EVTR Fees and Title-Service Fees: What Colorado Dealers Need to Know

The short answer

Under Colorado law, the only title-processing fee a dealer may pass to a customer as an EVTR fee is the fee the dealer paid to a state-approved EVTR provider, in the same amount it paid. C.R.S. § 42-1-234(1)(d). Fees charged by title services that are not approved EVTR providers are not EVTR fees, and Colorado law prohibits describing a charge in a way that misstates what it is or who receives it. C.R.S. § 6-1-737(3).

This page explains what the statutes say, so dealers and their title and F&I staff can make informed decisions with their own counsel. It is general information, not legal advice. Dealer Title Solutions is an approved EVTR provider and earns the provider fee described on this page; every statement here is tied to a public statute, rule, or agency document that you can check yourself.

Fees on a Colorado title transaction at a glance

• State title fee ($7.20) and lien filing fee ($40.00). Imposed by the State, paid to the State and county. The dealer collects them and remits them at cost.
• Registration fees and taxes. Imposed by the State and county, paid to them. Collected by the dealer and remitted at cost.
• Department EVTR fee (up to $3). Imposed by the Department of Revenue on the approved EVTR provider. The provider pays it; it is part of the provider's cost. § 42-1-234(2)(b).
• EVTR provider fee. Set by the provider's agreement with the dealer (no statutory cap) and kept by the provider. A dealer that is the provider's client may charge the customer the same amount, at cost. § 42-1-234(1)(d).
• Title service fee. Charged by a private title service that is not an approved provider and kept by it. A dealer cost; not addressed by § 42-1-234; may not be labeled an EVTR or government fee.
• Dealer handling or documentation fee. Charged and kept by the dealer. Governed by the Dealer Board's advertising rules and the Attorney General's D&H guidance.

What is an EVTR provider?

An EVTR provider is a company approved by the Colorado Department of Revenue to process title, registration, and lien transactions electronically through the Department's system. EVTR stands for Electronic Vehicle Title and Registration. The approval is made under C.R.S. § 42-1-234 and is evidenced by a written agreement between the provider and the Department. § 42-1-234(1)(b). The current framework, including the fee rules described on this page, was enacted by HB18-1299, effective July 1, 2019.

When processing these transactions, an approved provider acts as an agent of the Department and must collect and remit all taxes and fees imposed by law. § 42-1-234(1)(c).

Dealer Title Solutions is an approved EVTR provider. As of the date shown on this page, the Department's list of approved providers for dealer title and registration work shows two companies: Dealer Title Solutions and Vitu.

The Department publishes the current list on its EVTR Title and Registration Service Providers page. Whether a company is an approved EVTR provider is a matter of public record. A company that uses an approved provider's system, but is not on that list, is not an EVTR provider.

Why do dealers and customers use EVTR?

EVTR lets a dealership complete a vehicle's title and lien filing electronically at the point of sale, through a provider the Department has approved and oversees, instead of mailing paperwork to the county and waiting. The statute also allows registration through EVTR, though in practice most dealers use it for title and lien work and the customer completes registration with the county. The Department describes it as a way to give Coloradans more ways to handle title and registration while avoiding a trip to the County Motor Vehicle Office (Title and Register Your Vehicle at the Dealership).

For the customer, electronic processing means:

• Title work is done at the dealership. The customer does not need to visit a county office to get the vehicle titled; the county visit, where one is needed, is for registration and plates.
• Registration at the dealership is possible but not typical. The statute authorizes approved providers to process registrations and to manage the Department's license plate inventory (§ 42-1-234(1)(a)(V)), but most dealers do not offer it, so customers should expect to register with their county after the title is issued.
• A lien, if there is one, is filed electronically with the title rather than as a separate paper filing. § 42-1-234(1)(a)(IV).
• Taxes and fees are calculated and collected by a system that is required to remit them to the State, with the amounts shown on the paperwork.
• The transaction is transmitted directly to the Department by its agent, which generally means the title is issued sooner than through mailed paperwork.

