Two bills land on a South Carolina car and only one of them is the state's. The SCDMV takes a $15 title fee and an Infrastructure Maintenance Fee that stops dead at $500; the county sends its own property tax bill, and until that one is paid nobody gets a plate. The seller's part is smaller than either: sign the back, take the tag off, and post one form. Here is the whole thing, taken from the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles' own pages and the forms themselves.
Start hereHow to fill out a South Carolina titleThe ASSIGNMENT OF A VEHICLE block on the reverse, line by line, and the panel on the right that decides what the buyer pays.Open the walkthrough →The assignment on the back of a South Carolina title gives you a reading line and exactly two tick boxes - the mileage is in excess of its mechanical limits, and the reading is not the actual mileage - with STOP! DO NOT check one of the following unless it applies printed between them. There is no exempt box there. So the owner of a 1998 pickup, told the car is too old to need a reading, hunts for somewhere to say so and ticks box 2, which stamps WARNING - ODOMETER DISCREPANCY onto the buyer's new certificate and every certificate after it.
Exempt is declared on Form 400, not on the certificate: the title application prints EXEMPT above the same two statements. And exemption in South Carolina is not a choice, it is arithmetic on the model year. The SCDMV states it as two tests - a vehicle manufactured in 2011 or later is exempt only once it is twenty years old or older, and a vehicle manufactured before 2011 is exempt at ten. Both dates keep moving, which is why the answer for a 2011 model is different from the answer for a 2010 one.
Manufactured before 2011: Exempt once it is ten years old or older, and stays exempt. Write nothing in the reading line on the certificate and tick EXEMPT on the Form 400.
Manufactured in 2011 or later: Not exempt until it is twenty years old, so a 2011 model is still disclosing until 2031 and a 2016 until 2036.
Rated over 16,000 pounds gross vehicle weight, or not self-propelled: Exempt because of what the vehicle is rather than how old it is. The SCDMV lists both on the same slide as the two age tests.
A reading you cannot stand behind: Tick statement 2 on the certificate and accept that the brand travels. If the wrong figure is already printed on an issued South Carolina title, TI-008 is the only way back and it wants documents, not an explanation.
You, the seller: Turn the certificate over and work down the first block, headed ASSIGNMENT OF A VEHICLE. The day, month and year of the transfer go into the printed sentence; the buyer's name, street, city, state and ZIP go on the rules under it; the odometer reading goes in the box marked no tenths; the date of sale and the sales price go in the small panel on the right. Then sign on Signature of Seller(s), print the same name underneath on Hand Print Name(s) of Seller(s), and add your address on the line below that.
The buyer: Signs on the buyer's side of the same block, under the printed line saying they are aware of the odometer certification you have just made, prints their name below it, and takes the certificate to an SCDMV branch with a Form 400 and a bill of sale. In South Carolina the buyer files; the seller posts a Notice of Vehicle Sold and keeps the plate.
Dark ink, and no second attempt. The certificate prints its own instruction across the top of the assignment block: ASSIGNMENT(S) MUST BE MADE IN DARK INK, and beside it, ****NOTICE: ANY ALTERATIONS OR ERASURE VOIDS THE ASSIGNMENT****. The SCDMV's manual says the same thing from its side - the Department will not accept the title with alterations, erasures, or white out on any portion of the form.
What is unusual about South Carolina is that there is a published way out. TEA-1 voids a spoiled assignment on the seller's signature alone, and the seller then either completes the next assignment block on the same certificate or issues a secured bill of sale. Most states send you back for a duplicate title instead.
Not the assignment, not the Form 400, not the Notice of Vehicle Sold, not the form that voids a spoiled assignment. Chapter 19 of Title 56 - the whole of South Carolina's vehicle title law - asks only that the owner execute an assignment and warranty of title to transferee in the space provided therefor on the certificate. It names a notary nowhere in a vehicle transfer; the only notarial language in the chapter belongs to manufactured-home affidavits. The reverse of the certificate carries a signature rule, a hand-print rule and an address rule, and no acknowledgement block to put a seal in.
