The form that gets your personalised plate off a car you are selling and onto the next one - or into storage, or back to the DMV. Ordinary California plates stay with the car; these do not, and this is the only way to move them.
Written against REG 17 (Rev 2/2025), issued under California Vehicle Code 5060 and 5106. Take the plate off before the buyer takes the car, not after. Once the vehicle is out of your hands, retrieving a plate from a stranger is a conversation nobody enjoys.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank REG 17 from the dmv.ca.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
| On the form | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| The four boxes at the top | Original, Replacement, Reassign/Retain/Release, or Exchange. A seller wants the third one, and the form tells you which sections it needs: 1, 4, 5 and 6. |
| Section 1, licence plate selection | Which programme the plate belongs to. Relevant to a seller only in that it has to match the plate you already hold. |
| Section 4, reassign, retain or release | The three things you can do with the plate when the car goes. Reassign puts it on another vehicle you own now. Retain holds it for a future vehicle. Release surrenders it to the DMV. |
| Section 5 | Vehicle and owner details for whichever of those three you picked. |
| Section 6 | Signature. |
Every line here was read off REG 17 (Rev 2/2025) itself — the PDF is here — and off the California Department of Motor Vehicles pages. This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.
Back to all California seller paperwork, or what selling a car in California involves.