For the dealership, the same process means fewer rejected title packets, less time between sale and clean title, and a transaction record that shows every fee collected and remitted. The provider is accountable to the Department under its agreement for the accuracy of what it transmits.

The EVTR provider fee is the charge for this processing. It is separate from the State's own fees, which are the same whether a vehicle is titled through EVTR or at the county.

If you are a buyer looking at your paperwork: the State's title, lien, and registration fees and your taxes are government charges and should match the State's published amounts. A line identifying an approved EVTR provider's processing fee should be the amount the dealer paid that provider for your transaction, and no more. A fee described as a title, DMV, or state fee that does not match the State's amounts, or an electronic processing fee paid to a company that is not on the Department's approved list, is worth asking the dealer about.

What are Colorado's title fee and lien filing fee?

The State's title fee is $7.20 per title application. The lien filing fee is a flat $40.00 for lien applications received by the county on or after July 1, 2025, so a titled vehicle with a lien carries $47.20 in these two fees. Both are set by statute, collected by the dealer on the State's behalf, and remitted to the State and county. They are passed to the customer at cost, with no markup.

Sources: title fee, C.R.S. § 42-6-137(1)(a) and (2); lien filing fee, C.R.S. § 30-1-103(1), (5) as amended by HB24-1269, for filings under § 42-6-121.

The date that controls which lien fee applies is the date the county stamps the paperwork as received, not the sale date. Some counties collect a small statutory surcharge with the $40 fee, so check the county's current schedule. Section 42-6-137 itself contemplates EVTR processing: when the title fee is collected by an approved third-party provider, the provider collects it and remits it to the Department.

These fees are government charges in the ordinary sense: imposed by the State, paid to the State and county, and collected by the dealer as a pass-through. On the buyer's order they should appear under their own names and at the amounts remitted.

The EVTR provider fee is a different fee. It is not a State fee, it is not remitted to the State or county, and it is governed by § 42-1-234(1)(d), not by the title and lien fee statutes. Combining the two under one line, or describing the provider fee as part of the State's title fee, misstates what each charge is.

What is the $3 Department fee on EVTR transactions?

Colorado law caps what the State may charge an approved EVTR provider at $3 per transaction processed through the Department's system, whether the transaction is a title, a registration, or both together. The cap was set by SB21-076 in 2021 and is codified at C.R.S. § 42-1-234(2)(b)(I). The Department sets the fee within that limit and currently charges the full $3. The statute allows the provider to charge this fee to its client. § 42-1-234(2)(b)(II).

The $3 fee is charged to the EVTR provider, not to the dealer or the customer directly. It is a hard cost every approved provider pays to the State on every transaction, and it is the one component of a provider's fee that goes to the State. Title services that are not approved providers do not pay this fee; the provider whose system they use does. Dealers do not need to do anything about the $3: it is inside the provider's fee, and it should not appear as a separate charge to the customer.

The $3 fee is separate from the State's $7.20 title fee, the $40.00 lien filing fee, registration fees, and taxes described above, which the dealer collects and remits at cost.

Is there a limit on what an EVTR provider can charge?

No. Section 42-1-234 does not cap the fee an approved provider charges its dealer clients. Subsection (1)(d) says a provider "may charge its clients a fee for each electronic registration transaction, lien transaction, or titling transaction" and sets no amount. The provider's fee is set by its agreement with the dealer.

The $3 figure is often mistaken for a cap on provider fees. It is not. The statute contains two limits, and neither is on the provider's price:

• $3 is the most the Department may charge the provider per title, registration, or combined title-and-registration transaction. § 42-1-234(2)(b)(I). It limits the State, not the vendor.
• The customer may not be charged more than the dealer paid. § 42-1-234(1)(d). It limits the dealer's pass-through, not the provider's price.

So a provider may charge a dealer whatever its agreement provides, and the dealer may pass exactly that amount, and no more, to the customer.

Which title-processing fee may a dealer pass to the customer?

