Kei Trucks in Kentucky: The State Names Your Truck, Then Runs Two Rules Over It

Disclosure: this guide contains referral links, marked where they appear. Market data is independently measured from public sources on the dates shown.

Most states describe your truck sideways: by displacement, by width, by a weight band, by whether it carries a federal certification label. Kentucky skipped the description and named it.

Under KRS 189.517(1), a “mini-truck” means “a lightweight Japanese kei class utility vehicle.” That is the entire definition. No length limit, no width limit, no weight band, no engine ceiling. The 130-inch problem that strands owners in Pennsylvania and North Carolina cannot arise here, because there is no dimension in the statute to fail.

What Kentucky gave with the definition it took back in the next subsection, and then partly gave again twelve years later. There are now two live frameworks sitting on top of the same truck, and the practical answer depends on which one you are operating under and whether your city or county has passed an ordinance. I research Japan’s used vehicle market from Sapporo, and this page works through both from the statutes, the administrative regulation and the state’s own forms.

The Short Answer

• Kentucky will title an imported truck. KRS 186A.115(6)(d) accepts “the documents of that country establishing ownership”: your Japanese export certificate, with a translation.
• The 2013 rule (KRS 189.517) bans mini-trucks from public highways, with real exceptions: crossing a two-lane highway, and farm, construction, road maintenance or snow removal work.
• The 2025 rule (KRS 186.077) opens a registration route for the street-legal special purpose vehicle, or SLSPV, and minitrucks are named in the class.
• Your city or county must opt in by ordinance. Without one, the SLSPV route gives you a plate and nowhere to use it.
• Two limits are specific to this class: no more than 20 miles on a highway with centerline markings, and minitrucks are barred from highways built under a federal highway program.
• Registration is $10 a year for an SLSPV, on a motorcycle plate, plus a $25 certified inspection.
• Insurance is 25/50/25, but insured “as a motorcycle,” which under KRS 304.39-110(3) means Kentucky’s mandatory $10,000 personal injury protection does not attach.
• The alternative is a historic plate: permanent registration, $56 once, a $100 statutory tax base, and a VIN-only inspection, at the cost of a use restriction you have to take seriously.

The Definition Names the Country, Not the Dimensions

KRS 189.517 was created by 2013 Ky. Acts ch. 61 and took effect on June 25, 2013. Subsection (1) is one line long:

“As used in this section, ‘mini-truck’ means a lightweight Japanese kei class utility vehicle.”

Two consequences follow, and they run in opposite directions.

The good one. A definition that points at a foreign vehicle class rather than copying a snapshot of that class’s dimensions does not go stale. Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Massachusetts’ pending bill all define these vehicles at 130 inches or less, which was the Japanese kei length limit before October 1998. Every kei truck built since 1999 is 3,395 mm, or 133.7 inches, and fails by 3.7 inches. Kentucky wrote no number, so nothing in the definition expires. Nebraska’s approach, defining by displacement, width, weight and body type, achieves the same durability by a different route.

The awkward one. “Utility vehicle” is doing unexplained work. A Suzuki Carry with a flat bed is plainly within it. A kei van such as an Every or a Hijet Cargo is a kei class vehicle with an enclosed load bay, and whether a clerk reads “utility vehicle” to reach it is not answered anywhere in the section. If you are buying a van rather than a truck, that is the question to put to your county clerk before you buy, not after.

There is a second wrinkle worth flagging. The 2025 statute discussed below uses the spelling “minitruck” and does not define it. KRS 189.517(1) is the definition of the term that I have been able to find in the Kentucky Revised Statutes, which suggests the two provisions are talking about the same vehicle. That is an inference from the text, not something either statute states.

The low-speed vehicle class is not the way in

Kentucky’s low-speed vehicle definition at KRS 186.010(16) is unusually generous in one respect and closed in another. It covers a vehicle “self-propelled using an electric motor, combustion-driven motor, or a combination thereof.” Unlike Washington, where every low-speed class is electric only, a petrol engine is not disqualifying here.

The gate is the next clause: the vehicle must be “designed to operate at a speed not to exceed twenty-five (25) miles per hour as certified by the manufacturer.” A kei truck is not designed to a 25 mph ceiling and Suzuki, Honda, Daihatsu, Subaru and Mitsubishi have certified nothing of the kind. Both halves fail. This is the same shape of obstacle that closes the borrowed classes in Virginia and Utah: the operating limits get quoted, the entry requirements do not. Kentucky, to its credit, wrote the SLSPV rules so that the low-speed vehicle class is expressly excluded from them rather than left to argue about.

