Having Trouble Updating Vehicle Address

After moving, I tried to file my change of address information online and for my license, it went fine without any issue. However, when trying to submit my vehicle change of address, there was an error.

The vehicle information entered does not match DMV records. Please verify the information and try again.

I was really confused because I don’t know what possibly could have been different. I suspected at first maybe I misspelled the VIN or my name (wouldn’t have been the first time), but no, I was pretty confident I typed it all out correctly. I doubled checked everything against my registration card and the example registration card they provided.

Pretty much, at this point, I was ready to give up. Searching my error on Google lead to finding a lot of people posting this on the CA DMV’s Facebook page. There was a hint about searching your vehicle registration for some mysterious “RCID” field (which probably stands for “Registration Card Issue Date”).

After finding the link to request vehicle registration online, requesting it only cost $2. I thought I would give this a try—maybe there really was a typo or who knows. So I’ll just pay the $2 and see what happens.

In the section that showed my recent registration information, there was a date close to but not the same as my registration card’s “Date Issued” date, it was just a few days earlier under “RCID”. Using this date, I was able to complete my vehicle change of address.