Thirteen boxes establishing what a vehicle is worth, signed by somebody with a licence number rather than by you. It is what the bond route is built on, and it is also what settles an argument about value when a title has to be issued without ordinary proof.
Written against VSD 896 (VSD 896.2, April 2026), issued under 625 ILCS 5/3-109.
Note whose form this is. You commission it; an appraiser completes and signs it. Turning up at a bonding company with a value you worked out from a classified listing is not the same document.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank VSD 896 from the ilsos.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
This is the actual VSD 896, 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
Completed the way an appraiser completes it, because a private owner never signs this one. Everything below the vehicle identification number - licence number, firm name, signature, printed name and address - belongs to the person doing the appraising, and the licence number is the box that makes the rest of it mean anything.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
The vehicle verifier fills this in
The wholesale value
One box at the top, before anything identifies the vehicle.
Watch out: Wholesale, not retail, and not what you hope to sell it for. The department is being told what the trade would give.
2
The vehicle verifier fills this in
Intact, or not
First box: intact with all major component parts present and installed. Second box: an incomplete, salvage or junk vehicle, circling which.
Watch out: One or the other, and the second one is not finished until one of the three words is circled.
3
The vehicle verifier fills this in
Year, Make, Model
Three boxes with their labels printed underneath the rules.
Watch out: Model here means the model name. There is no separate body type box on this form, unlike most of the Illinois set.
4
The vehicle verifier fills this in
Vehicle Identification Number
The full VIN on its own line.
Watch out: The appraisal attaches to a VIN. If it does not match the bond and the application, it establishes the value of a different car.
5
The vehicle verifier fills this in
Licence number and date of appraisal
The appraiser's own licence number, and the date they looked at it.
Watch out: The licence number is the whole point of the form. An unlicensed valuation on this sheet is worth exactly nothing to the department.
6
The vehicle verifier fills this in
Firm, signature, printed name and address
Four boxes closing the sheet, all the appraiser's.
Watch out: The affirmation above them is that the appraisal value is accurate to the best of my knowledge under the penalties of perjury - which is a heavier sentence than most people expect on a valuation.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
The wholesale value
One full-width box at the head of the sheet: the undersigned affirms that the wholesale value of the vehicle described below is ______.
Two condition boxes
The vehicle is intact and all major component parts are present and installed; or the appraisal applies to an - circle one - incomplete, salvage or junk vehicle.
Year, Make, Model
Three boxes across a row, each labelled underneath.
Vehicle Identification Number
One long box on its own line.
License Number and Date of Appraisal
The appraiser's licence number and the day the appraisal was made, side by side.
Firm Name
The business the appraiser works for.
Signature and Printed Name of Appraiser, and Address
Three more boxes, all the appraiser's.
What gets this one rejected
•Filling it in yourself. Every signature box on this sheet belongs to the appraiser, and the licence number box is what makes it an appraisal rather than an opinion.
•Wholesale value written as retail. The word on the form is wholesale and it is the value that matters to the department.
•Not circling one of the three on the second condition box. Incomplete, salvage and junk are different answers with different consequences.
•An appraisal date long before the application. Value moves.
•Leaving the firm name blank on an appraisal by a sole trader - the box still wants an answer.
Every line here was read off VSD 896 (VSD 896.2, April 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.
