Smog Check Repair Assistance

CAP is run by the Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR), the state office behind Smog Check. After a failed biennial (every other year) smog check it pays toward the emissions repairs: up to $1,450 on a 1996 or newer car and up to $1,100 on a 1976 to 1995 car. You pay the station a co-payment, worked out from the model year and the size of the repair bill.

You qualify when all of these are true:

• Your household income is at or below 225% of the federal poverty level (BAR's page has a calculator).
• You are the registered owner and the title is in your name.
• The car failed its biennial smog check and its emissions parts have not been tampered with.
• The registration is current, or the fees are paid and the sticker expired no more than 365 days ago. A car that is being sold, being registered in California for the first time, or registered to a business does not qualify.

Apply first and wait for the letter of eligibility: BAR does not pay back repairs done before it arrives. The work is then done at a STAR test-and-repair station (see STAR station smog check).

When the repair isn't worth it, CAP's vehicle retirement option pays you to hand a car that still runs to a dismantler under contract with BAR.

The car has to be drivable, rated at 10,000 lb or less, and registered without a gap of more than 120 days in the two years before its current sticker ran out. For the $1,350 payment, a fail caused only by ignition timing, the gas cap test or tampering does not count.

Clean Cars 4 All comes from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and local air districts. It pays income-qualified drivers to scrap an older car and switch to a plug-in hybrid or electric car no more than 8 years old, an e-bike or a transit pass. With household income up to 300% of the federal poverty level the grant is $9,500 toward a plug-in hybrid or $10,000 toward an electric car, rising to $11,500 or $12,000 in a disadvantaged community. Up to $2,000 more can pay for a home charger or a prepaid charging card.

Your address decides where you apply. Five air districts run their own version; everyone else in California uses the statewide program.

The Bay Area Air District's Clean Cars for All is open to new applications. The old car must be a 2007 or older model that runs, weighs under 10,000 lb and has a California title in your name. You must live inside the district: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo or Santa Clara County, southwestern Solano or southern Sonoma. The household income cap is $47,880 a year for one person and $99,000 for a household of four.

Approved applicants take the car to an authorized dismantler for a pre-inspection, receive an award letter, buy or lease the replacement at an authorized dealer, then scrap the old car. A car bought before the award letter is not funded.

The Driving Clean Assistance Program is the statewide way into Clean Cars 4 All for anyone outside those five districts, run for CARB by the Community Housing Development Corporation. Its scrap-and-replace option is taking applications. Its financing help (low-interest loans) has stopped taking new applications because demand ran too high.

Planning to stack a federal tax credit on top of these grants? The IRS says the new clean vehicle credit (up to $7,500 under section 30D) and the used clean vehicle credit are not available for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025.