Guide
Getting licensed is the loud part; staying licensed is a calendar. A California dealer license renews every two years, continuing education rides along with the renewal, and two other clocks — the bond and the DBA — tick on their own schedules underneath it. Here is every deadline that can hurt you, in one place.
Your surety bond renews every year, independent of the license cycle. A lapsed bond is a lapsed license in practice — the license cannot stay in force without the bond behind it. Renew the bond before it expires, every year.
A fictitious business name statement expires five years after filing. Re-file before the date or the name lapses out from under your signage, your ads, and your documents.
Corporations and LLCs owe the Secretary of State a Statement of Information on its cycle, plus the $800 annual franchise tax. Let the entity fall out of good standing and every document built on its name is standing on sand.
Treat the expiration date as a hard wall. On an expired license you cannot legally sell cars; every day of gap is a day the business is closed whether the sign says so or not, and the longer a lapse runs, the more of the original licensing process you risk having to repeat to get right again — with customers, landlords, and auction registrations all feeling it at once. Late renewal exists as a concept in licensing systems; a business plan that depends on it is not a plan.
The system we run exists so this section stays theoretical: renewal touches at one year out, then 90, 60, 30, and 7 days, computed from your actual license dates, with one-click early CE renewal offered at the 90-day touch at the graduate price. Staying always costs less than starting over — see how the whole path fits together in the step-by-step guide.
Two companions for the cycle. When your business facts change mid-cycle — an address, a name or DBA, an officer — the filing is a licence modification, and our Licence Modification Packets sequence each one. And staying legal now includes the CARS Act's disclosure and record duties: the CARS Act Compliance Pack holds every document SB 766 requires.
The course opens the moment DMV approval is issued. Founding-list members get first access, the launch prices, and a same-day email as each product becomes available.
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