Montana Crash Reporting Requirements
In Montana, the crash reporting threshold is $1,000 in damage. Deadline to file: 10 days. Submit to: Call local police, the county sheriff or the highway patrol at once; the written report goes to the Department of Justice.
- Damage threshold
- $1,000
Immediate notice is owed when the crash injures or kills anyone, involves striking the body of a deceased person, or causes apparent property damage of $1,000 or more. The written report in § 61-7-109 uses a slightly different test — damage to the property of a person "in excess of" $1,000 — so a crash landing exactly on $1,000 triggers the phone call but not the form. The Montana Driver Manual states both a $500 and a $1,000 figure in consecutive sentences — "report an accident immediately to law enforcement if anyone is injured or killed, or property damage is $500 or more. You must report to the Highway Patrol if there is an injury, a death, or property damage of $1,000 or more." Neither statute mentions $500.
- Deadline to file
- 10 days
Ten days, but only if no officer wrote it up. Section 61-7-109(1) excuses the driver's report entirely when the crash was investigated and reported by a law enforcement officer, and § 61-7-109(3) gives that officer the same ten days from completing the investigation. The immediate-notice duty in § 61-7-108 is separate and has no day count at all: it must be given "immediately by the quickest means of communication available". Section 61-7-110 lets someone else file for you if you are physically incapable.
- Submit to
- Call local police, the county sheriff or the highway patrol at once; the written report goes to the Department of Justice
Two duties, two recipients. The immediate call goes to the local police department if the crash happened inside a municipality, and otherwise to the county sheriff's office or the nearest highway patrol office. The written report under § 61-7-109 goes to "the department", which in Title 61 means the Department of Justice — the Motor Vehicle Division — and it is owed only when no officer investigated. The report form must carry enough information for the department to tell whether the security requirements in chapter 6 apply, and § 61-7-109(5) makes the driver's report inadmissible in any civil or criminal trial arising from the crash. The Montana Driver Manual tells drivers to "report to the Highway Patrol" and says accident forms are held at law enforcement agencies and by most insurance agents; the statute names the department. A city may impose its own reporting ordinance on top under § 61-7-116.
Montana sets $1,000 — higher than 10 of the 44 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $250 to $4,000.
How Montana compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
$1,000 is the number to keep in mind, and it is a damage figure rather than an injury one: a crash with no one hurt still has to be reported once the damage reaches it. Only 10 of the 44 that set a dollar figure start lower. Note what the threshold is measured against — apparent damage at the scene, not the final repair invoice — so the call has to be made before anyone has priced anything.
You have 10 days. 23 of the 43 with a day count give you less time, 8 give you more. The clock runs from the crash, not from the insurance claim or the repair estimate, and it keeps running while you wait to hear whether the police filed a report of their own.
Who receives it matters as much as when. In Montana the report goes to Call local police, the county sheriff or the highway patrol at once; the written report goes to the Department of Justice. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.
Every statute cited for Montana
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Crash You Are Required to Report Is Smaller Than You ThinkCrash-report triggers start at $500 in Georgia and New Jersey and reach $3,000 for a Virginia police report; Florida's is $500 before 1 October 2026 and $2,000 from that date, and Pennsylvania and Maryland use no dollar figure at all.
More on Montana
Checked against the primary sources above on September 29, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.