Framework One: The 2013 Road Ban and Its Exceptions

KRS 189.517(2) is blunt: “Except as provided in subsection (5) of this section, a person shall not operate a mini-truck upon any public highway or roadway or upon the right-of-way of any public highway or roadway.” Subsections (3) and (4) add that private property needs the landowner’s consent and public property needs the responsible agency’s approval.

Subsection (5) is where the section becomes useful:

What is allowed	Conditions attached
Crossing any two-lane public highway	As close to 90 degrees as practical and safe; not more than two-tenths of a mile on the highway
Operating on any two-lane public highway while engaged in farm or agricultural-related activities, construction, road maintenance or snow removal	No distance limit and no speed limit stated
Operating where the Transportation Cabinet, a city or a county has designated otherwise-prohibited highways as open	Designation is discretionary
In every case: a valid operator’s license, compliance with all traffic regulations, at least two headlights and two taillights illuminated at all times, and daylight hours only — except when engaged in snow removal or emergency road maintenance

The farm exception is broader than it first looks. It is not limited to your own land, it is not capped at a mileage, and “agricultural-related” is wider than “agricultural.” For a working farm, this is a functioning permission that has been on the books since 2013.

Two honest observations about the drafting. First, subsection (5)(f) requires both headlights lit “at all times the mini-truck is in operation” while (5)(g) confines operation to daylight, which is a belt-and-braces arrangement rather than a contradiction — but it does mean a headlight fault ends the trip even at noon. Second, the section says nothing at all about registration, titling or insurance, which leaves a real question: if you are on a two-lane highway hauling hay under (5)(b), does the general registration requirement in KRS 186.020 bite? The section does not answer it. Ask your county attorney rather than assuming either way.

Where subsection (5) came from

Set KRS 189.517 beside KRS 189.515, the all-terrain vehicle statute in place since 1990, and the two read as one text. The general prohibition, the private-property consent clause, the public-property approval clause, the 90-degree two-tenths-of-a-mile crossing, the farm and construction and road maintenance and snow removal exception, the designation power, the operator’s license requirement, the traffic-law clause, the lighting clause and the daylight clause all appear in the same order in both sections.

Within those parallel provisions one substantive figure differs. An ATV needs one headlight and two taillights; a mini-truck needs two headlights and two taillights. The ATV section carries further clauses on helmets and minimum ages that the mini-truck section does not, but where the two overlap, the headlight count is the difference.

This tells you what the 2013 legislature thought it was regulating: a farm implement that happens to have a cab. It is a distinct pattern from the templates catalogued in the comparison of state definitions. It is not a borrowed class with entry requirements a kei truck cannot meet; it is a dedicated section whose text came from the ATV rules. The vehicle gets its own statute and inherits an ATV’s rights.

Framework Two: The Street-Legal Special Purpose Vehicle (2025)

Senate Bill 63, enacted in the 2025 regular session and effective June 27, 2025, created KRS 186.077 and KRS 186.078. It has since been amended by 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 135, with one change effective July 15, 2026 and a second effective January 1, 2028.

KRS 186.077(1)(b)1 defines “special purpose vehicle” as “an all-terrain vehicle, utility terrain vehicle, minitruck, pneumatic-tired military vehicle, or full-size special purpose-built vehicle.” A “street-legal special purpose vehicle” is one of those that carries sixteen listed items of equipment. The Transportation Cabinet’s implementing regulation, 601 KAR 23:070, took effect on February 3, 2026.

The equipment list, and the one item that is a problem

Fifteen of the sixteen requirements are things a Japanese-market kei truck already has or can be given cheaply: headlamps, tail lamps, brake lamps, a white lamp over the plate, a rear red reflector, amber front turn signals, amber or red rear turn signals, a service brake, a horn, a working muffler, mirrors on both sides of the driver, a windshield, an illuminated speedometer, seat belts conforming to 49 C.F.R. 571.209 for multi-passenger vehicles, and tires with at least 2/32 inch of tread.

The sixteenth is “a roll bar or roll cage.”

