Missouri asks a private seller for three things and gives you a month to do the third. Fill in the assignment on the back of the title and sign it - no notary, whatever you have been told - take the plates off before the buyer drives away, and file a Notice of Sale within thirty days. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Missouri Department of Revenue's own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a Missouri titleThe assignment block on the back of a Missouri certificate, transcribed from the Department's own picture of one.Open the walkthrough →A Missouri title gives you a mileage line and exactly two tick boxes beside it: MILEAGE IN EXCESS OF ITS MECHANICAL LIMITS and MILEAGE READING IS NOT ACTUAL (WARNING-ODOMETER DISCREPANCY). There is no third box marked exempt. On an exempt vehicle you leave the mileage line empty - which is why an empty mileage line on a 2019 car reads as an unfinished assignment rather than as a claim, and comes straight back.
The age test is printed in the Department's own title instructions and it splits at the 2011 model year. A vehicle of model year 2010 or older that is also at least ten years old at the moment of transfer needs no reading. From the 2011 model year on, the wait is twenty years - so a 2011 stays in disclosure until 2031 and a 2016 until 2036. Above that sits a weight test that catches people with pickups: anything rated over 16,000 pounds gross is exempt, and the Department adds in its titling manual that pick-up trucks and vans are not.
Model year 2010 or older, and ten years old or more at the sale: Exempt. Leave the mileage line blank and tick nothing.
Model year 2011 or newer: A reading is required until the vehicle turns twenty. Whole miles, and the line beside the box says NO TENTHS.
Rated over 16,000 lb gross vehicle weight: Exempt on weight alone, whatever the year - but a pickup or a van is not exempt by being a pickup or a van.
A five-digit odometer that has gone past 99,999: Write the five digits actually showing and tick the mechanical limits box. The Department's example is an odometer reading 24,000 where the true figure is 124,000.
Missouri Department of Revenue, Instructions for Completing the Title Assignment
You, the seller: Fill in the assignment on the back of the certificate - purchaser's name and address, date of sale, sale price, net price, model, the odometer reading - then sign it and hand print your name beside the signature. Every owner named on the front of the title signs, and each signature has to match the name printed on the face. No notary is involved and none is wanted.
The buyer: Signs and hand prints in the purchaser column of the same assignment, then takes the title, your inspection certificate and a Form 108 to a Missouri license office within thirty days. Only one purchaser has to sign; all sellers do.
Missouri wants a hand printed name as well as a signature, from every seller. The Department's instruction is unambiguous on both halves: all sellers listed on the face of the title must sign the title assignment exactly the same as the names appear on the face of the title, and all sellers listed on the face of the title must print their name on the title assignment in the same way. A signature on its own is half of what the block asks for, and a printed name in one owner's hand for two owners is not two printed names.
Where the title is in a business name, the entity's full name goes down first and then the agent's printed name and position - the Department's own worked example is John Smith's Auto Sales, Gary Brown, Salesman.
This is the fact most often got wrong about Missouri, and the Department settles it in a sentence on its selling page: all sellers and purchasers must print their names and sign the back of the title in the assignment area, and these signatures do not need to be notarized. Its published picture of the reverse of a Missouri certificate bears that out - there is no acknowledgement block anywhere on the assignment side. You and the buyer sign it across a kitchen table.
Missouri Department of Revenue, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
A sale, a signature with a printed name beside it, an inspection certificate you hand over, and a notice you owe the Department within thirty days.
Missouri notarises the lien release even though it does not notarise the title, and a lender holding the paper title is a different problem again.
A date that cannot be right, and a penalty the buyer has already run into. Both are fixed with a form rather than a new title.
Two powers of attorney, one you can download and one the Department will not let you print.
A widow or minor children taking a car out of a small estate, and a trust that has to prove its trustees before it can sign.
An odometer nobody can vouch for, an identification number that has stopped being readable, and a car that is worth less than the paperwork.
The plates left with you the moment possession changed. This is what to do about the tax and the registration you have already paid for.
