Signing a New York title takes about ninety seconds once you know which boxes matter. Getting one of them wrong sends the buyer back to a New York motor vehicle office and the car back to your driveway. Here is the whole thing, taken from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles's own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a New York titleThe reverse of a New York certificate, filled in box by box - and the ordering rule that decides whether the sale costs you anything.Open the walkthrough →The back of the certificate gives you three boxes and no guidance: ACTUAL MILEAGE, EXCEEDS MECHANICAL LIMITS, or NOT THE ACTUAL MILEAGE. There is no fourth box marked exempt anywhere on a New York title, and the printed paragraph above them says flatly that federal and state law require you to state the mileage. The exemption is real, but you will not find it on the document in your hand.
The DMV puts it this way on its own title page: a vehicle built in model year 2011 or later needs the disclosure until it is more than twenty model years old, and a vehicle built in 2010 or earlier does not need one at all. That second half is New York simply reading forward from 49 CFR 580.17 - everything from 2010 back is already past its ten-year line - which is why the wording on dmv.ny.gov looks blunter than the regulation it comes from.
Built in model year 2010 or earlier: No odometer disclosure required. Leave the reading box on the back of the certificate empty rather than guessing at a figure.
Built in 2011 or later and 20 model years old or newer: Disclosure required. Write the reading in whole miles and tick one of the three certifications.
Built in 2011 or later and older than 20 model years: No longer required. Model year 2011 reaches that line in 2031, 2015 in 2035.
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, odometer disclosure
You, the seller: Complete the Transfer by Owner block on the reverse of the certificate - your signature, your printed name, your address and the date - and sign an MV-912 bill of sale as well. The DMV asks for both, and it asks for the bill of sale even when the car is a gift.
The buyer: The buyer signs the same block underneath yours, signs the MV-912, and then has thirty days to apply for a title. That deadline is printed on the certificate itself, in the note above the signature grid.
Nothing here needs a notary, and four things nearby do. An ordinary New York private sale is notary-free. There is no jurat on the certificate, none on the MV-912 and none on the MV-82 the buyer files. What does need swearing is anything about a dead owner or an absent one - the MV-349, the MV-349.1, the secure power of attorney and the insurer's salvage waiver all carry a notary block.
That matters mostly for timing. A seller who assumes New York works like the states that notarise everything books an appointment they never needed; a seller settling a parent's car and assuming the reverse turns up at the counter with an unsworn affidavit and goes home again.
The reverse of a New York certificate opens with a line in capitals before it opens with anything else: ANY CHANGE OR ERASURE WILL VOID THIS TITLE -- ANY FALSE STATEMENT IS A MISDEMEANOR. The DMV repeats it in its own words - it will not accept titles with cross-outs, alterations or erasures of any kind, and if you change or correct any information, including signatures or addresses, the title will not be valid. There is no initialling your way out of it.
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
A certificate signed on the back, a bill of sale both of you sign, and the tax form the buyer cannot register without.
New York lets you sell with the loan still recorded - and the release, when it comes, is a document you have probably never seen.
A certificate that is lost, that carries somebody else's name, or that New York was never going to issue in the first place.
Selling for an owner who is away in military service, and the secure power of attorney the DMV will not let you download.
Two affidavits, one threshold of $25,000, and the question of whether there was a surviving spouse decides which one you use.
Cars that failed the 75 per cent test, and cars going for parts with no certificate at all.
Take them off before you shake hands, hand them back to Albany, and claim what is left of the registration.
The DMV's instruction is sequential and it is worth reading in that order: before you complete the sale, take your license plates off the vehicle and remove your registration sticker from the windshield. Not after the handshake. Before the certificate is signed, because the moment you sign the Seller's Signature line the vehicle belongs to somebody else.
Then one of two things has to happen to them. Either you move them to another vehicle you own, or - in the DMV's words - you turn them in at a DMV office as soon as possible. Surrender is a real transaction with a real form, the PD-7, and it produces a receipt called an FS-6T that you keep. Plates posted to Albany count as surrendered on the postmark date.
Leaving them on the car is the mistake New York punishes hardest, and the DMV says why in one sentence: if you do not properly dispose of the plates and sticker, you may be charged with traffic or parking violations that do not belong to you. The registration record still has your name against that plate.
There is a second, larger reason, and it has nothing to do with parking tickets. New York ties your registration to your insurance, and the ordering rule is absolute: before you cancel the vehicle's liability insurance coverage you must surrender your plates and registration. Get that backwards and the state starts counting days.
You cannot, and that is not an oversight on this page. There is nothing to file: New York publishes no notice of sale, no release of liability and no seller's report of transfer - the search that turns up a form in almost every other state turns up nothing here, because no such form exists. What ends your exposure is physical: the plates leave the car and go back to the DMV, and you keep the bill of sale.
The DMV states the substitute plainly on its insurance-lapse page. To prevent a problem when you sell a vehicle, remove the vehicle plates and the windshield registration sticker; surrender the vehicle plates to the DMV or immediately transfer them to another vehicle. And if a letter arrives anyway, the answer is documentary - bring the letter and proof that you sold the vehicle to a local DMV office, where proof of sale means a bill of sale carrying the date, both names and addresses, and the year, make and VIN.
Surrender the plates before you cancel the insurance, not after.
This is the one that costs New York sellers money. The DMV will suspend your registration and can suspend your driver license, and a lapse of 90 days or fewer can be bought off at $8 a day for the first 30, $10 a day for days 31 to 60 and $12 a day for days 61 to 90 - so a month of daylight between cancelling the policy and posting the plates is a $240 bill. Past 90 days there is no buying it off at all: the registration is suspended, your driver license is suspended for the same number of days, and reinstating it costs a $50 licence suspension termination fee. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, registration cancellation.
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, private party registration
Register at a New York motor vehicle office within 30 days of the purchase. Sales tax is the buyer's, collected by the DMV at the counter when they register - but the form is joint, and your half of it is real. Both parties complete the DTF-802 Statement of Transaction, and the seller's certification is Section 6 on page two. The title certificate fee is $50.00, and no title is handed over the counter: state law makes the DMV post it, which the department says can take several weeks.
What they need to bring:
New York inspects annually - all vehicles registered in New York State must get a safety inspection once a year - and the sticker does not travel with the sale: an inspection issued to the previous registrant is not valid for the new one. What the DMV does instead is hand the buyer a 10-day inspection extension sticker at the counter, and the vehicle has to be inspected before that runs out. Nothing about this stops you selling, and there is no pre-sale test a New York private seller has to arrange.
The extension is ten days from the date of registration, and an inspection in the previous owner's name does not carry across. NYS DMV, register and title a vehicle.
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles · figures and rules as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with paperwork, not legal advice.
See also: selling a car in New York and the rest of the guides.