Six lines on a single sheet, and the whole point of it is printed in bold at the foot: the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles is unable to request a title from a lienholder or leasing company on behalf of a customer. If a lender or a leasing company is holding your certificate, nobody at the DMV will chase it. You send this to them, and they send the title either to you or to the Research and Title Office in Cranston.
Written against Title Request (Rev 02/03/2025), issued under R.I. Gen. Laws § 31-3.1-12(c) and § 31-3.1-22.
Send this the week you decide to sell, not the week you find a buyer. Nothing on the sheet commits the lender to a turnaround time, the DMV will not intervene, and a buyer standing in your driveway with cash is the worst moment to discover that a credit union posts certificates fortnightly.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank Title Request from the dmv.ri.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our Title Request guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual Title Request, rendered from the PDF the Rhode Island Division 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
Five boxes and a sentence in bold at the bottom that is the reason the form exists. You send this to the lender, not to the DMV - and the DMV's address printed at the top is one of the two places the lender can post the certificate to, not where this request goes.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
You fill this in
Decide where the title should be sent
The heading offers two destinations: to you, or to the RI DMV Research/Title Office at 600 New London Avenue, Cranston.
Watch out: If you are selling the car privately, you want it sent to you - the certificate has to be assigned on the back in front of your buyer. Sent to Cranston it is processed into a new Rhode Island title and posted to the lienholder.
2
You fill this in
First name, and last name or company name
Two rules for the customer's own name, with the second taking a company name where a business holds the lease.
Watch out: Use the name the lender has on the loan, which is not always the name on the registration if you have married or moved since.
3
You fill this in
Phone and email
Two contact rules under the name.
Watch out: The sheet says a DMV representative will contact the customer upon receipt of the title. That call goes to whatever is written here, so give a number somebody answers.
4
You fill this in
VIN number
The vehicle identification number, seventeen characters.
Watch out: It is the only description of the car on the entire sheet. Copy it from the registration and check it against the plate in the windscreen.
5
You fill this in
Loan account number
The lender's own reference for the loan or lease.
Watch out: This is the field that actually finds your file. A request with a name and a VIN but no account number goes to the bottom of somebody's pile.
6
You fill this in
Attach the rest and send it to the lender
The note asks you to attach this completed form with all title documentation.
Watch out: Post it and diarise a chase for ten days later. The DMV has told you in bold that it will not do this for you, so nobody else is watching the clock.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
First name
The customer's, not the lender's.
Last name or company name
One rule that takes either, because a leased vehicle is often registered to a business.
Phone
A contact number. The sheet says a RI DMV representative will contact the customer upon receipt of the title, and this is how.
Email
A second contact route on the rule below the phone number.
VIN number
The vehicle identification number - the only thing on the sheet that identifies the car.
Loan account #
The lender's own reference for the loan or the lease, which is what lets them find the certificate.
What gets this one rejected
•Sending it to the DMV. This form goes to your lienholder or leasing company; the DMV is the address the title may be posted to, not the recipient of the request.
•A blank loan account number. It is the only reference the lender can search on, and a name and a VIN will not always be enough.
•A part-completed sheet. The instruction is to please fill out form completely.
•Sending it without the rest of the packet. The note asks you to attach this completed form with ALL title documentation.
•Expecting a paper certificate where the lienholder is on the electronic system. Once a lien is recorded electronically the title is held in electronic form until the lien is satisfied, and there may be no paper to post.
•Assuming a settled loan produces a new title on its own. Rhode Island does not require a person to apply for a new title once the lien has been satisfied - it requires the lienholder to sign the title off or to give you a letter of lien release to attach to it.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•The DMV will not make the call, and says so twice. Once at the foot of this form and again on its own Out-of-State Transfer sheet: the RI DMV will not request the title from a lienholder or leasing company on behalf of the customer. Building a sale timetable around somebody else doing this is the commonest reason a Rhode Island private sale slips a fortnight.
•Two possible destinations, and they are not equivalent. The form offers the title being sent to you or to the DMV's Research/Title Office at 600 New London Avenue. Sent to you, you can assign it to a buyer at the kitchen table; sent to Cranston, a Rhode Island title will be issued and mailed to the lienholder or leasing company, which is the route for a lease rather than a sale.
•Electronic lien and title is arriving on a deadline. The DMV's ELT programme is open to all lienholders now and becomes mandatory on 1 October 2026 for financial institutions and credit unions recording five or more security interests a year. Titles stay in electronic form until the lien is satisfied, at which point the release is completed digitally.
•The statute gives the lender a second option. Section 31-3.1-12(c) says a lienholder in possession of the certificate shall either deliver it to the transferee, or - on receiving the owner's assignment, the transferee's application, the registration card and the required fee - send the lot to the DMV itself.
Every line here was read off Title Request (Rev 02/03/2025) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Rhode Island Division 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.
