Home › DUI vehicle forfeiture costs

DUI vehicle forfeiture costs: when the vehicle itself becomes a component

Our towing and impound guide prices the short-term loss of a vehicle. This page does the narrower, heavier job: it prices forfeiture — the permanent, court-ordered loss of the vehicle — in the states whose statutes were verified for this site, and separates it from impound, plate surrender and interlock conditions, with no invented vehicle-value figure.

Forfeiture is a sentence component, not a fee

Vehicle forfeiture after a DUI is the permanent transfer of the vehicle itself to the state under a court order. It is not a fine, not a towing charge and not an impound lot bill, and it cannot be priced from a fee schedule: the amount at stake is the value of the specific vehicle, minus whatever the forfeiture process, storage and sale costs the governing law assigns, and no authority publishes that as a DUI figure. This page therefore prices forfeiture the way the statutes create it — by the tier at which it attaches, the order that imposes it, and the components around it that do have published frames — and it states plainly that the vehicle's value is case-specific rather than estimating an average car value and calling it a cost. Any page that quotes a typical forfeiture cost in dollars is pricing a vehicle it has never seen.

Alaska states the mechanism most completely among the states verified for this site. At the felony tier of AS 28.35.030(n) — two or more priors within the preceding ten years, a fine of not less than $10,000 and minimum custody rising from one hundred twenty days — vehicle forfeiture is ordered under AS 28.35.036. The forfeiture therefore arrives packaged with the heaviest fine floor and the permanent-revocation component priced in our Alaska breakdown, and it attaches to the vehicle used in the offence under the forfeiture section's own terms. A driver at that tier is not choosing between a fine and a forfeiture; the statute stacks them, which is why the felony page and this page cross-link rather than merging the two components into one number.

Where forfeiture and seizure attach, state by state

Louisiana reaches forfeiture at its felony tier: the third-offence framework in La. Rev. Stat. § 14:98.3 — a felony with a $2,000 fine and one to five years, with a mandatory portion that may not be suspended — carries vehicle seizure and forfeiture exposure in the published summaries verified for our Louisiana breakdown. Montana's third tier — a mandatory minimum of thirty days, up to one year, and a fine of $2,500 to $5,000 in the published summaries of § 61-8-714 — carries vehicle seizure exposure in those summaries, at the same tier where intensive treatment and monitoring conditions attach. New Mexico's published guidance records that a judge can order forfeiture of the offender's vehicle depending on the circumstances of the DWI, within the § 66-8-102 sentencing framework whose misdemeanour and felony tiers are priced in our New Mexico breakdown. The pattern across all four states is consistent: forfeiture is a repeat-tier or felony-tier component, never a first-offence parking consequence, and its trigger is the conviction tier rather than the arrest.

Three look-alike components must not be confused with forfeiture, because each has a different price and a different route back. Impound and towing, priced in our towing guide, are temporary: the vehicle is stored, storage accrues daily under local schedules, and the owner recovers the vehicle on payment and proof. Plate surrender is administrative: North Dakota's § 39-08-01 lets a court order the number plates of a repeat offender's vehicles destroyed, subject to an undue-hardship exception — the vehicle remains the offender's, but it cannot lawfully be driven on destroyed plates, and a family member or co-owner completely dependent on the vehicle is exactly the hardship case the exception describes. Interlock restriction is conditional use, not loss: the vehicle stays titled to the driver and is driven on the device for the statutory period. A forfeiture order ends all three of those conversations at once, which is what makes it the heaviest vehicle component a DUI sentence can contain.

The costs around a forfeiture order

Even where the vehicle's value cannot be tabled, the process around a forfeiture has identifiable components a driver should expect to budget in kind. Storage and towing from the arrest and any impound period run under the local schedules in our towing guide until the forfeiture posture of the vehicle is resolved. A financed or leased vehicle adds a contract component: forfeiture of a vehicle with a lien raises the lender's interest under the forfeiture law of the state, and the borrower's loan obligation is a matter of the loan contract, not the DUI statute — described here because it decides what the driver still owes after the vehicle is gone, and never priced because no statute sets it. Replacement transport is likewise real and unpriceable from a statute: at the tiers where forfeiture attaches, the licence component is itself a multi-year or permanent revocation in several of the states above, so the practical replacement is not another car at all but years of non-driving transport, which no authority converts into a published DUI figure. Household effects follow the same pattern — North Dakota's hardship exception for plates shows legislatures pricing the family-dependence problem explicitly in the lesser component, while forfeiture statutes handle dependants through their own notice and claim processes rather than through a dollar amount.

Sources: Alaska Statutes §§ 28.35.030(n) and 28.35.036; La. Rev. Stat. § 14:98.3 published summaries; Montana Code Annotated § 61-8-714 published summaries; NMSA § 66-8-102 published forfeiture guidance; N.D.C.C. § 39-08-01(4) for the plate-destruction distinction. Last verified: October 2026.

What this state does not publish as a single figure

No state priced on this page publishes a total cost for a forfeiture case, because the central component — the vehicle — has a case-specific value and the surrounding components are billed elsewhere: towing and storage under local schedules, any loan balance under the borrower's own contract, court costs by the sentencing court, and programme and supervision charges by their providers. Those components are identified on this page rather than priced as state charges. There is no published figure for the effect of a forfeiture-tier DUI on car insurance prices, and none is estimated here — at several of these tiers the driver holds no licence to insure a vehicle against in any event.

If a forfeiture notice arrives, the deadlines in the notice govern: forfeiture systems run on claim and hearing windows measured in days, and the hardship and innocent-interest claims the statutes allow exist only inside those windows. That is a process warning, not legal advice — the educational point for budgeting is that a missed window converts a contestable seizure into a completed forfeiture at the full value of the vehicle.

There is no added-up statewide total on this page for the same reason: the published components above are the figures the statute, the licensing agency or the court schedule actually sets, and the remaining components are billed case by case. Adding them together would produce a number no authority in this state has published. Use the table to price the components that apply to a specific case, and compare the national pattern in our first-offense cost guide, second-offense guide and third-offense guide.

Common questions

Can a first DUI take your vehicle permanently?

Not in any state verified for this page. Forfeiture attaches at repeat or felony tiers — Alaska's felony tier, Louisiana's and Montana's third tiers, and by court order within New Mexico's framework.

How much does vehicle forfeiture cost?

The vehicle itself: its value in the specific case, plus the storage, lien and replacement consequences described on this page. No authority publishes a forfeiture dollar figure, and none is estimated here.

Is forfeiture the same as impound?

No. Impound is temporary storage, recoverable on payment. Forfeiture is a court-ordered permanent transfer of the vehicle under the forfeiture statute.

Sources: Alaska Statutes §§ 28.35.030(n) and 28.35.036; La. Rev. Stat. § 14:98.3 published summaries; Montana Code Annotated § 61-8-714 published summaries; NMSA § 66-8-102 published forfeiture guidance; N.D.C.C. § 39-08-01(4) for the plate-destruction distinction. Last verified: October 2026. This page is educational information about costs only — not legal advice. Laws and fees change; confirm current figures with your court and your state's driver-licensing agency.