No, California has not passed a "mileage tax," but Becerra says it should be "on the table"

California has not passed a "mileage tax." No state law charges drivers by the mile. Assembly Bill 1421, the study bill at the center of this year's fight over the idea, died in the California Senate without a committee vote.

The question came back in the last week of the governor's race. KCRA 3 asked Xavier Becerra whether he would support a tax based on the miles people drive, and Becerra said "Everything should be on the table." Becerra leads Republican Steve Hilton 65.5% to 34.5% in the Secretary of State's unofficial count, and he takes office on January 4, 2027.

Two deadlines come first. The state's road charge pilot law requires a final report on its real-money pilot by December 31, 2026. The next day, the whole Vehicle Code chapter behind California's road charge research repeals itself.

If you are just tuning in, our full explainer on the California "mileage tax" covers what a road charge is and how the state came to study one in 2014. This piece covers what happened to AB 1421, what Becerra has said, what the state's own pilot found and what comes next.

California's "mileage tax" bill, AB 1421, passed the Assembly 49 to 21 and then died in the Senate:

Assembly Member Lori Wilson introduced AB 1421 in February 2025. As introduced, it would have kept the state's Road Usage Charge Technical Advisory Committee in place until January 1, 2035, instead of letting it lapse on January 1, 2027. Wilson's January 5, 2026, amendments struck that extension, along with the bill's findings on the gas tax shortfall.

The version that passed the Assembly asked for a report and nothing more. The California Transportation Commission (CTC), working with the California State Transportation Agency, would have had to pull together the state's research on "a road user charge or a mileage-based fee system" and submit it to the Legislature by January 1, 2027. The report would have covered three topics:

• the current and future inequities for low-income drivers "commuting farther in less efficient vehicles"
• the impact of a weight-per-mile fee for commercial and electric vehicles on the motor vehicle industry
• regional and state options for a road user charge, including ways to capture out-of-state vehicles

Nothing in the bill would have charged a driver.

The Assembly passed AB 1421 49 to 21 on January 29, 2026. The same day, the Senate sent it to its Rules Committee for assignment, and that is the bill's last recorded action. The Legislature's 2026 calendar set July 2 as the last day for policy committees to report bills and August 31 as the last day for either house to pass them. With both deadlines gone, AB 1421 cannot pass before the session adjourns on November 30.

Republican lawmakers led the opposition. "It is a mileage tax plan. It's not a study," Assembly Budget Committee Vice Chair David Tangipa, a Fresno Republican, said at a press conference, as CalMatters reported in March. Republican Assembly Member Carl DeMaio introduced AB 1783, which would have barred state agencies from spending money on "the study, planning, testing, design, implementation, administration, or evaluation of a tax, fee, assessment, or charge based on vehicle miles traveled." AB 1783 failed passage in the Assembly Local Government Committee on April 15, 2026.

The bill also had rural backers. The California Cattlemen's Association, which CalMatters describes as traditionally aligned with conservative causes, supported it, according to the same CalMatters report.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's office also weighed in online, saying the governor would not sign a mileage tax proposal, CalMatters reported.

Governor-elect Xavier Becerra says a mileage tax should be "on the table":

KCRA 3 political director Ashley Zavala asked Becerra whether, as governor, he would support a fee based on the number of miles a vehicle travels. KCRA published the interview on October 28, six days before the election. Becerra answered "Everything should be on the table," and then elaborated.

"Our roads aren't maintained just by some magic wand. We have to pay for it. Do I want to tax people more than necessary? No. Should we pay a gas tax? Yes. Should people who drive electric vehicles, who don't need gas, pay for those roads to be repaired as well? Absolutely."

Xavier Becerra, in an interview with KCRA 3

His campaign later told FOX 11 that "Secretary Becerra has not proposed a mileage tax." Hilton made the opposite case to the same station. "93 percent of the cars and trucks on our roads run on gas and diesel, so it's just not correct to say that this is some problem, mileage tax solution right now," Hilton told FOX 11.

After the election, Becerra returned to the idea. "I believe that users should pay for (roads)," he told reporters, according to CalMatters. None of these remarks names a rate, a start date or a bill.

California's road charge pilot charged about 800 drivers by the mile in 2024 and 2025:

California has tested a road charge twice. The first pilot, run under a 2014 law, sent simulated invoices to drivers who reported more than 37 million miles over nine months. The second, ordered by SB 339 in 2021, collected real payments.

By law, the second pilot split its drivers into two equal, randomly assigned groups:

• one group paid a flat per-mile rate set by the advisory committee
• the other paid the state's per-gallon fuel tax divided by the vehicle's EPA fuel economy rating

Both groups got a credit or refund for the state gas tax or electric vehicle fee they paid while enrolled.

Caltrans recruited drivers from April through June 2024 and offered a $400 incentive, according to the draft final report the advisory committee heard on September 25, 2026. Of 25,000 people who signed up, 5,000 were invited and 800 finished every step and started reporting miles. Caltrans says the pilot ran from August 2024 through January 2025.

The pilot is not a mirror of California's drivers. Caltrans deliberately over-invited electric vehicle owners, which the draft report says skews the group toward higher incomes, older drivers and White and Asian participants.

