The single application behind every Illinois title and plate transaction - title and plates, plates only, title only, transfer only, duplicate, corrected, salvage, junking. The buyer files it with your assigned certificate, the $165 title fee and a tax return. It is also the one document in this whole set that you cannot download, and that surprises almost everybody.
Written against VSD 190 (Counter-issued, not published online), issued under 625 ILCS 5/3-104. Do not go looking for this form as a PDF. It is not on the Secretary of State's Publications and Forms List, which runs to 586 documents, and the obvious file address returns a 404. Print one through the ERT system, collect one at a facility, or ring 800-252-8980 and have one posted.
There is no download link for the VSD 190 here because there is not one anywhere - the Secretary of State does not publish it. The card below explains where it does come from.
There is no completed sample of the VSD 190 on this page because the Secretary of State does not publish the form at all. It is generated for a named applicant by the Electronic Registration and Title system or handed over at a counter, which is why the office's instruction is always to complete and print an application rather than to download one - and why nothing here could show you a filled-in copy without inventing the layout of a document we have not been given. What the walkthrough below can do is tell you every answer to have ready before one is put in front of you.
| On the form | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| The transaction boxes at the top | Which job the application is doing. An ordinary private purchase where the buyer wants to drive the car is title and registration; title and transfer if they are moving plates they already own onto it; title only if it will not be driven. |
| Vehicle information | Year, make, body type and the vehicle identification number, copied from the certificate you assigned rather than off the dash - though the Secretary of State asks the buyer to check that the two agree, and to check both against the number on the dash or door. |
| Odometer reading and its box | The current reading, with the appropriate box ticked. On a duplicate or corrected application the office asks for it on any vehicle nine years old and newer, and warns that the application will be returned if it is not provided. |
| Owner name, address and identification | Legibly typed or printed, with a driver's licence number or FEIN. If the applicant is a Jr. or a Sr., the office asks for it both at the top of the application and in the signature area. |
| Previous plate details, where plates are moving | Both the new and the old vehicle have to appear on the application, and the most recent registration identification card goes in with it. |
| The temporary registration permit number | If a TRP was issued, its number has to be written on the application. A TRP runs 90 days and only a Secretary of State facility can reissue one. |
| Signatures | Every owner. Two names on the back of the title means two signatures here, and the office answers that question with a bare yes. |
Every line here was read off VSD 190 (Counter-issued, not published online) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Illinois Secretary of State 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 Illinois seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Illinois involves.