A stock kei truck has a welded steel cab, which is a different structure from a roll bar or a roll cage. The statute and the regulation both list the item without defining it, and the state’s inspection form — TC 96-365, Street-Legal Special Purpose Vehicle Inspection — gives it a single tick box. Whether a certified inspector treats an enclosed factory cab as satisfying that box is a judgment made at a sheriff’s office, and it is the one question that can turn a $10 registration into a fabrication project. Bolt-in bars are a common accessory in this market and the modifications guide covers what people actually fit — but get the inspector’s answer before you spend, not after.

One caution on the form itself: 601 KAR 23:070 incorporates the 06/2025 edition of TC 96-365 by reference. The copy published by Meade County that I worked from is Rev. 04/2025. Take the current form from your county clerk rather than an internet copy, because the checklist is what the inspector signs against under penalty of forgery.

The two restrictions written for your truck specifically

KRS 186.077(4) prohibits an SLSPV from “traveling a distance greater than twenty (20) miles on a highway displaying centerline pavement markings.” A centerline marking is what separates opposing traffic, so this covers most two-lane roads worth driving on. The statute does not say whether the twenty miles is measured per trip, per day, or in one continuous stretch, and neither does the regulation. Assume the tightest reading until someone in authority tells you otherwise.

KRS 186.077(5) is narrower still and applies to nothing else in the class: “Minitrucks shall not be operated as street-legal special purpose vehicles on a highway that has been constructed pursuant to a federal highway program.” ATVs and UTVs in the same class carry no such restriction. Neither the section nor 601 KAR 23:070 defines the phrase, and a large share of Kentucky’s highway mileage has had federal money in it at some point. Get that scope in writing from the county before you commit to a truck. Kentucky’s decision to write the same class for kei trucks and side-by-sides is worth understanding on its own terms — the comparison of the two vehicles explains why they are less alike than the statute assumes.

The local ordinance decides everything

KRS 186.077(2)(a) prohibits operation “within the jurisdictional boundaries of a local government where the operation of special purpose vehicles has not been allowed by local ordinance.” The default is closed. KRS 186.078 lets a city, county, charter county, urban-county, consolidated or unified government open it, and expressly lets that government be stricter than the state.

One published example is Ordinance 24-2025 of the City of Hopkinsville, which authorizes SLSPV operation on designated highways within the city and then adds two conditions of its own: operation is “limited to highways within the City having a posted speed limit of thirty-five (35) miles per hour or less,” and any passenger under 18 must wear a helmet. It also restates that the operator must be licensed under KRS 186.410.

Read that carefully, because it is the shape of the risk. The state allows up to 20 miles of centerline-marked highway; Hopkinsville then narrows that to roads posted at 35 mph or below. A neighboring city can set a different number or pass nothing at all. The Kentucky League of Cities distributes a model ordinance to its members, so expect the wording to repeat and the numbers to vary.

How to find out about your own address. Ask the city clerk if you are inside city limits, and the county judge-executive’s office if you are not. The question is: “Has this jurisdiction adopted an ordinance under KRS 186.078 allowing street-legal special purpose vehicles, and what additional restrictions does it impose?” Get the ordinance number and the adoption date, and keep them. If you live outside any city, the county ordinance is the one that matters, and on the face of KRS 186.077(2)(a) it governs the highways inside the county’s boundaries regardless of who maintains them — a reading worth confirming with the county attorney rather than assuming.

Two Statutes, One Truck

One detail decides how much of the above you can rely on. SB 63 did not amend KRS 189.517. The bill created KRS 186.077 and 186.078 and amended KRS 186.020, 186.050 and 186A.115 — and left the 2013 mini-truck prohibition exactly where it was. Both provisions are current law today.

So one statute says a person shall not operate a mini-truck on a public highway except for crossings and farm work, and another says a minitruck meeting the equipment and registration requirements may operate on highways subject to local ordinance and the two class limits.

The reading that makes both work is that KRS 189.517 governs a mini-truck that has not been registered as an SLSPV, and KRS 186.077 governs one that has, the later and more specific enactment doing the work. The Transportation Cabinet plainly proceeds on that basis: its own titling page lists SLSPV registration with minitrucks named in the class, and 601 KAR 23:070 sets out the procedure in detail.

That is a reading, not a holding. No published Kentucky decision has resolved it, I am not a lawyer, and a roadside stop is a bad place to discover which view your county takes. The practical protection is cheap: get the county attorney’s or clerk’s position on KRS 189.517 in an email before you buy, and keep it with the registration.

