A short form for one narrow job: releasing your rights to a plate number so that somebody else can carry it. Not a transfer of registration and not a sale - the form releases the number itself, and it lists exactly three people it can be released to.
Written against BMV 4729 (1/23), issued under Ohio Revised Code 4503.12.
Nine sellers in ten do not need this form at all. It matters if you have a reserved or personalised number and you want to keep it in the family after the car it lived on is gone.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank BMV 4729 from the dam.assets.ohio.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.
This is the actual BMV 4729, rendered from the PDF the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles 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
The actual BMV 4729 - the shortest form in the Ohio set and the one with the narrowest job. The second owner block is greyed because this plate is held in one name.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
Who is releasing
Your name in the first blank of the printed sentence.
Watch out: The name has to match the registration record the plate sits on. This is a release of your rights, so the rights have to be yours.
2
You fill this in
The plate number
The number being released, in the second blank.
Watch out: The number, not the registration. Everything else about the registration stays where it is until somebody files a transfer.
3
You fill this in
Which of the three
Spouse, leasing company, or spouse's leasing company - indicated as applicable.
Watch out: The list is the whole permission. If the person you have in mind is not one of the three, this form does not do what you want.
4
You fill this in
Sign and date
The current plate owner's printed name, signature and date.
Watch out: Read the forfeiture note above it first: an unexpired initial or personalised plate loses its remaining registration on release, and the money is not refundable unless it qualifies as a legal transfer.
5
You fill this in
The additional plate owner
A second printed name, signature and date, where the plate is held in two names.
Watch out: Both owners release, or neither does. A single signature on a jointly held plate is the reason this form comes back.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
The release sentence
Please accept this as documentation that I ______ am releasing my rights to plate number ______ to ______.
To whom
Three ticks: Spouse, Leasing Company, or Spouse's Leasing Company.
The forfeiture note
If the initial or personalised special plate being released is not expired, all of the remaining registration will be forfeited, and it is not refundable unless it qualifies for a legal transfer.
Current plate owner
The name the plate is registered in, a signature line and a date.
Additional plate owner
A second printed name, signature and date, for a plate held in two names.
What gets this one rejected
•Releasing to somebody who is not on the list. Spouse, leasing company, spouse's leasing company - the form gives no fourth option, and a friend or an adult child is not one of them.
•Using it to hand a plate to the buyer of your car. That is not what a release is, and Ohio law requires the plates to come off the vehicle rather than change hands with it.
•One signature on a plate held in two names. There is a second signature block precisely because both owners have to release it.
•Expecting the unused registration to follow the number. Where the plate has not expired the note warns that the remaining registration is forfeited and is not refundable unless the case qualifies as a legal transfer.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•A special plate is what this is usually about. R.C. 4503.12 lets a person transfer special licence plates to another vehicle they or their spouse own or lease, on application accompanied by a written statement releasing the special plates to the applicant. This is that written statement.
•It moves a number, not a registration. The registration itself is transferred on BMV 4809 by the person who ends up holding the plate.
Every line here was read off BMV 4729 (1/23) itself —
the PDF is here — and off the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles pages.
This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ,
theirs governs.
