Idaho hands the seller two things nobody warns you about: the plates, which were never the car's, and a five-day clock that starts the moment the buyer drives off. Everything else in this state is a county counter and a $14 fee. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Idaho Transportation Department, Division of Motor Vehicles' own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out an Idaho titleThe seller's section, the purchaser's section and the tear-off strip at the bottom that is your release of liability - with the one price you must not round.Open the walkthrough →Most states restate the mileage rule as a single model year and quietly go out of date. Idaho did not. Section 49-502(2) of the code carries both halves of the federal test at once, including the date the band moves, so the sentence that governs your sale in 2026 is the same sentence that will govern it in 2031 - it just means something different by then. The trap here is the opposite of the usual one: a seller reads ITD's shorter web wording, decides 2010 is a permanent cut-off, and in five years' time leaves a 2011 undisclosed when the rule has already moved past it.
The statutory words are that the exemption reaches a vehicle 'that has a 2010 or older model year or has a model year at least twenty (20) years old when transferred after January 1, 2031, or is over sixteen thousand (16,000) pounds gross vehicle weight or has no odometer device'. ITD's own shorthand on the Vehicle Titles page asks for an 'Odometer Disclosure for vehicles newer than 2010, weighing under 16,000 lbs.'
Model year 2010 or older, sold today: Exempt. Idaho asks for no mileage disclosure at all, and this is also the band that unlocks the duplicate-with-transfer route on ITD 3369.
Model year 2011 or newer, sold today: Not exempt. The reading goes on the certificate of title itself, in whole miles - not on a separate statement, and never through a power of attorney.
Any vehicle transferred after 1 January 2031: The band moves to twenty model years, so a 2011 finally ages out on that date and nothing older than it needs disclosing after that.
Over 16,000 lb gross vehicle weight, or no odometer device fitted: Exempt whatever the year. Trailers and campers fall here, which is why they can travel on ITD 3369 at any age.
Idaho Transportation Department, Division of Motor Vehicles, odometer disclosure
You, the seller: Fill in the seller's section on the certificate of title, write the buyer's full legal name and the true selling price into the purchaser's section, add the date, and sign on the seller's signature line. Hand the certificate and a bill of sale over once the money is in your hands - that is the Surviving Spouse Guide's order of operations, and it is the plainest sentence ITD publishes about how a private sale is signed.
The buyer: The buyer takes the certificate to a county assessor's motor vehicle office, where a deputy prepares the title application for them to sign. They have thirty calendar days from delivery, and the $20 late penalty is theirs, not yours.
There is no notary in an ordinary Idaho sale, and that is worth saying out loud because half the internet assumes otherwise. Nothing you sign when you hand a car over is acknowledged before anybody. Not the assignment on the title, not the bill of sale, not the release of liability. All 24 forms in this section were searched for the word notarised, and it appears on five of them - ITD 3367, ITD 3369, ITD 3371, the power of attorney at ITD 3368, and ITD 3405, which mentions it only to point at a notarised ITD 3369. Every one of those five mentions is about replacing a title that has gone missing.
Even there Idaho offers a way round it. The Title and Registration FAQs put it plainly: complete a duplicate application through the post and the signature must be notarised, but 'if you complete the form at the county's office, a county deputy can witness your signature in lieu of notarization'. A trip to the counter costs less than a notary.
Most states discourage an open title. Idaho makes it an offence twice over in the same sentence. Section 49-519(6) makes it unlawful 'to sign as assignor, or for any person to have in his possession a salvage certificate or certificate of title which has been signed by the owner as assignor, without the name of the assignee and other information required on the form prescribed by the department.' Signing with the transferee blank is the first half. Whoever is then carrying that certificate around commits the second half simply by holding it.
Idaho Transportation Department, Division of Motor Vehicles, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
Three documents and a five-day clock: your signature on the certificate, a bill of sale that doubles as the buyer's driving permit, and the notice that takes your name off the record.
Idaho keeps most financed titles as data rather than paper, so the first question is whether a certificate physically exists yet.
Lost, mutilated, illegible, wrong, or belonging to somebody who cannot be found. This is the one corner of Idaho paperwork where a notary appears.