Notice, too, that the exclusion in KRS 186.077(1)(c)2, under which the SLSPV class “does not include … a vehicle primarily used for farm or agricultural activities,” fits together with the farm exception in KRS 189.517(5)(b) rather than colliding with it. If the truck is primarily a farm vehicle, you are outside the SLSPV class and inside the 2013 farm permission. If it is not, the SLSPV route is the one available to you.

What It Costs

Every figure below is from the statute or regulation cited beside it, not from a fee estimate.

Item	Amount	Authority
Application for certificate of title	$9.00	KRS 186A.130(1)(a)
Speed title (expedited), optional	$25.00	KRS 186A.130(2)
Certified inspection, vehicle brought into the state (individual)	$15.00	KRS 186A.115(2)(b)3
Additional charge if the inspector must travel to the vehicle	$20.00 per trip	KRS 186A.115(2)(c)
SLSPV certification inspection	$25.00	KRS 186A.115(1)(c)
Annual registration — SLSPV	$10.00	KRS 186.050(2)(b); 601 KAR 23:070 §2(3)
Annual registration — ordinary motor vehicle	$11.50	KRS 186.050(1)
Historic motor vehicle plates (two), one time	$56.00, no annual renewal	KRS 186.162; KRS 186.043(6)
Motor vehicle usage tax	6% of “retail price”	KRS 138.460(1)
Annual state property tax on the vehicle	$0.45 per $100 of value	KRS 132.020(1)(g)
Same, on a historic plate	$0.25 per $100	KRS 132.020(1)(b)
Local property tax rates (county, city, school, districts)	Set locally; added to the state rate	KRS 132.487

An inspection done in one Kentucky county is honored in every other and cannot be charged twice — KRS 186A.115(2)(f) says so in terms. If your local sheriff’s office has never seen an import, that clause lets you drive to one that has.

The valuation question Kentucky actually answered

Every state that taxes a vehicle on book value has the same problem with these trucks: they were never sold new in the United States, so there is no book value. Oklahoma leaves that unresolved, because its calculator runs on NADA listings and a kei truck has no listing. Kentucky wrote the fallback into statute, twice.

For the 6% usage tax, KRS 138.450(16)(a) sets “retail price” for a used motor vehicle as the total consideration given, “as attested to in a notarized affidavit,” subject to a floor of 50% of the reference manual’s trade-in value. With no manual entry there is no floor to clear, so the affidavit price governs. Without an affidavit, subsection (16)(c) sends the clerk back to the manual — which is empty. Bring the notarized affidavit. And KRS 138.450(13) sets retail price for a historic motor vehicle at a flat $100, which makes the usage tax on that route $6.00.

For the annual property tax, KRS 132.485(1)(b) handles vehicles twenty years old or older, and subparagraph 3 handles precisely this case: where the manual edition needed “is unavailable,” the property valuation administrator “shall conduct an assessment of the vehicle,” in person if you present it or from photographs and documentary evidence, and that valuation then falls 10% a year. Among the states covered in this series, Kentucky is the one that put the answer in the statute instead of leaving it to the counter.

One more provision deserves a correction rather than a recommendation. KRS 138.460(3) lets an owner file a signed affidavit of nonhighway use and escape the usage tax. The same subsection then directs the clerk to “immediately collect the applicable sales and use tax due on the vehicle” instead. Both are 6%. The affidavit changes which tax you pay, not whether you pay.

The 2028 change worth knowing about now

The version of KRS 186.077 that takes effect on January 1, 2028 adds a new subsection: street-legal special purpose vehicles “shall be exempt from state and local ad valorem taxes in accordance with KRS 132.096.” Until that date they are not. If you are budgeting a multi-year cost of ownership, the annual property tax is a line item that is scheduled to disappear.

Insurance

KRS 304.39-110 sets Kentucky’s minimum security as either split limits of $25,000 / $50,000 / $25,000 or a single limit of $60,000, plus basic reparation benefits, Kentucky’s term for personal injury protection, capped at $10,000 per person under KRS 304.39-020(2).

