Alabama splits the job between two desks that are never the same desk. The certificate is issued in Montgomery by a tax department, and every piece of paper that reaches it goes through a designated agent first - in a private sale that means your buyer standing at a county courthouse counter. Your half is one block on the back of the title, no notary, and the plate off the bumper before they drive away. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division's own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out an Alabama titleThe assignment is on the BACK of an Alabama title, and eight of its lines are the seller's.Open the walkthrough →Read the note at the foot of the MVT 5-5 and it says a vehicle that is 20 model years old or older is exempt from mileage disclosure, flat, with no second condition. Read 49 CFR 580.17, which is the rule the form exists to satisfy, and the age depends on when the car was built. The two do not describe the same set of cars, and the gap sits exactly over the vehicles most likely to be sold privately for cash.
The federal rule splits at model year 2011. Anything built for 2010 or earlier stops needing a disclosure once it is ten years old, which by now means all of them. Anything built for 2011 or later needs one for twenty years, so the first of that generation becomes exempt in 2031. The Motor Vehicle Division stated it correctly in its own words at its December 2021 licensing conference - extends certifications from 10 to 20 years, only affects vehicles with a year model 2011 and forward - and then went on printing the older, simpler sentence on the form.
Model year 2010 and earlier: Exempt under the federal rule, every one of them, because they all passed ten years old before 2021. The MVT 5-5's flat line would still ask a 2009 car for a reading; writing one in costs nothing and settles the question.
Model year 2011 and later: Not exempt, and will not be for years. Both rules agree here, and the reading you write has to match the application exactly.
Over 16,000 lb gross vehicle weight rating: Exempt on the form's own terms, whatever the year, and the same in the federal rule.
Anything that is not self-propelled: The form says trailers in brackets. A boat trailer or a utility trailer has no odometer and no disclosure.
Alabama Department of Revenue, MVT 5-5 Odometer Disclosure Statement
You, the seller: Fill in the assignment block on the back of the certificate: the buyer's name and address, the odometer reading in whole miles, the date of sale, then your signature and your printed name. If a lender is going onto the new title the buyer names it in the same block; if not, the printed instruction is to write NONE rather than leave it empty.
The buyer: The buyer signs and prints their own name in the same block, acknowledging the mileage you certified, and then takes the certificate to a designated agent - in a private sale, the county licensing office - who prepares the application for the new title and physically inspects the vehicle before anything is submitted.
Nobody watches you sign, and nobody has since April 2021. The Department answers it in five words: no, the state of Alabama does not require the assignment of an MSO or title to be notarized. The witness went at the same time - Act 2021-171, the Title Modernization Act, waived witness and notarization requirements on title documents with effect from 8 April 2021.
What stands in their place is the designated agent. Section 32-8-35(d) requires every application to carry the agent's certificate that the vehicle has been physically inspected by the agent, that the vehicle identification number and descriptive data shown on the application are correct, and that the agent identified the person signing the application and verified the signature. That is why the buyer cannot simply post the title away.
Section 32-8-31(13) exempts any other motor vehicle more than 35 model years old, and spells out how the count works: this exemption is applicable on January 1 of each year and applies to all motor vehicles with a model year, as designated by the manufacturer, more than 35 years from the current calendar year. Through 2026 that puts the line between the 1991 model year, which is titled, and the 1990 model year, which is not. Every 1 January the line moves up one year and takes another model year's worth of cars out of the title system for good.
Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
One block on the back of the certificate, one bill of sale, and a buyer who has to bring the car with them.
Alabama lenders hold the paper. Nothing moves until you find out who has it and what it will take to get it released.
Lost, torn, illegible or written in wrong - and the Department separates the certificate itself from the block you spoiled on it.
One page appointing somebody to sign in your place, and a special notice at the foot that voids it if anybody tidies it up.
Whether the family needs a probate court or a single signed affidavit turns on one question about the estate.
Salvage, scrap, stolen, or a vehicle nobody can bring to the counter - four different documents and none of them ordinary.
