One page, eleven blanks, and the only document in an Illinois sale that exists for the seller's benefit rather than the buyer's. It tells the Vehicle Services Department that the car has gone, which is what releases your responsibility for it. It does not move ownership, and the form takes the trouble to say so.
Written against VSD 703 (VSD 703.3, February 2026), issued under 625 ILCS 5/3-112.
This is the form Illinois sellers most often never hear about, because no Secretary of State page is addressed to a seller. It sits in the Electronic Registration and Title system's list of additional documents, between an odometer statement and a small estate affidavit, and nothing on the site tells you it is yours.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank VSD 703 from the ilsos.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
This is the actual VSD 703, rendered from the PDF the Illinois Secretary of State publishes and completed end to end: letterhead, every field, and the blocks at the foot.
Amber — you write it
Grey — not yours to fill
Numbered — explained below
The actual VSD 703, filled in for one private sale. Note the two dates: Date of Sale at the top and Executed on at the foot. They happen to be the same day here because the report was posted the afternoon the car left, which is what the form asks for - it says complete this form immediately.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
Date of Sale
The day the buyer took the car.
Watch out: Not the day of the advert, not the day the deposit cleared. The day it left.
2
You fill this in
Vehicle Year and Vehicle Make
Two short boxes sharing a line.
Watch out: There is no model box. Writing Outback after Subaru pushes the make out of its own field and gains you nothing.
3
You fill this in
Vehicle Identification Number
Seventeen characters, off the certificate.
Watch out: This is what the department matches the record on. A transposed digit files your report against somebody else's car.
4
You fill this in
Name and Address of Seller
Your name on one rule, then a street line and a city, state and ZIP line.
Watch out: Use the address the department already has for you. If you have just moved, that is a separate form - VSD 165 - and worth doing at the same time.
5
You fill this in
Name and Address of Buyer
The buyer's name, then a single line for city, state and ZIP.
Watch out: Get this off something with their address printed on it while they are standing there. Afterwards is too late, and a report naming nobody findable protects nobody.
6
You fill this in
Executed on, signature and printed name
The date you are signing, your signature, and your name printed underneath it.
Watch out: The line above reads that you certify under penalties of perjury that the information is true and correct. Then post it to the Record Inquiry Division in Springfield - not to a facility.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
Date of Sale
The day the car changed hands. First blank on the sheet, and the one the rest of it is anchored to.
Vehicle Year and Vehicle Make
Two boxes on one line. There is no room for the model and none is asked for.
Vehicle Identification Number (VIN)
Copied from the certificate you have just assigned, not from the dash.
Name of Seller
You, as the certificate has you.
Address of Seller
A two-line block: street, then city, state and ZIP on the rule beneath.
Name of Buyer
Whoever you wrote into the assignment.
Address of Buyer
One line, labelled city, state and ZIP - so it is a shorter answer than your own address block asks for.
Executed on
A second date, and it is not the date of sale. This is the day you sign the report.
Signature of Seller and Printed Name of Seller
Both. The buyer does not sign this form and has no part in it.
What gets this one rejected
•Treating it as the transfer. The note on the form is unambiguous: completing this form does not meet the legal requirements for transferring ownership, and Illinois law still requires the owner to complete and sign the Assignment of Title section on the Certificate of Title to the buyer.
•Waiting. The instruction is to complete it immediately and mail it - there is no grace period written on the form because there is no period written on it at all.
•Sending it to a facility. This one goes to the Record Inquiry Division at 501 S. Second St. in Springfield, which is a different address from the title application.
•Filling in the buyer's details from memory. The whole value of the report is that the department can see who has it now.
•Signing without dating the executed-on line. There are two dates on this sheet and they are not the same date.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•It releases responsibility, not ownership. The two sentences at the top of the form do different jobs. The first says completing it will release your responsibility for the vehicle. The second says it does not meet the legal requirements for transferring ownership. Both are true at once, which is exactly why sellers get caught: the report is what protects you, and the assignment is what actually moves the car.
•Under penalties of perjury. The certification above the signature is that the information is true and correct according to U.S. laws. It is a sworn statement about a transaction, on a form that takes thirty seconds.
Every line here was read off VSD 703 (VSD 703.3, February 2026) 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.
