Car Shipping from Illinois to Massachusetts

• The car tax is annual, and your city sends the bill

  Massachusetts charges a motor vehicle excise every year, and unlike most states the bill comes from the city or town where the car is garaged rather than the registry. The rate is $25 per $1,000 of value, and the value is a share of the car's original list price that falls with age — 90 percent in the model year, then 60, 40, 25 and finally 10 percent from the fifth year on. A car registered here is billed for the rest of the current year and in full every year after, so on anything recent it is a real line to plan for rather than a surprise. The minimum is $5.

• Massachusetts will not register the car until a local insurer stamps the form

  The step that catches people moving in is that Massachusetts will not register a vehicle until a Massachusetts-licensed insurance agent has stamped and signed the Registration and Title Application. An out-of-state policy is not enough, and nothing at the registry happens without that stamp. Once the car is registered you then have seven days to have it pass the state safety and emissions inspection. Both steps need the car here and a local policy in place, so they belong on the arrival list: line up Massachusetts insurance before the transporter delivers, not after.

• The one road into the city a car carrier cannot take

  Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road along the Boston bank of the Charles, and Memorial Drive on the Cambridge side, are restricted to cars only, with bridge clearances posted as low as nine feet. A loaded carrier does not fit under them — the state runs a campaign every move-in season against “Storrowing,” the wedging of a too-tall vehicle under one of those bridges, because it keeps happening. For a delivery in Boston or Cambridge it means the truck comes in on Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue or the Turnpike and often hands the car over at a lot rather than at the door. Ask the driver where they plan to meet.

Sources: Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 60A, Section 1: motor vehicle excise; City of Worcester: Motor Vehicle Excise Tax rate and valuation schedule; Massachusetts RMV: transfer your registration and title from out of state; Massachusetts DCR: roadway height restrictions and Storrowing. Rules change; check before you register.