The statute permits one fee to be passed through: the fee the dealer paid to the approved EVTR provider, at cost. C.R.S. § 42-1-234(1)(d), added by HB18-1299, reads:

"A third-party provider may charge its clients a fee for each electronic registration transaction, lien transaction, or titling transaction. The client may charge a consumer the fee the client paid to the third-party provider if the fee charged to the consumer does not exceed the fee charged to the client."

Three conditions follow from this text:

1. The provider must be approved. "Third-party provider" means a provider approved by the Department, as listed on the Department's site.
2. The dealer must be the provider's client. The pass-through belongs to the party that contracts with and pays the approved provider. If a title service contracts with the provider and the dealer pays the title service, the title service is the client, not the dealer.
3. The amount is capped at cost. The fee charged to the customer may not exceed the fee the dealer paid to the provider for that transaction.

The second condition depends on how the dealer's account is set up. A dealer that holds its own account with the approved provider is the client even if a title service operates that account on the dealer's behalf; the dealer may pass through the provider's fee at cost, and only the title service's own charge falls outside the statute. If the title service holds the account and bills the dealer one combined amount, the title service is the client and the dealer has no pass-through under § 42-1-234(1)(d). The statute does not address fees paid to anyone other than an approved provider.

On the buyer's order, the fee should be passed through at exactly the amount paid and should not be described as a state, title, DMV, or government fee. A line that follows the statute's own wording identifies the provider and the nature of the charge, for example: "Electronic title and registration processing fee, payable to [approved provider name]." The amount should match the provider's invoice for that transaction, and the dealer should keep that record.

Is a title service's fee an EVTR fee?

No. Some dealers use private title services to handle title and registration work their own staff once did. These services often process transactions through an approved EVTR provider's system and charge the dealer a per-transaction fee for their labor. That fee is not the fee described in § 42-1-234(1)(d), because the title service is not an approved provider and the fee is not paid to one.

This matters for how the charge is described to a customer. C.R.S. § 6-1-737(3)(a) provides that a business shall not misrepresent the nature and purpose of pricing information, including the identity of what is being charged for and the recipient of the amount charged. A violation of § 6-1-737 is treated as a deceptive trade practice. § 6-1-737(5)(a).

The principle is that the label on the buyer's order must identify what the charge is and who receives it. A private company's fee should not be presented as a charge imposed by or paid to the State, so labels such as "EVTR fee," "DMV fee," "state fee," or "government fee" describe a different kind of charge than the one being made. Whether a more specific label such as "title processing fee" adequately identifies the charge as a vendor fee is a question for the dealer's counsel.

A title service telling a dealer its fee may be passed through does not change what the fee is. The character of a charge depends on who imposes it and who receives it, not on the system used to submit the paperwork.

This does not mean a dealer cannot recover the cost of a title service. It is a dealer operating cost, like in-house title clerk wages, and dealers recover operating costs the way they recover any other cost of doing business, subject to the Dealer Board's advertising rules. What the statutes address is how the charge is described to the customer.

Enforcement of these rules sits with the Motor Vehicle Dealer Board (C.R.S. § 44-20-121), the Attorney General and district attorneys under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, and purchasers themselves, who may bring private claims under C.R.S. § 6-1-113.

Questions to review with your counsel

• Is the company we pay for title processing on the Department's list of approved EVTR providers?
• Do we contract with and pay the approved provider directly, or does a title service?
• Does the amount we charge the customer match, to the cent, what we paid the provider for that transaction?
• How is each title-related line labeled on our buyer's order and retail installment contract?
• Are the State's title, lien, and registration fees and taxes passed through at cost and itemized separately?

Statutory references

About this page

Published by Dealer Title Solutions, Loveland, Colorado. Dealer Title Solutions is an EVTR provider contracted with the Colorado Department of Revenue and approved to process title transactions through the EVTR program.

This page provides general information about Colorado statutes, rules, and federal agency guidance as of the date shown. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws and agency guidance change, and how they apply depends on each dealer's facts. Dealers should consult their own legal counsel before deciding how to present fees to customers.