Publicly owned vehicle registrations statistics
Published November 2, 2026 · StatsGalore
publicly owned all motor vehicles, Total row [1]
The Federal Highway Administration’s Table MV-1 reports State Motor-Vehicle Registrations - 2024 and separates private and commercial registrations from publicly owned registrations. In the Total row, the table reports 4,740,927 publicly owned all motor vehicles, compared with 292,784,909 private and commercial all motor vehicles and 297,525,836 total all motor vehicles. The publicly owned measure is a registration count in the table’s ownership columns; it is not a count of drivers, trips, agencies, or vehicle use. [1]
The numbers
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Publicly owned all motor vehicles, Total row | 4,740,927 | [1] |
| Private and commercial all motor vehicles, Total row | 292,784,909 | [1] |
| Total all motor vehicles, Total row | 297,525,836 | [1] |
| Publicly owned trucks, Total row | 2,883,686 | [1] |
| Publicly owned automobiles, Total row | 1,355,076 | [1] |
| Publicly owned buses, Total row | 468,841 | [1] |
| Publicly owned motorcycles, Total row | 33,324 | [1] |
What the public registration column measures
Table MV-1 is organized by State and by vehicle type, with separate columns for private and commercial registrations, publicly owned registrations, and totals. The vehicle-type headings include automobiles, buses, trucks, motorcycles, and all motor vehicles, so the all-motor-vehicles public figure is the broadest public-ownership total shown in the table.
The table title identifies the reporting period as 2024, and the source page shows January 2026. Because the table is about registrations, the figures should be read as registered motor vehicles in the reporting system, not as an inventory of active daily use or a measure of public travel demand.
[1]National totals by vehicle type
For the Total row, publicly owned registrations were concentrated in the larger vehicle categories shown by the table: trucks were 2,883,686, automobiles were 1,355,076, buses were 468,841, and motorcycles were 33,324. The all motor vehicles public total was 4,740,927.
The same Total row reports 292,784,909 private and commercial all motor vehicles and 297,525,836 all motor vehicles in total. These figures should not be combined again, because the table already provides the all-motor-vehicles total for the ownership categories.
[1]Selected state and jurisdiction examples
The table shows large publicly owned all-motor-vehicle counts in several states. California’s publicly owned all motor vehicles were 684,094; Texas reported 380,580; Florida reported 311,114; and Washington reported 200,621. These are state rows from the same national table and use the same ownership structure.
The District of Columbia row is also included in the table. It reports 29,175 publicly owned all motor vehicles and 302,647 total all motor vehicles. State and District rows are useful for geographic comparison, but the table does not itself explain why one jurisdiction’s public registration count differs from another’s.
[1]Important limitations
FHWA states that published data reflect State-supplied data without FHWA estimation procedures applied, except where noted. The table also warns that sums may not equal totals due to rounding, so users should avoid treating small differences as meaningful without checking the underlying State reporting.
Several rows carry footnote markers, and footnote (2) says the State did not report government registration data for one or more vehicle types. Footnote (3) for New York says FHWA transitioned from estimated data for 2022 and 2023 to actual State-reported registration data for 2024. Those notes matter when comparing public registrations across states or across time.
[1]Sources & notes
Source is FHWA Highway Statistics 2024 Table MV-1, State Motor-Vehicle Registrations - 2024, shown with January 2026 on the page. Published data are State-supplied except where noted; sums may not equal totals due to rounding. Footnote (2) indicates missing government registration data for one or more vehicle types for some states, and footnote (3) describes New York’s transition from estimated 2022 and 2023 data to actual State-reported 2024 data.
Source review: 2026-11-02. Article publication and underlying data dates are separate. How we use statistics · Suggest a correction