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Mobile mechanic registration in California: the rule as amended on October 1, 2025

California registers each van, puts the registration number on the van in 72-point type, and since October 2025 puts the street where the work was done on the invoice. The rule section by section, and the fields a price sheet needs before a number goes on it.

Wrenchy

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The short version

  • A California mobile repair business registers as an automotive repair dealer and holds "a unique registration number for each motor vehicle used to perform mobile automotive repair" (16 CCR § 3351.7.3(a), (b)).
  • The firm name and registration number go on each van in print at least 72 point or three-quarters of an inch high, and with the telephone number on every internet advertisement; every customer gets a copy of the official dealer's sign with the work order.
  • Since October 1, 2025 the final invoice carries the street address where the repairs were performed or, with no address, a description such as the nearest cross-street, a landmark, a mile-marker or an on-ramp.

The searches that bring people to a page like this are "how to start a mobile mechanic business" and "mobile mechanic pricing". The honest first answer to both is the registration rule in the state you work in, because it decides what your invoice has to say before it decides what it can charge. California has the most specific rule on the books, it was amended this year, and it is a fair model of what any state would ask. This post is that rule, read from the Bureau of Automotive Repair's order of adoption on 2026-11-04. It is research, not legal advice, and a lawyer has not read it.

Who the article covers

Article 6.1 of the Bureau's regulations applies to automotive repair dealers that "engage in the business of mobile automotive repair and do not operate a currently registered place of business within a geographical radius of 50 miles of where the diagnosis or repair of motor vehicles is performed" (§ 3351.7.1(a), as amended). The 2025 order also rewrote the definition: mobile automotive repair is repair "performed by an automotive technician" who, "along with the tools and equipment necessary", "travels to the customer's location to perform the repair" (§ 3351.7.2(a)). A shop with a registered bay that sends a van out within 50 miles is a shop under the general rules; a business that is only vans is what this article is for.

The rule, section by section

Subsection of § 3351.7.3What it asks
(a)Registration as an automotive repair dealer "in accordance with this chapter", and the registration "currently valid"
(b)"a unique registration number for each motor vehicle used to perform mobile automotive repair"
(c), with § 3371.2(a)Internet advertising shows the firm name as it appears on the registration certificate, the Bureau's registration number, and the telephone number on file with the Bureau
(d)The same information on each van, the firm name and registration number "in print type of at least 72 point font or three-quarters of an inch in height and width"
(e)With the copy of the work order B&P § 9884.7(a)(3) requires, "a copy of the official automotive repair dealer's sign" worded as § 3351.4(a)(1) specifies
(f)The estimate, work order and invoice rules of Article 7 apply, as far as they do not conflict with this article
(f)(1), new in 2025The final invoice includes "the street address, city, and zip code, if identifiable, of the location where the repairs were performed"
(f)(2), new in 2025With no physical address, "a description of the location", which may be "the street and nearest cross-street, a landmark or mile-marker, or freeway on-ramp or off-ramp"

The Bureau's own newsletter, back in 2018, put the registration point in practical terms: "Obtain a separate automotive repair dealer (ARD) registration for each motor vehicle", and "The vehicle license plate number will be included as part of the registered business name". The 2025 order writes the plate into the application itself: an applicant who answers that the business will do mobile repairs gives the plate of the vehicle used and a physical address "where records are maintained and available for inspection", which may not be a P.O. box, a mailbox service or a virtual mailbox (§ 3351(a)(2)(M)).

What that means for the software

Four fields, none of them a note:

  1. The van's registration number, held on the van as a record of its own, because the number on the invoice has to be the number on the van that did the job.
  2. The service address on the repair order, printed on the final invoice, with a free-text description when the spot has no address.
  3. The records address, a physical one, on the shop record.
  4. The sign, delivered with the work order every time, which is a document the product issues with the estimate, not a poster in a lobby the business does not have.

The price sheet: the fields before the figures

"Mobile mechanic pricing" searches want a number, and no post written by a software company should give one; your market and your costs set it. What a price sheet needs is the structure, so the invoice can show each charge as the thing it is:

  • A call-out or travel charge, stated as a flat amount for a named area or a rate per mile past a named distance, so the customer can read which one applied.
  • A diagnostic charge, and whether it is credited against the repair if the work is approved on the same visit. Under California's Article 7 rules, the diagnosis charge belongs on the estimate before the diagnosis starts; the same is true under Michigan's act (MCL 257.1332(2)), and the rules pages have each state's own words.
  • The labor rate, and whether minimum time applies.
  • Parts, by class: new, remanufactured, or used, which the FTC's consumer guide says a state may require you to disclose.
  • Shop supplies and any environmental fee, each as its own line.

Each of those is a line type on the invoice, so the state's "street address where the repairs were performed" and the customer's "what is this $45 for" are both answered by the same document.

What this post leaves out

Other states. Only California was read for this post; a mobile business elsewhere starts from its own state's repair-dealer or licensing rule, and the rules pages say which ones the product has read so far. Nothing here is a figure, a labor time or legal advice.

Sources (4)

  • Michigan second location

    Michigan registers the place of business, so a second shop is a second number on a second set of documents. Since February 1, 2026 there is one exception: an auxiliary facility within three miles, approved under the main shop's number, where no customer is ever served. The section as enacted.

  • New-car warranty

    The question every independent shop gets asked. The federal rule, the two clauses the FTC says break it, the one thing a warrantor may still do, and the sentence to say at the counter.

  • Mobile automotive repair

    In California's regulations, the repair of motor vehicles by an automotive technician who, with the tools and equipment necessary, travels to the customer's location to perform the repair.

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