Gas Tax & MDT Resources

Missouri River, Fort Benton Bridge - Photo Courtesy Visit Montana

ATTENTION - New Legislation Has Changed the BaRSAA Allocation Process

View your cities' FY 2024 BaRSAA and 536 allocations on the spreadsheet to the right. Distributions include:

  • * Combined regular/BaRSAA gas tax distribution estimates for each municipality for FY24 
  • * One-time remaining BaRSAA gas tax distribution on Sept 1, 2023 
  • * One-time SB 536 gas tax distribution for municipalities with populations under 10,000 in August 

What has changed?

The Legislature passed HB 76 which combines the separate allocations of state motor fuel taxes to local governments into a single monthly allocation. This includes the “old” gas tax statutory appropriation ($16,816,000 annually) and the BaRSAA allocation (the 2017 gas tax increase). This eliminates the red tape of BaRSAA - no more resolutions, local match or sending requests to MDT for allocation, reservation or re-allocation and no more reporting on projects.

Under HB 76, local governments will receive a monthly share of the gas tax collections from the previous month. The new distribution will be based on sales of gas, like the BaRSAA account, which means that monthly gas tax receipts will fluctuate throughout the year as they are collected by the department. You can expect distributions to be higher in summer months and lower during the winter. MDT will send out monthly projections for the year in early June and will send out updates if actual receipts start to significantly vary from the projections.

On September 1st, MDT will do a one-time distribution of remaining BaRSAA funding. This will include the calendar year 2022 revenue that would normally be available for distribution between March and November as well as any BaRSAA revenue accumulated from January through June.