Signing through somebody else, or handing the whole job to a licensed dealer and taking a cut of the sale.
Two affidavits, and which one you use turns on whether there was a will and how big the estate is.
A total loss you kept, and the identity checks that follow a vehicle nobody can vouch for.
The plates and the registration card are both yours. This is what to do with them when there is no next car.
Section 49-431(1) of the Idaho Code decides this before anybody's opinion does: when the owner transfers or assigns his title or interest, 'the registration card and license plate shall remain with and in the possession of the transferor'. ITD says the same thing in its own voice on the tip sheet - the licence plates you display on your vehicle are yours to keep, so when you sell or transfer a vehicle, take the plates off - and prints a reminder on the release-of-liability form itself: remove your vehicle license plates upon sale or transfer.
Then move them. Putting your plate on the next car you buy costs a $5.00 transfer fee under 49-431(1)(a), and the remaining time on the registration goes with it, which is ITD's stated reason for keeping them in the first place. If there is no next car, ITD 3438 cancels the plate, the registration, or both - and it will let you keep the number while cancelling the registration, or keep the registration time while surrendering the number.
One kind of plate goes the other way. The black-and-white Restricted Use plate on an all-terrain vehicle, a utility type vehicle or an off-road motorcycle stays with the machine rather than the seller - the tip sheet's asterisk and the FAQs both carve it out by name, and the Surviving Spouse Guide tells the family to leave those particular plates on for the new owner.
Two 2026 statutes have changed what a plate is in this state. House Bill 533 ended registration stickers from 1 July 2026, so there is nothing to peel off a plate you are keeping, and House Bill 577 ended the ten-year replacement cycle, so a legible plate now lasts as long as it lasts. Replacing a damaged one costs $11.80 at base. And watch the clock on the number itself: a personalised combination goes back into the pool if the registration lapses even for one day, and an ordinary plate's text becomes available to somebody else after sixty days expired.
Section 49-526(1) requires a separate release-of-liability statement from the owner on every sale, forwarded to the department 'within five (5) days of delivery of the motor vehicle to a dealer, purchaser or other transferee', with the vehicle identification number, vehicle description, name of seller, name and address of buyer, date of sale, odometer reading and sales price on it. Five days, counted from delivery - not from the handshake, not from when the cheque clears.
What it buys you is written into the next subsection. A former owner who files 'shall not be liable under section 49-2417, Idaho Code, nor shall the former owner be liable for any motor vehicle infractions, towing, storage, repair or service charges that may occur subsequent to delivery'. Skip it and you are still the owner of record while the buyer takes their thirty days, and ITD's own tip sheet lists what has arrived in that gap for other people: property damage, injury or death from hit and runs, accrued parking tickets, towing, repair and storage charges.
Idaho Transportation Department, Division of Motor Vehicles, private party registration
Register at a county assessor's motor vehicle office - there are 44 of them and each sets its own admin fee - within 30 days of the purchase. Six per cent sales or use tax on the price you actually agreed, collected from the buyer by the county when they apply for the title. Idaho allows no trade-in credit at all in a private sale, and where two people swap cars the Tax Commission taxes each of them on the full value of what they received. The state's title fee is $14.00. The county adds its own title admin fee on top, which ITD publishes county by county: six counties charge nothing and the total stays $14.00, Ada charges $7.00 for a total of $21.00, and Blaine is the highest at $18.75 for a total of $32.75. A rush title printed ahead of the queue adds $26.00.
What they need to bring:
The Treasure Valley programmes are gone. The Department of Environmental Quality's own account is that 'in 2022, the Idaho Legislature passed a law to repeal the state requirement for vehicle I/M programs (e.g., emissions testing), effective July 1, 2023. In 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the removal in Ada County.' There is nothing to book, nothing to pass, and nothing a buyer in Boise or Nampa can ask you for. DEQ's page is here.
A VIN inspection costs $5.00 under 49-202(2)(k) and can be done by a city, county or state peace officer, a DMV employee, a military police officer or an Idaho licensed dealer. It is not an ownership document and ITD 3403 says so on its face. Idaho DEQ, Vehicle Emissions.
Idaho Transportation Department, Division of Motor Vehicles · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in Idaho and the rest of the guides.