Subsection (3) is the one that saves you money here: “Security for a motorcycle is fulfilled by providing only the coverages set forth in subsections (1)(a) and (b) of this section.” That is the liability limits without the reparation benefits. KRS 186.077(6)(b) requires an SLSPV to be insured “in the same form and amounts as set forth in KRS 304.39-110 for motorcycles,” and 601 KAR 23:070 §2(5) repeats that it “shall be insured as a motorcycle.” So an SLSPV needs 25/50/25 liability and no mandatory PIP. Proof of insurance goes to the clerk at registration, under KRS 186.020(1)(g).

The practical obstacle is the familiar one. A Japanese chassis number is not a 17-character VIN, and online quote forms validate VIN length before they will produce a price. Expect to do this by telephone, and ask for an agreed-value or stated-value policy rather than actual cash value. There is no book value for a 1999 Japanese-market truck, which is exactly why you do not want a total-loss settlement decided by a valuation guide.

The Alternative Routes, With Their Real Restrictions

Historic motor vehicle plates — KRS 186.043. Any motor vehicle 25 years old or older qualifies, which is every truck eligible under the federal 25-year rule. The registration is permanent, “valid without renewal as long as the vehicle is in existence.” It costs $56 once for two plates, transfers for $3, carries the reduced $0.25 per $100 property tax rate, and gets a $100 usage tax base. It also unlocks a shortcut on inspection: KRS 186A.115(9)(a) limits the certified inspection of a historic vehicle brought into the state to “verification of the vehicle identification number with supporting documentation,” which sidesteps the label problem described below.

The price is in the definition. A historic vehicle is one “used primarily for exhibition in shows, parades, tours, and other special uses, but not for general transportation.” That is not a formality. If you want a truck for feed runs and the dump, this is the wrong plate, and it does nothing about KRS 189.517’s prohibition, which is written against the vehicle rather than against its paperwork.

Classic motor vehicle project title. The Cabinet’s titling page describes this for a vehicle 25 years or older that is not in roadworthy condition and has never been titled in Kentucky. Inspection is VIN verification only. When the vehicle is made roadworthy the owner returns to the sheriff for a roadworthiness inspection and then applies for an ordinary title. It is a holding pen, not a road route.

Farmer’s truck registration — KRS 186.050(4). A farmer with a truck of 26,000 lb gross weight or less registers it for $11.50 on the strength of a signed certificate. This is a registration class, not a permission to drive: KRS 189.517 still governs where the truck may go.

Off-highway vehicle routes. KRS 189.860 defines an off-road vehicle and requires the landowner’s or agency’s consent, and nothing more. The KRS 189.281 pilot program for local OHV trail systems runs until July 1, 2027 — but its definition requires a vehicle “designed to be primarily used for recreational purposes” with a maximum speed above 35 mph, plus a spark arrestor and specified reflectors. A cab-over work truck was not designed for recreation. This is the borrowed-class pattern again, and it has closed the same way in Missouri and, on the tire test, in Iowa.

Getting the Title: What Kentucky Asks For

KRS 186A.115(6) lists what accompanies a first application for title. Paragraph (d) covers you directly: “If the application refers to a vehicle previously registered in another country, the documents of that country establishing ownership of the vehicle.” A Japanese export deregistration certificate is that document.

The Cabinet’s titling page adds the practical layer. For a vehicle purchased or titled in a foreign country, Kentucky wants customs papers, a sheriff’s inspection, and a completed Application for Kentucky Certificate of Title or Registration (TC 96-182), and where the registration document is not in English, “translation papers are required from the vehicle manufacturer, or a certified translator.” Budget for a certified translation; a friend’s rendering will not satisfy that sentence.

Registration goes to the county clerk of the county where you live — 601 KAR 23:070 §2(2) adds that a non-resident registers where the vehicle is principally operated.

The inspection clause that was not written with imports in mind

KRS 186A.115(7)(a) tells the certified inspector to compare the VIN “as appearing on both the vehicle identification number plate, and the federal safety standards label of the vehicle” and satisfy himself that the numbers at each location are legitimate and consistent with each other.

A truck admitted under the 25-year exemption has no federal safety standards label. That is the entire point of the exemption: the vehicle is admitted without regard to the federal standards, so it never received a certification label. The clause was written for vehicles that have one, and an inspector reading it literally is looking for something that cannot exist.

Two things reduce the friction. The historic-vehicle inspection under subsection (9)(a) is limited to VIN verification and does not reach the label comparison at all. And the general rule in subsection (8) lists the grounds on which an inspector “shall refrain” from certifying — an unlawfully altered VIN, illegible or inaccurate paperwork, missing documentation, probable cause to believe the vehicle is stolen. The absence of a federal label is not among them. Take a printed copy of the exemption from NHTSA’s importing page with you, and expect the conversation.