It came off the car and it is still registered to you. What you do with it next is the only thing that ends that.
The Department's answer has no qualifications in it: license plates are to be removed by the registrant upon the sale or disposal of the vehicle. Section 40-12-260(a)(1) is the statute underneath it, and it has said the same thing since 1 January 1998 - when the vehicle has been sold or otherwise transferred to a new owner, the license plate shall be removed from the vehicle and retained by the original plate owner.
Then one of three things happens to it. It moves to the next car you buy, which is what the same section expects and what the $1.25 state transfer fee is for. It goes back to the county licensing official, which is what ends the registration. Or it sits in your garage doing nothing while the registration stays live in your name, which is the version that generates letters.
Leaving it on the car does not help the buyer either. Section 40-12-260(a)(3) makes it their problem: where the license plate has not been removed by the previous owner, the new owner of the vehicle shall remove and return the license plate to the county license plate issuing official of the county where the owner resides. They then buy their own, within twenty days, or pay a $15.00 penalty plus interest.
Two exceptions exist and both are narrow. A vintage vehicle plate is a permanent registration to the vehicle, and must follow the vehicle when sold - the MVR 40-12-290 says so in its own detach-and-retain notes, and Section 40-12-260(a) carves that whole series out of the no-transfer rule in its opening line. And a personalised or distinctive plate on a car going to the transferor's spouse or child may, at the option of the transferor, remain on the vehicle in the hands of the transferee on payment of the recording fee.
Alabama has no release of liability, no notice of sale, no notice of transfer and no deadline for telling anybody the car has gone. Chapter 8 of Title 32 was read section by section looking for one; every duty in it that follows a sale belongs to the person buying. Section 32-8-44(a) asks the seller to execute an assignment and warranty of title to the transferee in the space provided therefor on the certificate, hand it over, and stop.
So nothing marks the sale on the state's side until the buyer's application reaches Montgomery, and the registration - which is a different record from the title - stays in your name until the plate comes off it. The Department's designated agents have ten calendar days to forward a completed application. A buyer who never files one leaves your name on a live registration indefinitely, and no letter will arrive to tell you.
Take the plate off the registration before you cancel the policy, not after.
This is where Alabama catches sellers, and it arrives as an insurance verification notice for a car you sold months ago. The Department checks registrations against insurers through the Online Insurance Verification System, and the registration is still yours. The way out is spelled out in its own FAQ: the registrant will need to provide documentation (bill of sale, etc.) and surrender the license plate to the local licensing official to complete the revocation process. Ignore the notice for thirty days and the registration is suspended; clearing that costs $200 for a first suspension and $400 for a second or any subsequent one. Alabama Department of Revenue, Mandatory Liability Insurance FAQ.
Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle FAQ on license plates
Register at the county licensing office in the county where the buyer lives within 20 days of the purchase. Alabama taxes the buyer rather than the seller, and a private sale is not tax free: casual sales tax runs at two percent of the purchase price under Section 40-23-101(a), with the buyer's own county and city sales taxes on top, and the licensing official collects the lot before the plate is issued. Which office that is depends on the county: Section 32-8-34 names the judge of probate, the commissioner of licenses, the director of revenue and any other county official authorised to issue plates, and every one of them is a designated agent of the Department by virtue of the office. The certificate itself costs $15.00 under Section 32-8-6, plus a $1.50 agent commission, plus another $1.50 the licensing official may add, plus whatever local fees that county charges. Transferring an existing plate to the newly acquired vehicle is $1.25 on top.
What they need to bring:
Alabama runs no emissions programme and no periodic safety inspection. The Department's answer to whether emissions testing is a prerequisite to registration is four words long - no, Alabama law does not provide for emissions testing of motor vehicles - and there is no annual sticker on an Alabama windscreen to be out of date. The only inspection anywhere in a private sale is the one the licensing official carries out on the vehicle and its paperwork at the counter, and a rebuilt-vehicle inspection if the car has been through salvage.
Alabama Department of Revenue, registration FAQ.
Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in Alabama and the rest of the guides.