Maine asks a seller for less than almost any state and hides the catch somewhere unexpected. There is one block on the back of the certificate to fill in and nothing at all to file afterwards - but first check the model year, because Maine stops titling a car once it is twenty-five, and if yours is over that line there is no title to sign and the job is a bill of sale instead. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles' own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a Maine titleThe ASSIGNMENT OF OWNERSHIP block on the reverse, from the Bureau's own SAMPLE certificate, filled in line by line.Open the walkthrough →Read section 752-A and count what it exempts. Two things: a vehicle that is not self-propelled, and a vehicle, beginning with model year 2011, that is 20 years old or older. There is no clause in it for a 2004 or a 1998, which sends people to the conclusion that an old Maine car needs a mileage figure forever. It does not - section 752 hooks the whole disclosure to the federal Truth in Mileage Act and 49 CFR part 580, and that is where the older ten-year exemption lives. Maine simply stopped restating the federal half in its own words.
So the practical answer today is the same either way, which is worth knowing before somebody argues about it on your driveway. Anything of model year 2010 or earlier passed its tenth year no later than 2020 and is exempt under the federal rule. Anything of model year 2011 or later has to carry a reading, and will until 1 January 2031 at the earliest. Whichever side of that you are on, the figure goes on in whole miles - the certificate prints NO TENTHS beside the blank, and the statute says the same thing in the same breath.
Model year 2011 or later: A reading is required, and will be for years. A 2011 does not reach twenty until 1 January 2031, and a 2018 not until 2038. This is every car being sold privately in Maine today.
Model year 2010 or earlier: Exempt federally, ten years after 1 January of the model year - so all of them, by now. Maine's own section does not cover them and the Bureau publishes nothing that does, which is why this page attributes the exemption to the federal rule rather than to Augusta.
Anything not self-propelled: Exempt outright under Maine's own section 752-A, whatever its age. A trailer heavy enough to need a title still needs no mileage on it.
Model year 2000 or earlier, on 24 August 2026: A different question entirely. These are past Maine's twenty-five-year line, so there is no certificate of title to write a reading on - the sale runs on the registration and a bill of sale, and the Bureau's own bill of sale carries an odometer statement anyway.
You, the seller: Turn the certificate over. The top third of the reverse is one block headed ASSIGNMENT OF OWNERSHIP and everything you do is inside it: the buyer's name, their address and zip, the date of sale, the odometer reading, your signature with your name hand printed beside it, your own address, and the lienholder line - which on a car you own outright reads NONE.
The buyer: The buyer signs the last line of the same block, under a printed warning telling them not to sign until every section above has been completed and signed. Their signature is an acknowledgement of your mileage statement, not a receipt.
Nothing about a Maine sale is sworn. Section 662 asks the owner to execute an assignment and warranty of title at the time of delivery, with the odometer information in it, and asks for nothing on oath. There is no notary panel in the assignment block. The only notary printed anywhere on the reverse of a Maine title sits in the third block down, under the words LIENHOLDER SECTION ONLY, where a repossessing lender swears an affidavit.
Five Maine forms do carry a notary block and none of them is a sale: the surviving spouse's affidavit, the antique warranty-title affidavit, the lender's repossession affidavit, and the two plate forms - cancelling a plate and switching one back on both have to be sworn, which surprises people far more than the title does.
Maine titles a rolling twenty-five model years and nothing older. The Bureau states it as a moving line: as of 1 January 2026, model year 2001 or newer must have a title, and on 1 January 2027 that becomes 2002 or newer. Its own MVT-8 prints the same schedule from the other end, listing which model years become title exempt on which date. If your car is on the far side of that line there is no certificate to sign, none can be issued, and the sale runs on the registration certificate and a bill of sale - which is not a workaround, it is the system.
Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
One block on the back of the certificate, a bill of sale the Bureau publishes a form for, and an application the buyer has to fetch on paper because it does not exist as a download.
Maine records the lien on the face of the certificate and discharges it there too, so most sellers with a loan meet no form at all. These four are the exceptions - a release on a separate sheet, a release sent in bulk by post, a consent where the owner has died, and a repossession.
Lost, destroyed, illegible, or never issued because nobody could prove ownership. A duplicate is $33 and a bond is one and a half times what Augusta thinks the car is worth.
Neither of these is a form you would expect to sign. Both are what a Maine seller runs into when the sale comes apart weeks later and somebody else starts filing paperwork about the car.
One notarised affidavit, and which box you tick on it depends on whether probate has appointed anybody. A surviving spouse pays no title fee at all.
