Rhode Island asks a seller for two things and neither of them is a form: write out the assignment on the back of the certificate, then switch off the registration, because in this state the plate was issued to you rather than to the car and the excise bill follows the registration. The complication is older cars. Rhode Island did not title anything built before the 2001 model year until the law changed on 1 January 2024, so plenty of what is for sale in a Cranston driveway has never had a certificate at all. Here is the whole thing, taken from the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles' own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a Rhode Island titleThe back of the certificate, drawn from the statute that says what has to be on it - and what to do when your car is old enough that there isn't one.Open the walkthrough →Look at the odometer block on any Rhode Island form and count the choices under the sentence. There are two: mileage is in excess of its mechanical limits, and odometer reading is NOT the actual mileage, WARNING - ODOMETER DISCREPANCY. There is no exempt tick anywhere - not on the TR-2/TR-9, not on the TR-1, not on the DMV's own bill of sale, not on the Sole Heir Affidavit. Sellers of very old cars reach for the first box as shorthand for the number being meaningless, and it does not mean that. It means the dial has gone round past its own maximum and started again, which is a factual claim about a specific car, and the second box brands the record for good.
The state requirement carries no age limit whatever. Section 31-23.2-6(b) makes it unlawful to transfer ownership of a motor vehicle previously registered in this state unless the mileage is entered on a form prescribed by the Department of Revenue, signed by both seller and buyer, with a statement that both parties have viewed the odometer - and the section attaches no year, no mileage ceiling and no exemption. So the only exemption that exists in Rhode Island is the federal one, and it is federal rather than something the DMV publishes.
Model year 2010 or earlier: Federally exempt once the sale happens ten years or more after 1 January of the model year - a 2010 became exempt in 2020. Rhode Island still gives you nowhere to record that, so in practice the number gets written anyway, and writing it is the safer of the two.
Model year 2011 or later: Not exempt for twenty years under the same federal section. A 2011 reaches that on 1 January 2031, which is beyond anything changing hands privately today.
Rated above 16,000 lb gross vehicle weight, and anything without its own engine: Exempt at any age. The weight exemption and the trailer exemption in the federal section do not wait for a birthday to arrive.
You, the seller: Turn the certificate over. Section 31-3.1-12(a) tells you when as well as what: at the time of the delivery of the vehicle, execute an assignment and warranty of title to the transferee in the space provided for it on the certificate. The DMV's own plainest description of that space is on its Surviving Spouse page, where a widow signing a car over to herself is told to print and sign her name in both the buyer and seller areas on the back of the title and to include the vehicle's current mileage reading. Buyer area, seller area, mileage - that is the block.
The buyer: The buyer signs their side of the same block, then takes the certificate to a DMV branch with a TR-1, a Rhode Island insurance policy in their own name, the gross vehicle weight off the door jamb, your bill of sale and a T-334, and pays 7% tax plus $53.50 for the title and the registration fee for whatever plate they are taking.
No notary signs an ordinary Rhode Island sale. Section 31-3.1-12 asks for an assignment and a warranty of title and never uses the word oath. The DMV's list of what a private-party buyer must bring says only that the seller must sign the back of the title. Its bill of sale runs to two signature rows and an odometer disclosure with no notary block printed on it anywhere.
Five Rhode Island documents do need one, and not one of them is a sale: the duplicate-title half of the TR-2/TR-9, the Sole Heir Affidavit, the gift letter for a non-immediate family member, the Division of Taxation's Affidavit of Gift, and the Limited Power of Attorney. A sixth arises only if somebody cannot attend, because the TR-1 says the owner's signature must be notarized if not present during the transaction. And if you do end up in front of a Rhode Island notary, watch what they do with the seal: the DMV will not take an embossed impression, only ink.
Section 31-3.1-38 draws a line at the 2001 model year: all vehicles designated as model years prior to 2001 shall not be required to be issued a title certificate. For fifty years that was the end of it, and a 1997 pickup changed hands on a registration and a bill of sale. The General Assembly amended the section in 2023 and from 1 January 2024 the exemption runs only until ownership is transferred - so an old car that has never been titled now gets a title when it is sold, and the DMV puts it in capitals: ALL USED VEHICLES, regardless of model year will now be issued a Rhode Island Certificate of Title upon payment of Sales Tax and/or Registration.
Rhode Island Division 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 DMV publishes itself, and a registration of yours that has already expired whether you have noticed or not.
Rhode Island is moving its lien records onto an electronic system, so the first job is often getting a piece of paper out of a lender that no longer prints one - and the DMV will not ask on your behalf.
Lost, mistyped, or never issued in the first place because the car is older than the 2001 line. Three different routes and a notary on one of them.
Signing when you cannot be in the room, on a power of attorney that needs a notary, two photo identifications and expires after thirty days.
