Buried in the fine print of three Connecticut dealership websites is a word that changes what a dealer fee is: negotiable. Dealer documentation and conveyance fees are usually presented as fixed costs, closer to a tax than a price. In Connecticut, state law requires every dealer to tell buyers, in writing, that the conveyance fee is negotiable. Almost nobody reads it, and fewer still use it. The word matters beyond Connecticut too, because the Federal Trade Commission's current position on advertised prices makes a fee that moves for one buyer and not another a problem in its own right.
Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-62 has regulated the dealer conveyance fee for years, and its requirements are unusually specific. A selling price quoted to a prospective buyer must include the amount of the conveyance fee, separately stated, along with the fact that the fee is negotiable. The fee may not be added to the selling price at the time the buyer signs the order. Each dealer must hand the buyer a written statement covering five things: the amount of the fee, the services it pays for, the fact that it is negotiable, the fact that it is not payable to the state, and the buyer's right, where appropriate, to submit the registration and ownership-transfer documents to the Department of Motor Vehicles themselves. If the buyer elects to do that paperwork, the dealer must reduce the fee by a proportional amount. The same information must appear on a sign prominently displayed in the area where sales are negotiated.
The statute sets no cap. A Connecticut conveyance fee can legally be $200 or $999, as long as it recovers what the law calls the reasonable costs of processing documentation and performing services related to closing the sale. What the law controls is not the amount but the honesty around it: the number must be stated, the negotiability must be disclosed, and the buyer must be told the money goes to the dealer, not the state.
CarThrive has now graded more than 670 New England dealers on their published fees. Three Connecticut stores print the word negotiable next to some of the highest fees in the region. The presentations differ, and so do the grades:
$999 conveyance fee
Itemized inside the advertised Internet Price, and its own footer describes pricing as including "the $999 dealer Conveyance fee (negotiable)." A second disclaimer elsewhere on the same pages says the fee is not included, which costs it consistency points. CarThrive grade: C (63).
$799 fee, stated negotiable
Publishes its $799 fee as negotiable in its vehicle pricing, itemized inside the advertised price. The word is doing what the statute intends: telling the buyer the number can move. CarThrive grade: C (71).
$999 fee, stated negotiable
Discloses a $999 negotiable fee, then keeps it out of the advertised price entirely, so the number a shopper sees is never the number the dealer intends to charge. Negotiable and invisible is the worst of both presentations. CarThrive grade: F (40).
Two lessons sit inside those three cards. First, negotiable in Connecticut is not a sales trick; it is the dealer's legal obligation, and the stores publishing it are complying with Section 14-62 whether they enjoy it or not. Second, the word shows up at $799 and $999, the top of the regional market. A dealer charging the region's highest fee has the most room to move, and the statute makes sure the buyer knows it.
The FTC tried to settle dealer pricing nationally with the Combating Auto Retail Scams Rule, which would have required advertised prices to reflect the true total and banned charges a buyer never consented to. The Fifth Circuit vacated the rule on January 27, 2025, in National Automobile Dealers Association v. FTC, holding that the Commission had skipped a required step in its own rulemaking process. The FTC did not appeal, and the rule was formally withdrawn from the Code of Federal Regulations effective February 12, 2026.
Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, never went anywhere, and the Commission has spent 2026 saying so. On March 13, 2026, the FTC sent warning letters to 97 auto dealership groups covering more than 200 locations, directing them to confirm that advertised prices include all fees a customer will be required to pay and match the price actually charged. On September 15, 2026, FTC staff guidance on price transparency stated the standard plainly: the advertised price of a vehicle must be the actual price that any consumer can walk in and pay to purchase the vehicle, excluding only charges the government requires the consumer to pay.
Read that standard against a negotiable fee and the tension is obvious. If a fee is soft for the buyer who pushes and hard for the buyer who does not, the advertised price is firm for one customer and inflated for another. The guidance is written against two-tier pricing of exactly that kind. A fee can be negotiable in Connecticut because Connecticut law says the negotiation happens openly, with the amount stated and the right disclosed. A fee that quietly varies from buyer to buyer, with nothing published at all, is a different animal, and it is the one federal enforcers keep describing.
The weakest fee language in CarThrive's New England checks is not the word negotiable. It is the phrase "up to." Newport Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Middletown, Rhode Island, publishes a disclaimer stating that "a negotiable administration fee, up to $299, may be added to the price of the vehicle." Its own vehicle pages tell a different story: a fixed $400 doc fee itemized inside the price, plus a $297 anti-theft etching package added on top of the advertised price. One website, three fee stories. The store grades a B (79) because the $400 itself sits inside the advertised price, but the words around it promise a ceiling the store's own stacks ignore.
A related fine-print template at several Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram stores in the region discloses only a "negotiable administration fee, up to $115," and never the amount actually charged. An "up to" figure with no actual number attached is not disclosure. It is a ceiling the customer never gets to test, attached to a charge the customer cannot see. Connecticut's approach is the honest opposite: state the amount, state that it can move, and let the buyer do the moving.
The uniform alternative. The legally quiet posture is a fee that does not move at all: one amount, the same for every buyer, inside every advertised price, published where shoppers can find it before they visit. Quirk Auto Dealers charges $499 at every one of its Massachusetts and New Hampshire stores, inside the advertised price, stated on a public fee page, and its 17 graded stores hold A and B grades on that presentation. Disclosure: CarThrive's publisher works in automotive retail marketing, including for Quirk Auto Dealers. Its stores are graded on the same published evidence and the same rubric as every competitor in this post.
There is a further reason dealers should be careful with fees that vary by buyer. In its case against the Asbury Automotive Group, the FTC alleged that add-on and fee practices were applied in ways that burdened Black and Latino buyers more heavily than other customers. The Commission dismissed that case in 2025 without any ruling on the merits, so the allegations were never tested and should not be repeated as established fact. They still mark the direction of the risk. A fee with one published amount, charged the same way to everyone, gives an investigator nothing to compare. A fee that moves invites the question of what it moves for.
Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-62 (dealer conveyance and processing fees; negotiability disclosure; written statement and signage requirements), and Connecticut Office of Legislative Research report 2018-R-0063, Motor Vehicle Dealer Conveyance Fees. National Automobile Dealers Association v. FTC, 127 F.4th 549 (5th Cir. Jan. 27, 2025), vacating the Combating Auto Retail Scams Rule; FTC withdrawal of the rule, 91 Fed. Reg. 6507, effective Feb. 12, 2026. FTC warning letters to 97 auto dealership groups, Mar. 13, 2026. FTC staff guidance on price transparency for auto dealers, Sept. 15, 2026. FTC v. Asbury Automotive Group, administrative complaint dismissed 2025 without a ruling on the merits. Dealer fee presentations for Middletown Nissan, Quality Subaru, Hamden Chevrolet, and Newport Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram from CarThrive's dealer fee grading program, checked Oct. 20, 2026, from each dealer's own published pricing.