The committee's 2023 rate recommendations put the flat rate at about 2.5 cents a mile, found by dividing state fuel tax revenue by the miles California vehicles travel. Because every driver also got a gas tax credit, what a driver actually paid depended on fuel economy.

A 2.5-cent flat road charge, net of the gas tax credit, by fuel economy:

Under that design, a gas car getting 20 miles per gallon or less would have paid less than it pays in gas tax. Cars getting 25 miles per gallon or better would have paid more, and so would plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

The draft final report lists what the pilot showed:

• The rate tied to fuel economy "raised less revenue than both the flat rate and current state gas taxes in the pilot."
• That rate did not reduce how much participants expected to drive their gas-powered vehicles.
• Only 8% of participants planned to buy a new vehicle within three years and would switch vehicle types if a road charge replaced the gas tax.
• After the pilot, participants "had very few concerns that a road charge would be unfair to themselves and their family."

California's draft road charge report says no single rate can meet the state's climate, equity and revenue goals:

The draft final report reaches one central conclusion. "California cannot simultaneously achieve its climate, equity, and revenue goals through a single road charge system," the September 25 presentation says. "Trade-offs are inevitable."

The report lays out those trade-offs rate by rate:

• A low-income discount. A 50% discount would cost $461 million to $2.1 billion a year in transportation revenue, depending on how "low income" is defined. Between 11% and 50% of Californians could qualify. The average qualifying driver would save about $150 a year, or $12.50 a month.
• Rates based on fuel economy. About 15% of the fleet has no EPA rating. That includes motorcycles, pickups and SUVs over 8,500 pounds, commercial vehicles and vehicles built before 1981.
• Rates based on weight. Caltrans engineering "considers that vehicles below 10,000 pounds do not damage roads by their different weights to any significant degree."
• Higher rates after a set number of miles. Those would fall hardest on rural drivers, super commuters, construction workers and rideshare drivers.
• A charge on electric vehicles and hybrids only. The report calls this "the expressed preference of California tribes, as well as rural and trucking stakeholders," and notes that Utah, Oregon and Virginia built their programs this way.
• Higher registration fees instead. The Road Improvement Fee on zero-emission vehicles "could be increased from the current $121 to the $340 gas tax average," the report says.

The report's survey work explains why any version would be a hard sell. Only 45% of Californians surveyed first viewed a road charge positively, though more information raised the share who saw it as fair by nine percentage points. Most preferred a flat per-mile rate, "especially in rural and suburban areas." Support for a low-income discount fell from 53% to 44% once people learned that others would pay more to cover it. Support for an electric vehicle discount fell from 39% to 18% under the same condition, and 65% of electric vehicle owners did not support it either.

The draft goes to the CTC at its December meeting, and the final report is due to the Legislature by December 31, according to the presentation. The commission's 2026 meeting schedule lists December 3–4 in the Los Angeles region.

California's gas tax revenue is projected to fall by billions as more drivers switch to electric vehicles:

The state studies a road charge because the gas tax is shrinking. In a December 2023 report, the Legislative Analyst's Office put state fuel tax and vehicle fee revenue at $14.2 billion in 2023–24. If the state follows its climate plan, the LAO projects that "annual state transportation revenues will decline by $4.4 billion (31 percent) over the next decade." Gasoline excise tax revenue alone would fall by $5 billion, or 64%, by 2034–35.

The CTC's draft 2025 needs assessment estimates a revenue decline of up to $31 billion over the next decade and a 10-year shortfall of $216.4 billion against the state's transportation needs. The commission's draft "recommends implementing a sustainable revenue mechanism as a full replacement to the state fuel excise tax," and says this "would require legislative action."

The LAO also flags the cost of switching. Some studies suggest that collecting and enforcing a road charge "could range from 5 percent to 13 percent of collected revenues," the LAO report says, though it adds that a road charge "likely would yield more revenues over the long run when compared to fuel taxes."

Six dates will shape California's road charge through Becerra's first budget:

• December 3–4, 2026. The CTC meets in the Los Angeles region, the meeting at which the draft final pilot report is slated to go to the commission.
• December 7, 2026. The 2027–28 Legislature convenes at noon. Any new road charge bill would start in this session.
• December 31, 2026. The final report on the real-money pilot is due to the Legislature.
• January 1, 2027. The Vehicle Code chapter that created the advisory committee and both pilots repeals itself.
• January 4, 2027. Becerra takes office.
• January 10, 2027. The deadline for Becerra's first budget. The California Constitution requires the governor to submit one "within the first 10 days of each calendar year."

The January 1 repeal also ends the road charge privacy rules in Vehicle Code Section 3091. Those rules bar the state from giving road charge data to any private entity or individual except under a court order, a subpoena, a search warrant or in anonymized form for academic research.

The California "mileage tax" remains a subject of study, not a law, as Becerra takes office:

California drivers pay no per-mile charge, and none is scheduled to start. Any road charge would take a new bill, passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor, which is the "legislative action" the CTC's own draft says a gas tax replacement needs. The state's evidence for that debate is due on December 31. The law behind the research expires the next day. Becerra, who has said "Everything should be on the table," takes office three days later.

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