A driving license is a piece of an official document, it carries information that establishes the fact that the holder has been through the driving test procedure and has been authorized to drive a car.
Every person that has been issued a driver’s/ driving license has definitely been through the driving test and has passed all the sections of the test.
Since car registration requires the address of the vehicle owner, the question is, does your license and registration address have to match?
Yes, your license and registration address as well as your insurance policy have to match. They must have your current address on them to avoid being interrogated and delayed by law enforcement officials when you’re pulled over.
What is a Car Registration?
Car registration is a very important procedure and must be done by all car owners. It is a process where all the details of your vehicle are recorded and inputted into the database by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Every car owner or car driver must make sure that before they drive a car out, it has been registered to avoid being embarrassed by law enforcement officials when stopped.
Car registration is taken very seriously because it allows the DMV to easily access information concerning any car when needed.
In the event of an emergency, whether a robbery or even to track tax payment records, they can easily link every car to a particular person as the owner, making it easier for them to apprehend defaulters when necessary or call people to order as the case may be.
It is important for every car owner or car driver to always have their car’s registration and license with them in the car whenever they’re driving to avoid unnecessary delay and questioning.
Car registration certificates or documents are always given after paying a fee for them. The amount to be paid for registration details might differ from state to state. You should make inquiries about the fee at the nearest DMV office to you.
Which Address Should I Use for My Car Registration?
The address that should be used for your car registration is the address of the place you’re staying at the time that you’re registering your car.
You should use the same address so that you do not confuse the employees at the DMV that handle the records.
One of the major reasons for registering a car with your current address at the time is for accountability purposes, this way the DMV can be accountable for every person that drives a car in their city.
Your current address should also be used for your car registration because of times when this information needs to be used for legal purposes.
The address that is used to register the car would determine the country name and city that would be on the plates.
So when different registration and license address are used, the DMV employees might not know which address would be on the plates. This would cause them to delay making the plates for that person.
Also, the address needs to be where the car owner is living at the time because the address provided is where the registration plates would be mailed to.
Does Your License and Registration Address Have to Match?
Your driver’s license address and your registration address have to match in most places. It differs but most times it is required that your license and registration addresses match so that the records that are kept don’t have multiple data for just one person.
When you use two different addresses for your license and registration licenses, they are considered invalid by the state in which you reside because they are unable to verify which address is valid.
In some other places, it doesn’t make any difference to use different addresses for your license and registration.
Even when stopped by law enforcement officials, they wouldn’t do anything, they might suggest that you should get the addresses aligned but it’s not an offense.
In cases where people have moved from state to state and they get stopped by law enforcement officials, the only thing that the officers would do is check and confirm that the addresses match
They would compare the address in the system database to what’s on the license provided to confirm where the person lived last.
Sometimes law enforcement officials would even advise car owners and drivers to update their addresses so that they would match and they can avoid being delayed and questioned next time.
However, in states such as New York, Maine, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi, and North Dakota the residents are allowed to register their car at someone else’s address.
In some other states, using a different mailing address and a different residential address is not an offense.
In states where using two addresses is not an offense, insurance companies would use your residential address to determine the insurance premium offers.
Reasons Why Your License and Registration Address Should Match
The reasons why your license and registration address should match are because of:
1. Car Insurance
Insurance companies require your address to match so far they can know where your car is usually parked and also because your address would influence the kind of premium offers you get.
Some insurance companies will not take responsibility for vehicles whose license and registration addresses don’t match.
2. Accountability
The addresses on your license and registration should match because every state has a database or record of every car owner and car driver.
Using different addresses for your license and registration would make their records somewhat incorrect and this would make the employees of the DMV in charge of record keeping seem incompetent.
3. Good Insurance Rates
It is important that your license and registration addresses match because most insurance companies use the physical addresses of their customers to determine insurance rates.
Some people live in areas where the rate of car accidents is very high and the insurance company in this case would need that information to determine how much insurance would cost such a person.
Also, minimum insurance coverage varies among different states and the insurance company would also need to give rates according to the minimum liability requirements of each state.
Using an address for car registration and another for license registration will affect the insurance address, and this is considered insurance fraud.
4. Proof of Residence
If you want to change the address on your car’s registration at any point in the future, proof that you reside in that place would be required and you can just provide your license because it will have the same address and you can save yourself from stress.
Conclusion
Registering a car with a different address from the one on the license is never advisable because eventually, it will cause issues for the person.
It’s always best to use the same address for your license, car registration, and car insurance because that way, you won’t have any issues with addresses at any point in the future.
Whenever you change your area of residence you should always find time to get that information updated at any DMV office around you.