One affidavit sworn by the sole heir replaces the whole assignment block, and a surviving spouse inherits the car by statute without probate.
Total loss, retained wreck and unrecovered theft. Two of the forms here are the insurer's rather than yours, and knowing which is which saves a wasted trip to Cranston.
The part of a Rhode Island sale nobody warns you about: the plate is yours, the registration is still running, and the town is still billing you for it.
Section 31-4-1 needs no interpreting: whenever the owner of a registered vehicle transfers or assigns his or her title or interest in ownership, the registration of the vehicle shall expire. Not on notification, not when the buyer gets round to the DMV - on transfer. From that moment the plate on the car is a plate with nothing behind it, so it comes off before the car leaves.
Then cancel. The DMV's online cancellation takes a few minutes and sends a confirmation email it tells you to keep as proof for tax purposes. If you would rather use paper, the Affidavit for Cancellation of Registration goes in a branch drop box or by certified mail to the Plate Office with the plates and a photocopy of your photo identification or of the registration - and the DMV is blunt about what happens without that photocopy: plates returned without this documentation will not be cancelled.
The buyer gets nothing from you here. They register in their own name at a branch and take their own plates, and no arrangement between the two of you changes that, because moving a plate from one person to another for money is expressly prohibited by the DMV's own regulation on plate transfers.
Do not post the plates back after an online cancellation. The DMV says please do not return cancelled plates to any DMV or AAA Branch, and that once cancelled online they may be destroyed and discarded. There is one thing worth doing with the metal instead: if you are buying another car, section 31-4-10 lets you bolt the same plates straight onto it and drive for thirty days from the date of transfer while the paperwork catches up.
Rhode Island publishes no notice of sale and no release-of-liability form. The statutory instruction is to send the registration card back: section 31-4-2 says the owner shall endorse the name and address of the transferee and the date of transfer upon the reverse side of the registration card and shall immediately forward the card to the division. In practice the DMV has replaced that with the online cancellation, which produces the confirmation email it asks you to keep, or with Form TR-3, the cancellation receipt it posts back if you enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope with the affidavit.
What actually ends your exposure is section 31-3.1-12(e), and it is worth reading twice: an owner who has delivered possession of the vehicle to the transferee and has complied with the provisions of this section is not liable as owner for any subsequent damages resulting from operation of the vehicle. Your protection comes from executing the assignment properly and handing the car over - not from the buyer turning up in Cranston. Cancelling the registration protects something different and just as expensive, which is your excise bill.
Cancel the registration first. Cancel the policy second.
Rhode Island wires the two together through the Motor Vehicle Reparations Act: every registered vehicle has to carry financial security for the whole life of the registration, and the DMV runs an Insurance Verification Program that watches for gaps. Drop the policy while the registration is still live and you have created exactly the gap it is looking for. Cancel the registration, keep the confirmation, then tell the insurer - and keep the confirmation for the town as well, because the excise bill is raised by the city or town the vehicle was registered or garaged in and the DMV warns that a town sometimes fails to take a sold car off its own records. Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles, registration cancellation.
Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles, private party registration
Register at a Rhode Island DMV branch within 30 days of the purchase. 7%, and which figure it is charged on depends on how old the car is. Seven years old or less, the buyer pays 7% of the NADA Clean Retail book value or the sale price, whichever is greater. Between eight and twenty-nine years old, 7% of the sale price, provided the vehicle is not on the Division of Taxation's Cars of Particular Interest list. Thirty years and older it goes back to book value or purchase price, whichever is higher. It falls due on the 20th of the month after the sale even if the car has not been registered. The title is $53.50 and it is $53.50 whatever is being done to it. Registration is charged separately and is worked out from the vehicle's weight, prorated to the plate's expiry date, plus $3.50 and a $20.00 per year Department of Transportation surcharge. A newly registered used car also needs a valid Rhode Island inspection sticker on it or a passed safety and emissions test within five days.
What they need to bring:
Rhode Island runs one safety and emissions test on a two-year cycle for everything up to 8,500 pounds, and there is no zone map and no county to check - the programme is state-wide. None of it is a seller's duty. There is no certificate to hand over and no test to book before you list the car. But unlike most states the sticker already on your windscreen does the buyer real good, because the DMV's requirement is written as an either/or: a newly registered used vehicle must have a valid Rhode Island inspection certificate or pass a test within five days of registration. An in-date sticker is the difference between the buyer driving home and the buyer hunting for a station before the week is out.
The test costs $55.00 for a car of 8,500 pounds or less and covers 24 months; the annual safety inspections for heavier vehicles, motorcycles and trailers are $15.00 and $11.00. RI DMV, Vehicle Inspection Requirements.
Rhode Island Division 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 Rhode Island and the rest of the guides.