What to Buy for Kentucky

Kentucky’s rules push the purchase in a specific direction, and it is worth being deliberate about it.

Buy for short trips, not for commuting. Twenty miles on centerline-marked highway, a local speed cap of whatever your ordinance says, and a federal-aid highway restriction with fuzzy edges add up to a farm-and-errands vehicle. That is a reason to prioritize condition and cheap running costs over top speed, and it makes the four-speed and automatic trucks, usually the ones to avoid, much less of a compromise here.

Four-wheel drive earns its keep. Kentucky’s terrain and the farm exception both point the same way. 4WD is ordinary equipment on this supply rather than a rare option; the off-road guide has the measured shares by model.

Ask the roll-bar question before you bid, not after. If you intend the SLSPV route, the answer determines whether you are buying a truck or a truck plus a fabrication job.

Read corrosion properly. Kentucky salts its roads in winter, and the truck arrives with whatever its Japanese life gave it on top of that. Prefer stock from warm, dry prefectures and read the auction sheet for C codes, which mark corrosion that has gone through metal, rather than the overall paint grade. Model-by-model, the Carry guide and the Hijet guide cover what holds up.

For reference, the Japanese side of this market as I measured it across 394 trucks: Subaru Sambar ¥370,000, Honda Acty ¥390,000, Mitsubishi Minicab ¥390,000, Suzuki Carry ¥400,000 and Daihatsu Hijet ¥450,000 at the median. The model comparison sets those against United States sale averages, and the landed cost calculator adds freight, duty and fees so you can see the Kentucky line items in context.

FAQ

Are kei trucks legal in Kentucky?

Conditionally. Kentucky titles them and, since June 27, 2025, allows them to be registered as street-legal special purpose vehicles, but only where a city or county has passed an ordinance allowing the class, and subject to a 20-mile limit on centerline-marked highways and a prohibition on highways built under a federal highway program. Separately, KRS 189.517 has banned mini-trucks from public highways since 2013 except for crossings and farm, construction, road maintenance and snow removal work.

Does my county have to opt in?

Your city if you are inside one, your county if you are not. KRS 186.077(2)(a) prohibits operation where the local government has not allowed it by ordinance, and KRS 186.078 is the power to do so. Hopkinsville’s Ordinance 24-2025 is a published example, and it adds a 35 mph road cap and a helmet requirement for passengers under 18.

What does registration cost?

$10.00 a year for a street-legal special purpose vehicle, on a motorcycle plate, plus $9.00 for the title and $25.00 for the certification inspection. An ordinary vehicle registration is $11.50. Historic plates are $56.00 once and never renew.

What insurance do I need?

25/50/25 liability, or a $60,000 single limit. Because an SLSPV is insured as a motorcycle, KRS 304.39-110(3) means Kentucky’s mandatory $10,000 personal injury protection does not have to be carried.

Will Kentucky title a truck with a Japanese export certificate?

KRS 186A.115(6)(d) names “the documents of that country establishing ownership of the vehicle” as the qualifying paperwork. Bring the customs paperwork and a translation from the manufacturer or a certified translator, plus form TC 96-182, and expect a sheriff’s inspection.

Do I need a roll bar?

The statute and 601 KAR 23:070 both list “a roll bar or roll cage” among the sixteen equipment requirements for a street-legal special purpose vehicle, and form TC 96-365 gives it a tick box. Whether a factory steel cab satisfies it is decided by the certified inspector, so ask before you buy.

Can I use one only on the farm?

Yes, and that is the route the 2013 statute was built for. KRS 189.517(5)(b) allows operation on any two-lane public highway while engaged in farm or agricultural-related activities, construction, road maintenance or snow removal — daylight only, licensed operator, two headlights and two taillights lit.

What about property tax?

Kentucky taxes vehicles annually — $0.45 per $100 of value to the state, plus local rates, or $0.25 per $100 on a historic plate. Where the valuation manual has no entry for the vehicle, KRS 132.485(1)(b)3 directs the property valuation administrator to assess it directly, in person or from photographs, with the value falling 10% a year afterwards. Street-legal special purpose vehicles become exempt from state and local ad valorem tax on January 1, 2028.