Everything a Mississippi seller writes is in the assignment on the certificate's reverse, and the Department of Revenue publishes no picture of either face of its title. So this page draws the assignment as a labelled diagram - every printed phrase on it transcribed from a named Department document - and pairs it with the Department's own form that reprints the same transfer: the 78-033, shown genuinely filled in.
Your 8 boxes
As a private seller you complete these and nothing else:
There is no blank Mississippi certificate to download, and no picture of one either - the Department publishes neither face of its own title. It is secure stock, printed in Clinton after a designated agent submits the application, and the published processing time is six weeks for a standard title against 72 hours for a Fast Track one.
Never accept or deliver a title that is incomplete or improperly assigned. Do not leave the buyer's name blank to complete later - this is a violation of Mississippi law. Printed in bold on the Department's own titles page.
The Department publishes no numbered field guide for its certificate. The order below follows its own transfer instruction - assignment first, mileage certification inside it, signatures last - with each block's wording sourced from the form or FAQ answer that reproduces it.
The half you fill in
The assignment on the back of a Mississippi title, drawn as a map
The Department of Revenue publishes no specimen of its certificate - not in its dealer booklet, its dealer licence packet, its records-disclosure packet, or the Administrative Code - so this is a diagram, and says so across its top. It maps what the seller completes rather than reproducing a layout nobody publishes: each block's printed wording is transcribed from the Department document named beside it, chiefly the 78-015 odometer statement and the 78-033 authorization that exist to restate this assignment when the certificate cannot carry it.
Amber — you write it, in pen
Grey — not yours to fill
Numbered — the same digits the walkthrough below uses
Marked DIAGRAM because that is what it is: the Department publishes no picture of either face of its title, so the arrangement here is ours and only the words are theirs. Every printed phrase is transcribed from the 78-015, the 78-033, the 78-008's list of what goes wrong in this block, or the Department's own FAQ - which names the Purchaser's name field, and warns that a buyer name left blank is a violation of Mississippi law.
The Department's own restatement, filled in
The 78-033 carries the same transfer on one page - here it is, completed
When a Mississippi assignment cannot be signed on the certificate itself, the Department's cure is the 78-033, Authorization for Title Assignment and Mileage Disclosure: the seller authorises Motor Vehicle Services to assign the title, the buyer authorises it to sign where their signature is required, and both certify the same mileage statement the certificate carries. That makes it the closest thing the state publishes to a picture of the assignment - the same parties, the same certification, the same signature lanes - and this one is filled in for the sample sale used across every Mississippi page here.
The actual 78-033, Rev(10/17), from dor.ms.gov. Note what the layout admits: seller and buyer each authorise the Department separately, against the same title number, and the mileage section between them is word-for-word the certification a Mississippi seller signs on the certificate - I state that the odometer now reads (no tenths) miles, with the same two numbered exceptions.
Step by step
Every box, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
Read the front before you touch the back
Nothing to write yet. Check three things on the face: the names and the conjunction between them, any lienholder not yet released, and any brand - the Department prints Salvage, Rebuilt, Flood damaged and Hail damaged on the front of the title.
Watch out: A lien on the face has to be released - on the face by the lienholder, or electronically - before the assignment means anything. And the FAQ tells buyers to check the title for these brands and ask the seller about any present brand during the assignment of title, so expect the question.
2
You fill this in
Purchaser's name
The buyer's full legal name, in your handwriting - the Department's name-change FAQ calls this the Purchaser's name field, and its transfer instruction makes everything except the buyer's own two lines the seller's to complete.
Watch out: Write it before the certificate leaves your hand. The titles page is blunt about the alternative: do not leave the buyer's name blank to complete later - this is a violation of Mississippi law.
3
You fill this in
Purchaser's address
The buyer's address, from their driver's licence rather than from memory.
Watch out: Their county is riding on this line - a Mississippi vehicle registers in the county where it is domiciled or parked overnight, and that county's millage sets their ad valorem bill.
4
You fill this in
The mileage certification
The odometer reading in whole miles - the certification wording is the 78-015's: I state that the odometer now reads (no tenths) miles, and to the best of my knowledge it reflects the actual mileage unless one of the statements is checked.
Watch out: This figure gets copied onto the buyer's application at the counter, and if the two ever disagree, the cure is the 78-023 - a notarised affidavit from every owner since the discrepancy occurred, at $9.00 for the corrected title.
5
You fill this in
The two exception statements
Statement 1: the reading reflects mileage in excess of the odometer's mechanical limits. Statement 2: the reading is not the actual mileage - printed with WARNING - ODOMETER DISCREPANCY.
Watch out: Checking neither is itself the certification that the number is true. Statement 2 is permanent paint: it follows the vehicle through every later title, so it is not a favour to tick over a flickering cluster.
6
You fill this in
Date of sale
The day the vehicle actually changes hands. The 78-008 confirms a purchase date lives in this block by refusing to correct one - a wrong date means replacement documents, not a strikeover.
Watch out: The buyer's 30 business days to register run from the purchase date, so backdating to be kind shortens their window and invites the late-registration penalty ladder - 5% after the grace, climbing to 25%.
7
You fill this in
Your signature
Sign in the name the front of the certificate uses. Two owners joined by AND both sign; OR lets either; nobody signs in front of a notary.
Watch out: Make it clean the first time. A strikeover in a signature is one of the 78-008's named reasons - Seller signed their name incorrectly - and that cure is a sworn, notarised affidavit attached to the buyer's application.
8
You fill this in
Your printed name
Printed beside or under the signature, matching the face of the certificate exactly.