Salvage, rebuilt, repaired and scrapped. Two of these three are signed by somebody else - the repairer who put the vehicle back together, and the recycler who took it away.
The registration ended itself when the car sold. The plates did not - they are State property, and two sworn forms switch a plate off and back on again. The third is the document an untitled Maine car is sold on.
Two clauses of section 463 settle it. The registration expires when the owner transfers or assigns title or interest in the vehicle - so from the moment the buyer pays, the plates on that car are backing nothing. And registration plates issued by the Secretary of State continue to be the property of the State, which is a sentence most sellers have never read. They are lent to you, not sold.
What you do with them depends on what you are doing next. Buying another vehicle in the same registration year? The registrant may request that the plates and the registration number be assigned to another vehicle, and the transfer fee is $8 as long as the registration fee for the new one is no higher. Not replacing the car? If you have no intention to renew or transfer within six months, the statute tells you to remove the plates and forward them, along with the registration certificate, to the Secretary of State.
The buyer gets their own. They pay the municipal excise tax at their own town office first, and the town either issues the registration over the counter or hands them an excise receipt to take to a BMV branch. Nothing of yours transfers to them, and a buyer who expects to drive away on your plates has been told wrong.
One exception is worth knowing because it is the only plate a Maine seller genuinely owns. Section 463 subsection 1-A carves out a general issue plate of a design no longer issued by the Secretary of State and makes it the property of the person it was issued to. If the pair on your car is a style Maine stopped issuing years ago, those are yours and they stay on the shelf rather than going in the envelope to Augusta.
Maine publishes no notice of sale and no release-of-liability form. Look through the Bureau's title forms and there is no analogue of one, because the statute did the job differently: section 662 says a transfer is not effective until its own provisions have been fulfilled and the fees paid, and then, in the next sentence, that an owner who has delivered possession of the vehicle and has complied with this section is not liable thereafter as owner for damages resulting from operation of the vehicle. Your protection is the assignment itself, correctly executed. Not a form, and not the buyer's diligence.
Which puts the weight on doing the assignment properly rather than on getting a receipt afterwards. Photograph both faces of the certificate before it leaves your hand - the mileage you disclosed, the date you disclosed it on and the name you wrote in are all on that one sheet, and once you have handed it over you have no copy of any of them. Then take the plates off before the car moves.
Do not cancel the policy on the assumption the registration ended itself.
The registration does expire on transfer, but the plates are still in your hand and the record still shows them issued to you until you either move them onto another vehicle or send them back. Deal with the plates first - transfer them and the $8, or post them to Augusta with the registration certificate - and only then tell the insurer the car has gone. Maine also gives you something for doing it promptly: the registration fee you already paid can be credited against the next vehicle, in full for the first eight months of the registration year and up to half after that. 29-A M.R.S. section 502, transfer and return of registration.
Register at their own town office first, then a BMV branch if the town does not issue registrations before the 30-day penalty in section 603 bites. The buyer pays 5.5% use tax on the purchase price, and pays it to the Secretary of State as a prerequisite to registering the car - Maine Revenue Services collects it through a Use Tax Certificate handed over at the counter, not through you. One exemption matters to a Maine seller more than any other: a buyer who is not a Maine resident and drives or transports the vehicle out of the State immediately on delivery pays no Maine tax at all, though it follows them back if the car returns inside twelve months. The title fee is $33 for a change of ownership and another $10 if they want it expedited. The excise tax is separate, is municipal, is based on the maker's list price and the vehicle's age, and is paid at their own town office before anything else can happen. Registration is charged on top of that and varies by plate type.
What they need to bring:
Nothing in Maine requires a private seller to hand over a fresh sticker, and no Bureau page written for a private sale mentions one. The duty attaches to the vehicle being registered: section 1751 says a motor vehicle required to be registered in this State must have an annual inspection, and it is whoever is running the car who has to satisfy it. The sixty-day sticker rule people quote at each other is a different thing entirely - the Bureau calls it the warranty of inspectability and it binds a licensed dealer, not you. Its own Used Car Buyer’s Guide opens by saying the guide covers purchases from a licensed dealer and does not apply to a private sale.
The statute also caps what a station may charge: not more than $12.50 for an ordinary annual inspection, $15.50 for an enhanced inspection of a pre-1996 vehicle and $18.50 for one of a 1996 or later vehicle - payable whether the vehicle passes or not. 29-A M.R.S. section 1751, motor vehicle inspection.
Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles · figures and rules as of 2026-08-24. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in Maine and the rest of the guides.