The part of an Illinois sale that is yours takes about a minute: the block on the back of the certificate, and a one-page report posted to Springfield. What surprises people is everything around it — an application nobody can download, a tax return belonging to a second agency, and a set of plates that legally cannot go with the car. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Illinois Secretary of State's own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out an Illinois titleThe Assignment of Title on the back of the certificate, block by block, plus the odometer statement Illinois prints word for word in its own statute.Open the walkthrough →Two boxes sit under the mileage line on an Illinois title, not three. There is no box marked exempt. If your car is old enough that no disclosure is required, you do not tick anything to say so - you simply are not required to make the statement, and the two boxes that are printed are both admissions about the reading rather than escapes from it.
Section 3-112.1(d) of the Illinois Vehicle Code lists what falls outside the requirement, and the age test is written with a date in it: a vehicle that, before January 1, 2031, is model year 2010 or older, or after January 1, 2031, is 20 years old or older. So a 2010 stops needing a reading now and a 2011 does not stop until 2031, which is the same shape as the federal rule but you can read it in Illinois's own words. A 2017 wagon sold this summer is a long way inside the requirement.
Model year 2010 or older, sold before 1 January 2031: Outside the requirement. Nothing to write and nothing to tick.
Model year 2011 or newer: Inside it. Write the reading in whole miles and leave both boxes alone unless one is true.
Any motorcycle, motor driven cycle, moped or antique vehicle: Outside it, at any age. Illinois excludes them by name in subsection (f), which the federal rule does not.
Over 16,000 lb gross vehicle weight rating, or not self-propelled: Outside it, at any age.
You, the seller: Sign and print your name in the Assignment of Title on the back of the certificate, write the odometer reading and the date of sale there, and fill in the buyer's printed name and address. Then complete VSD 703 and post it to Springfield. Illinois does not notarise the title.
The buyer: The buyer signs the assignment to acknowledge your odometer statement, then files an Application for Vehicle Transaction(s) - VSD 190 - with the $165 title fee and a RUT-50 within twenty days.
The title is not notarised. Four of the forms behind it are. Asked directly whether an Illinois title has to be notarised, the Secretary of State answers with one word: no. That covers the assignment on the back of the certificate, which is the only signature most private sellers ever give.
It does not cover the paperwork you reach for when something has gone wrong. VSD 895 Statement of Ownership, VSD 694 Natural Disaster Disclosure, RT OPR 31 Small Estate Affidavit and RT OPR 23 Security Bond all carry a notary block on their face, and a notary who has already gone home is the commonest reason one of them arrives at Springfield incomplete.
The Secretary of State describes its own certificate rather than showing it. More than three million are computer-generated a year, printed on water marked security paper that the office calls extremely difficult to counterfeit, with a security thread set in the same place on every certificate and a Lincoln figure in the lower right-hand bottom corner printed in thermochromic ink - the kind that changes colour under a thumb. Secure paper and lamination strips arrived in June 1978, and the office says altered and counterfeit Illinois titles have fallen since.
Illinois Secretary of State, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
The certificate signed on the back, an application the buyer cannot download, a tax return that goes to one agency and is paid to another, and the one-page report that ends your part in it.
Illinois publishes no lien release. What it does publish is the form a repair shop uses to take a title away from you, which is worth reading before you leave a car anywhere for long.
A title that never arrived, a title with the wrong thing written on it, a car bought years ago with nothing to prove it, and the surety bond of last resort.
One page of power of attorney, and the two blanks on it that decide whether it works.
Illinois lets a vehicle skip probate two different ways, and lets an owner name a beneficiary on the face of the title before any of it happens.
Flood and storm damage, an insurer that has paid out and cannot get the title, and the notification that has to go in when a car is scrapped.
The plates come off. These are the two forms that decide where they go next.
The Secretary of State states the principle and then draws the consequence in the same breath: in Illinois, license plates belong to an owner, not the vehicle, therefore you cannot transfer ownership of license plates when you sell a car or transfer a title, and you can only transfer license plates to another vehicle you own. Take them off before the buyer drives away.
Moving them to your next car is a transaction with a price on it. Transfer only is $25; if the next car also needs a title from the state it is $190 for the pair, which the fee page itemises as the $165 title fee and the $25 transfer fee. Send the most recent registration identification card in with the application - or, if you cannot find it, VSD 76 in its place.
There is one narrow way a plate leaves your household legally, and it is not a sale. VSD 707 moves a registration to another person, and the form limits that to immediate family, listing them: a spouse, father, mother, children, brothers, sisters and grandchildren; the father, mother, brothers and sisters of a spouse; and the spouse of a child, brother or sister. A buyer is on none of those lists.
If two names were on the old registration and only one will be on the next car, the other has to let go of the plates in writing. That is VSD 393 with statement 1 ticked, and the Secretary of State asks for the plate number on it.
Post VSD 703, the Seller's Report of Sale, to the Vehicle Services Department in Springfield. The form gives no number of days - it says to complete it immediately - and it is a single sheet asking for the date of sale, the year, make and VIN, and the names and addresses of both of you.
The form explains what it does and, unusually, what it does not do. Completing it releases your responsibility for the vehicle. It does not transfer ownership: the form says so in a boxed note, because Illinois law requires the vehicle owner to complete and sign the Assignment of Title section on the Certificate of Title to the buyer, and the buyer must then apply for a new title. Filing one and skipping the other leaves the car registered to you with a report on file saying it should not be.
The buyer's clock is twenty days, and it is written into the statute rather than onto a form.
Section 3-112 of the Illinois Vehicle Code gives the buyer twenty days: the transferee shall, promptly and within 20 days after delivery to him of the vehicle and the assigned title, execute the application for a new certificate of title. Nothing on VSD 703 tells you that, and nothing tells the buyer either - it is worth saying out loud at the kerb, because until they file, the record still carries your name. 625 ILCS 5/3-112, Illinois General Assembly.
Register at a Secretary of State facility within 20 days of the purchase. Illinois charges Private Party Vehicle Use Tax and the buyer owes it, on Form RUT-50 - a Department of Revenue return that is handed in at a Secretary of State counter. The title itself is $165. Moving a plate the buyer already owns onto the car adds $25; a fresh set of passenger plates is $151.
What they need to bring:
Nothing in the Illinois emissions programme sits between you and a buyer. The Illinois EPA runs the test, the test month coincides with the expiration date of the vehicle license plate, and enforcement happens at renewal: the agency describes partnering with the Illinois Secretary of State's Office to deny vehicle license plate registrations to non-complying vehicles. A title transfer is not the trigger. Testing is free.
Which side of the line a ZIP code falls is set by 625 ILCS 5/13C-5, which names the excluded ZIP codes one by one. Illinois EPA, Vehicle Emissions Testing Program.
Illinois Secretary of State · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in Illinois and the rest of the guides.