Terminology and organization / Organization within state government
caption_attribution_description: English: The downtown office of Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles in Chinatown, Boston in 2008. The office was later closed and relocated to Haymarket Square.
context_page_description: In the United States, a department of motor vehicles is a state-level government agency that administers vehicle registration and driver licensing. Similar departments exist in Canada under different names. The name "DMV" is not used in every state or area, nor are the traditional DMV functions handled by a single agency in every state, but the generic term is widely understood, particularly in the context of driver's license issuance and renewal.
context_section_description: The location of a department or division of motor vehicles within the structure of a state's government tends to vary widely.
  Hawaii is the only U.S. state where no part of the state government performs DMV functions; it has completely delegated vehicle registration and driver licensing to county governments.
  In Kentucky, the Transportation Cabinet sets the policies and designs for licenses and vehicle registration; but the actual registration and licensing are handled by county clerks' (vehicle registration) and Circuit Court clerks' (drivers licensing) offices. Likewise, in Tennessee, the Department of Revenue and the Driver License Services Division of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security establishes policies and designs for licenses and vehicle registration, but the actual registration and licensing are handled by county clerks.
  In the District of Columbia, which is not part of any state, the DMV (formerly the Bureau of Motor Vehicle Services) is part of the city government.
  In Virginia, the Department of Motor Vehicles handles both driver licensing and vehicle registration, while the Virginia State Police and the Department of Environmental Quality administer safety inspection and emission inspection, respectively. The program is simply administered by the state; actual inspections are performed by specific authorized employees of privately owned gas stations and garages licensed by the state.
  In some states, the DMV is not a separate cabinet-level department, but instead is a division or bureau within a larger department. Departments that perform DMV functions include the Department of Justice (Montana), the Department of Public Safety (Texas, Ohio), the Department of Revenue (Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado), and the Department of Transportation (Arizona, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). In New Hampshire and Tennessee, the Division of Motor Vehicles and the Driver License Services Division, respectively, is a division of each state's Department of Safety (in Tennessee, Department of Safety and Homeland Security). In Vermont, the Department of Motor Vehicles is a subunit of the state Agency of Transportation.
  Some states do not separate DMV functions into distinct organizational entities at all, but simply bundle them into responsibilities assigned to an existing government agency. For example, in the state of Washington, the Department of Licensing is responsible for driver's licenses and vehicle and boat registrations in addition to most other business and occupational licensing. In Maine, Michigan, and Illinois, the Secretary of State's offices perform responsibilities that would be handled by the DMV in other states.
caption: Former location of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles on Washington Street in Boston's Chinatown
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