Watch out: The 78-033's lanes show how the Department reads this: signature and printed name are separate entries for each party, and its own forms ask for both every time.
9
The buyer fills this in
Buyer's printed name and signature
The two lines the instruction reserves for the buyer: they print their name and sign it, acknowledging the mileage you certified above.
Watch out: This is the only part of the assignment that is theirs, and it must match the name going on the application at the counter - the counter copy is their driving permit until the title arrives, so a mismatch stalls them, not you.
10
Dealers only
The dealer reassignment sections
Below the owner's assignment sit reassignment sections for licence holders. The salvage regulation names the first one - the First Reassignment by Licensed Dealer section on the back of the title - and assigns it to insurance companies transferring totalled vehicles.
Watch out: A private seller writes nothing here at any price. The 78-008's strikeover list includes Assignment placed in dealer assignment in error, which tells you exactly how often people find this out afterwards - and the cure is a sworn affidavit.
Before the pen
Six habits for a Mississippi assignment
Six habits for the assignment, and the first exists because the Department will refuse a corrected strikeover without a sworn affidavit behind it.
No strikeovers, no correction fluid
A strikeover in the assignment needs a sworn 78-008 naming its cause, and anything blocked out by erasure or correction fluid is past saving - the form itself says replacement documents must be obtained.
Write the buyer's name in before the title leaves your hand
An assignment with the purchaser blank is an open title, and the Department calls delivering one a violation of Mississippi law in bold on its own titles page.
Read the mileage off the dashboard, not the listing
The number you certify is copied onto the application at the counter, and unwinding a wrong one takes a notarised affidavit from every owner since the error.
Photocopy the signed certificate, both faces
The Department's own after-sale instruction: always make a copy of the front and back of the signed title and keep it with your records. It is the evidence behind every later dispute about tolls, tickets and dates.
Take the tag off before the buyer drives away
It cannot go with the car and it cannot go on your next one - it goes to the county, and it is earning registration credit only from the day it lands on the counter.
Related buyer? Bring the relationship in writing
Spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild or sibling sales dodge the 5% casual sales tax, but the titles page expects an Affidavit of Relationship completed to prove it.
The ink rule is Motor Vehicle Services' own: “Never accept or deliver a title that is incomplete or improperly assigned. Do not leave the buyer's name blank to complete later - this is a violation of Mississippi law.”
— Mississippi DOR, Motor Vehicle Titles - Transferring a Title.
Check your source
Three Mississippi rules that get repeated backwards
Three things Mississippi sellers repeat to each other with complete confidence. Each has the Department's own words under it, saying otherwise.
"Keep your tag when you sell - it goes on your next truck."
That is the rule in Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas, and it is not the rule here. The Department's answer has no wiggle in it: no, you cannot transfer your old license plate to a new vehicle. In Mississippi, the tag is registered to both the vehicle and the owner - change either and the old tag must be removed and surrendered to your county Tax Collector's office. What survives the surrender is value, not metal: the unused portion of the registration becomes a credit, usable in any Mississippi county, calculated from the day the tag is turned in.
"It's a private sale between family - there's no tax on that."
Mississippi taxes casual sales of motor vehicles, full stop - 5% of the net purchase price, collected from the buyer at the Tax Collector's counter - and being related is not by itself an exit. The Department's answer opens yes and no: casual sales of motor vehicles are taxable, even if the vehicle was sold or given to you by a relative. The exempt list is exactly spouses, parent and child, grandparent and grandchild, plus siblings since July 1, 2019. Its next sentence closes the loopholes people assume: sales or transfers between cousins, aunts, uncles or in-laws are taxable.
"Once the title's signed, the car is off my name - the rest is the buyer's paperwork."
The signed title starts the transfer; it does not end your record. The buyer has 30 business days to register, drives meanwhile on the duplicate copy of a title application, and nothing in that timetable clears you. The Department's removal recipe is physical: remove the plate, surrender it, and once the license plate is surrendered, your ownership record is no longer current with the state. Its toll FAQ shows the stakes - a seller disputing someone else's toll bill wins by showing the plate was not left on the vehicle when it was sold.
Six answers to who signs, and the third turns entirely on the conjunction printed between two names:
The seller, on every section
The Department's split is explicit: the seller must complete all sections on the title assignment except for the buyer's printed name and signature. The pen stays in your hand for the vehicle, the mileage, the date and your own name.
The buyer, twice and no more
Their printed name and their signature - the two lines the instruction reserves to them - and then their real signing happens at the counter, on the application the designated agent prepares.
A surviving co-owner, depending on one word
Names joined by OR: the survivor's signature alone moves the car. Joined by AND: the survivor needs a court-endorsed probated will. AND/OR: the survivor signs with the death certificate attached. The Department's FAQ states all three.
An attorney-in-fact, only with the sworn page attached
A 78-003 lets someone sell, transfer and assign in your name - notarised, stapled to the certificate, and dead the moment the owner dies.
Nobody in front of a notary
The transfer instruction contains no notary step. Mississippi saves its notaries for the documents around the sale - powers of attorney, heirship, corrections, ownership affidavits.
Not you, in the reassignment sections
The dealer reassignment spaces below the owner's assignment belong to licence holders - and to insurance companies, which the salvage regulation directs to use the First Reassignment by Licensed Dealer section on the back of the title.
Once it is signed
Signing is the front half of a Mississippi sale. The back half is the tag: off the bumper at handover, onto the Tax Collector's counter soon after, because the surrendered plate is what ends your record - and it is quietly turning into registration credit while it does.
