North Carolina vehicle tax
The North Carolina military car tax exemption
North Carolina charges motor vehicle property tax on a vehicle every year. If you are stationed here on orders and your home of record is another state, 50 U.S.C. § 4001 says that car is not North Carolina's to tax. North Carolina publishes no statewide form for the claim, which is where most people stall. Here is who actually grants it and what they want in hand.
What to file, and where
Nonresident active-duty exemption request to the county tax office (no statewide military form)
- Published by
- North Carolina county tax offices
- Where it is granted
- Your county grants it
- The tax it stops
- motor vehicle property tax
- How often you claim it
- Proof required again at every registration renewal
- Verified
- 2026-08-28, on the issuing agency's own site
The deadline
Tied to registration renewal rather than a calendar date. The county requires a current LES at the time of each renewal to confirm you are still eligible.
What North Carolina wants from you
- A current Leave and Earnings Statement showing a home of record outside North Carolina
- Your North Carolina license plate number
How the North Carolina claim actually works
North Carolina is where the internet gets this wrong, so start by discarding the common advice. Form AV-10V, widely described online as the military exemption form, is the Application for Motor Vehicle Exemption under G.S. 105-330.3(b). NCDOR’s own page for AV-10V does not mention the SCRA and does not mention nonresident servicemembers. It is not the form for this claim.
What North Carolina actually runs is a county documentary procedure with no statewide military form at all. A nonresident active-duty member establishes the exemption by furnishing a current Leave and Earnings Statement to the county tax office, showing a home of record in a state other than North Carolina.
The claim is per county and the counties set their own intake. Craven County, which serves Cherry Point, takes exemption requests by email and asks you to include the North Carolina plate number assigned to the vehicle. Other counties publish their own address or portal, so file with the county where the vehicle is registered.
The obligation repeats at every registration renewal. The county requires a current LES at the time of renewal to confirm you remain eligible, which means this is not a one-time filing you can forget after the first year.
What trips people up here
- AV-10V is not the nonresident military form, whatever a search result says. Filing it does not claim this exemption.
- There is no statewide form to download, so a page offering you a North Carolina military exemption PDF is offering something the state does not publish.
- The LES must be produced again at each registration renewal, not once.
On spouses
The North Carolina materials read for this page cover the servicemember and do not set out a separate spouse route for this tax. That is not the same as a refusal. The Military Spouses Residency Relief Act sits inside 50 U.S.C. § 4001, so ask the office named above how it handles a spouse-owned vehicle rather than assuming either answer.
Sources
- NCDOR: AV-10V Application for Motor Vehicle Exemption
- Craven County: Active Duty Military Motor Vehicle Exemption
Keep going
Other states
Each state names this tax differently and grants the exemption through a different office.
Heads up: SCRA Saver publishes general information, not legal or financial advice. Laws change and every situation differs. Confirm details with your installation legal assistance office (free for service members) or a licensed professional.