My vehicle is a wagon, so I don't currently have that problem but had researched it some in case of "upgrading" to a van.
From what I remember off hand:
1. The benefits will depend upon the cities you cover.
2. The benefits depend upon also whether or not you chose to remember special commercial benefit hours and thus also strings attached for using say the commercial red and yellow (?) say up in San Francisco or whatever the meter and curb colors are for whatever cities you use.
3. CA doesn't have a point blank, direct written set of what's deemed commercial vs not like NYC does. I believe NYC has to deal with whether or not there are any back windows and the number of seats for starters.
4. Weight is a factor in the registration cost. In Silicon Valley, a friend of mine registered his old but heavy van as commercial, which came to almost as much as my registration for a still pretty new, full size wagon.
5. Remember that when the registration is high, the insurance is probably higher as a result.
Don't forget to also figure out whether or not you will use your van for business uses and any possibility to put a company logo on the outside of it or not.
Tip: Go to the smaller DMV locations. It'll likely save ya time, unless AAA does the work for ya.
Hope this helps.
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