Most of the difficulty in an Arizona sale is not the signing. It is finding out whether a piece of paper exists to sign: Arizona has held titles electronically for years, so the document a seller expects to hand over may never have been printed. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Arizona Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division's own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out an Arizona titleThe Transfer of Ownership block on the reverse, shown blank and shown filled in, from ADOT's own specimen.Open the walkthrough →The reading goes into a shaded window on the back of the certificate, in whole miles, and once it is there the correction has to happen on a different sheet of paper. ADOT's rule to its own counter staff is that odometer corrections must be corrected prior to transferring the vehicle into the new owner's name and that the corrections cannot be made on the same title or MCO document. A struck-through figure does not become a smaller problem by being explained at the counter; it becomes a Statement of Error, or on a newer car a Power of Attorney with Odometer Disclosure, before anything else can happen.
Whether you have to write a figure at all turns on the model year and nothing else. A car built in 2010 or earlier stops needing a disclosure once it is ten model years old; a car built in 2011 or later carries the duty for twenty. ADOT works the second band out to the year: a 2018 will require a 20 year disclosure requirement, until 2038.
Model year 2010 or older, at least ten model years old: No disclosure required. ADOT says an owner of an exempt vehicle is not required to submit a Federal Odometer Disclosure Statement, but may do so if they wish.
Model year 2011 or newer, under twenty model years old: Disclosure required. Write the reading on the back of the title, tick miles or kilometers, and leave both exception boxes alone unless one of them is true.
16,000 lb GVWR or more, or anything not self-propelled: Exempt at any age, along with a new vehicle bought for resale and a vehicle sold by its manufacturer straight to a United States agency.
You, the seller: Write the mileage into the shaded window on the back of the certificate, tick miles, sign on the Seller Signature line, hand-print your name below it, add your street address and the date of sale, and hand the certificate over. There is nobody to sign in front of.
The buyer: The buyer signs and prints on the right-hand half of the same block, adds their street address, and writes NONE across the new lienholder line if nothing is being financed. Then they take it to an office within fifteen days.
AND or OR. Arizona prints a Legal Status on the face of the title and it decides who has to sign. OR means either owner can sign alone. AND and AND/OR both mean every living owner has to sign to sell.
The three words are not interchangeable and the difference only shows up later. With OR, ADOT's own note is that in the event of the death of either party, only the surviving owner can transfer the vehicle, and a death certificate is not needed. With AND, the deceased owner's share has to go through probate or a Non-Probate Affidavit. With AND/OR the survivor may sign alone on proof of death. Check which word is printed before you promise a buyer anything.
Under the Transfer of Ownership block, the certificate carries three DEALER REASSIGNMENT panels, each with its own odometer window and its own signature lines. They look like spare transfer blocks and they are not. ADOT's instruction sits beside them in its own manual: private parties cannot reassign the title to a new owner. Writing in one is an alteration on a document whose last line reads Void If Altered Or Erased.
Arizona Department of Transportation, 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 application the buyer signs, and a ten-day notice that is the only thing standing between you and the next parking ticket.
Arizona lienholders hold titles electronically and release them the same way, so the paper lien release is the exception rather than the rule.
A wrong name, a wrong date, a wrong buyer, or no ownership document at all. Four different forms, and picking the wrong one restarts the transaction.
Two powers of attorney with almost the same name, and only one of them may be used when a private buyer needs to disclose your mileage.
One affidavit replaces probate for an estate under $200,000, and one form written before the death makes even that unnecessary.
A missing VIN plate, a rebuilt wreck, or a car worth less than the paperwork — Arizona has a separate route for each.
The plate leaves with you, and the affidavit you may end up signing is the one that says you destroyed it.
ADOT puts it as a note on the selling page rather than as a form instruction: make sure you remove the license plate before the new owner takes possession of the vehicle. The Sold Notice repeats it — the license plate must be removed from the vehicle and kept in your possession — and A.R.S. 28-2356(A) makes it the law, because the owner shall retain those license plates when the owner transfers the vehicle to another person.
After that there are thirty days and three ways out. A.R.S. 28-2058(A)(1)(c) gives the seller that long to transfer the plate to another vehicle, surrender it to the department or an authorized third party, or submit an affidavit of license plate destruction. Form 48-3302 is that affidavit, and it is also how a plate is released to somebody else.
The buyer does not get stranded by this. Their registration is a separate transaction they complete at the same counter as the title, and ADOT issues temporary permission to drive in the meantime — the buying page says a new vehicle's registration expires when ownership transfers and points the buyer at a permit.
The unused portion of what you paid does not evaporate either. A.R.S. 28-2356(B) lets the owner claim a credit for the unexpired part of the vehicle license tax and the other registration fees, provided the owner agrees to allow the department to deduct a twelve dollar processing fee from the amount of the credit. ADOT adds the sting: the amount is based on how much time remains on the date you apply, and this cannot be backdated.
Arizona's release of liability is called a Sold Notice and it is free. Form 46-8502 states the deadline in its own first paragraph: when you sell your vehicle, transfer ownership, or end your lease, the following information must be completed within 10 days. Most people never see the form, because AZ MVD Now files it online in about a minute.
What it buys is spelled out on the form itself — this notice is your protection from liability for tickets, accidents, etc., that occur after the sale. ADOT's Sold Notice page lists the four things it is protecting you from: a vehicle used for criminal activity, involved in an accident, ticketed for violations, or abandoned, which carries a $500 fee or higher. Skip it and, in the department's words, MVD records may still show you as the owner.
A Sold Notice is not a cancellation. Deal with the registration separately.
Filing the notice tells MVD who has the car; it does not end the registration or refund anything. That is the registration credit, and requesting it is what ends the registration — ADOT warns that once you request a credit, the vehicle will no longer be registered. Do both in the same sitting on AZ MVD Now, take the plate off the car first, and only then tell the insurer the vehicle is gone. ADOT MVD, Vehicle Registration Credit or Refund.
Register at an MVD office or an Authorized Third Party provider within 15 days of the purchase. There is no sales tax on this. The Arizona Department of Revenue's own answer to a private-party buyer is that casual sales between private parties are not taxable, and it tells the buyer to bring a copy of the bill of sale or any documentation that shows you purchased the vehicle from a private party. What the buyer does pay is small and mostly not a tax on the price: $4 for the certificate of title, $8 to register a car, $1.50 for the air quality fee on a one-year registration, and then vehicle license tax, which is assessed on a depreciating share of the manufacturer's base retail price rather than on what they paid you.
What they need to bring:
Arizona tests in two places only. ADOT's emissions page says testing is required in the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas, including if you commute into these areas, and hands the programme to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality rather than running it itself. Nothing about an overdue test stops you selling a car.
Results reach MVD electronically, so a buyer who tests before the counter visit does not need to carry a certificate. ADOT MVD, Emissions Testing.
Arizona Department of Transportation, 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 Arizona and the rest of the guides.