RSMo 301.140.1 sets the moment precisely: upon the transfer of ownership of any motor vehicle or trailer, the certificate of registration and the right to use the number plates shall expire and the number plates shall be removed by the owner at the time of the transfer of possession. The Department repeats it for sellers in plainer words - before the purchaser takes possession of the vehicle, remove your license plates, whether they are valid or expired.
Three things you can do with them afterwards. Put them on your next vehicle and pay a two dollar transfer fee, which is the usual answer where the new car is no bigger than the old one. Surrender them and take credit for the unused part of the registration against a future plate. Or keep them in a drawer, since the number stays assigned to you and the same subsection makes it unlawful for anyone else to be in possession of them at all.
What you cannot do is leave them on so the buyer can get home, and the Department states the consequence as a flat rule of its own: when there is a complete change of ownership, the seller's license plates cannot be transferred to or used by the purchaser. The buyer's lawful way home is a thirty-day temporary permit, which costs five dollars plus a nine dollar processing fee at a license office and can be bought on your Notice of Sale as proof of purchase.
The same is true of a gift. The Department's gifting instructions tell the new owner they cannot use or transfer the license plates that were on the vehicle at the time it was gifted.
Missouri is one of the states where the seller has a filing of their own. Since 1 January 2006, the transferor of an interest in a motor vehicle or trailer listed on the face of a Missouri title has had to notify the department of revenue of the transfer within thirty days of the date of transfer. Three documents satisfy it: the Notice of Sale on Form 5049, the tear-off Notice of Sale that comes attached to the bottom of the title itself, or a Bill of Sale on Form 1957.
What it buys you is the reason to file it the same afternoon. The Department notes the pending purchaser against the vehicle record, so an enquiry about who owns the car now returns their name beside yours instead of yours alone. If no title application arrives, the Department writes to the buyer: if the vehicle purchaser does not apply for a title within 60 days of purchase, the Department will notify the purchaser of their titling obligation and the amount of taxes, penalties, and fees that are due. Skip it and RSMo 301.198 makes you guilty of an infraction, with a fine of up to $200 - and up to $300 as a class C misdemeanor where the point of not filing was to help the buyer dodge the title.
The notice is not a release of ownership, and the Department says so.
RSMo 301.196.5 is blunt about what the filing is worth: notification is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an assignment or release of any interest in the vehicle. You remain the last titled owner of record until the buyer applies. That is an argument for doing both halves properly rather than for skipping either - file the notice, and keep your own photograph of the completed assignment with the buyer's name, address, the date of sale and the mileage on it. Several kinds of transfer are outside the requirement altogether: a salvage title or junking certificate, a sale to a dealer, a sale to an out-of-state purchaser, a repossession, a transfer to a trust or a transfer-on-death beneficiary, and a vehicle going to an insurer on a total loss. Missouri Department of Revenue, Notice of Sale FAQs.
RSMo 301.140, plates removed on transfer or sale of vehicles
Register at a Missouri license office within 30 days of the purchase. Sales tax is the buyer's and it is collected at the license office, not by you: 4.225 percent to the state plus the buyer's own local rate, charged on the purchase price less any trade-in allowance. The figure it is charged on is the one you wrote on the assignment, which is why the Department asks for a net price on the Notice of Sale as well. The title fee is $8.50 and the license office adds a $9 processing fee to the title application. Register at the same visit and there is a separate processing fee for the registration, plus the plate fee itself, which in Missouri is set by taxable horsepower rather than by value.
What they need to bring:
This is the item that catches people who have sold a car elsewhere. In most states an inspection is the buyer's errand; in Missouri the Department lists it among the things you must provide to the vehicle buyer, alongside the assigned title and any lien release. A certificate of inspection and approval is valid for sixty days from the date of inspection, so it is arranged near the sale rather than dug out of a drawer - and the same paragraph carries the emissions test for the four jurisdictions that need one.
Sixty days from the date of inspection, or ninety where a Missouri dealer sold the car and had the inspection done within sixty days before the purchase date. Missouri Department of Revenue, safety inspections.
Missouri Department of Revenue · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in Missouri and the rest of the guides.