Your registration will show your actual expiration date. States differ on whether you get the full month, or if it’s a specific day. Check the registration, if it expires on the 1st and you get pulled over on the 8th, you could be ticketed, but my guess is that the officer would warn you first.

California registrations are actually date sensitive.
the date is listed on the registration for.
California charges a 25% penalty for the first 3 months late after the actual due date and then 50% after that.

pay the fees now !

If your tags expire in September that means you have until September 30 to pay the registration fee. If you look at your registration paperwork, it should give a more specific date in September that the registration “officially” expires. Because of this, you shouldn’t get pulled over for expired tags until October 1 because police would have no way of knowing what this “official” date is just by looking at your plates.

In Colorado, you would have until Oct. 30th. It’s 30 days beyond the month of expiration.

It actually depends on the actual day that they expire. You can find that info on your registration. Also, unless found looking suspicious or you find a really bored cop they usually won’t pull you over until Oct. Also, if you are unaware of the fees there is a calculator on DMV’s website. The fee calculator is here:
Also, you can look around DMV’s site at

you usually have till the last day of september. In my state they actually give you 5 more days after that as well but I don’t live in calilfornia. But your tags are good through the month of September