South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, title requirements
The full box-by-box walkthrough is here, with a printable checklist.
One certificate, one application and one notice. These are the four documents a straightforward South Carolina sale actually runs through, including the only one the seller posts.
South Carolina prints the lien release on the face of the certificate and the lender signs it there, so there is no release form to download. These two are for the harder cases - a lien about to age out, and a car taken back.
A ruined assignment, a mileage figure already printed wrong on an issued title, and a car whose title never existed. South Carolina publishes a form for each, and the first of them is one most states do not have.
Somebody other than the owner collecting the title, and the power of attorney form people find by searching and should not use. Both are here because getting them wrong costs a trip.
The route South Carolina wants you to take before anyone dies, rather than the probate route afterwards.
A total loss and a car going for scrap. Both end a vehicle's life on the record, and each has its own form and its own address in Blythewood.
The tag is yours and the Code gives you thirty days. One form hands it back with a property tax refund attached; the other is what the buyer needs to drive the car home without it.
S.C. Code Ann. 56-3-1260 is blunt about it: the license plate issued for the vehicle shall remain with the prior owner who, within thirty days of the transfer, either shall apply for the transfer of the plate pursuant to Section 56-3-1290 or shall return the plate to the Department. The registration card goes back at the same time either way. So the plate comes off the car before the buyer drives it away, and then you have a month to move it onto your next vehicle for $10 or hand it in.
Handing it in is not just tidiness, it is the only step in a South Carolina sale that pays the seller. Under S.C. Code Ann. 12-37-2725 the plate and registration card go back, the county auditor orders a credit or refund of property taxes paid by the transferor, and the amount is the share of the year's tax equal to the complete months remaining in the tax year. Form 452 has a tick box for the refund and another for a receipt; the receipt is what the auditor's office asks to see.
Transferring it instead has one condition the statute does not mention and the SCDMV does: plates must have at least three months left on the current registration to be able to be transferred. And it has to be your own next car - the SCDMV's line is that plates cannot transfer from one person to another person if the original person is not on the vehicle title.
An expired tag is the exception at both ends. The SCDMV's plate-return page says that if your license plate is expired, you do not need to return your license plate, because only active license plates can be returned. Nothing left on an expired plate means nothing left to refund either.
South Carolina does publish a seller's notice and it is Form 416, Notice of Vehicle Sold. The instruction on its own face quotes the section it comes from: the owner of a registered and licensed vehicle is required to notify the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles and in writing, immediately upon a transfer of ownership. There is no number of days attached to it anywhere - the thirty days in the same section of the Code belongs to the plate. Drop it at any branch, or post it to the Mail-in Registration box in Blythewood.
Read what the form says it is for before you decide it is optional: completing this form does not mean you've legally transferred ownership of the vehicle. It is intended for the protection of the last registered owner until the actual transfer of ownership is completed by the person to whom you sold the vehicle. That gap can run for weeks, because the buyer has 45 days before a penalty starts, and the car is registered in your name for all of it.
Cancel the insurance last, not first.
The SCDMV lists four things a seller does and puts them in an order: the Notice of Vehicle Sold, the plate turn-in form, the plate itself, and only then cancel your South Carolina liability insurance on the vehicle you sold. That order is deliberate. The Department verifies vehicle liability insurance electronically through the Automobile Liability Insurance Reporting system, licensed insurers transmit policy changes to it automatically, and its own warning is that if the ALIR system cannot verify your insurance, your vehicle registration and license can be suspended. A policy cancelled while a live plate is still registered to you is exactly the sequence that produces a suspension notice about a car you no longer own. South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, insurance requirements and the ALIR system.
South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, license plate return
Register at an SCDMV branch office within 45 days of the purchase date, on a published penalty scale - $10.00 at 46 to 60 days late, $25.00 at 61 to 75, $50.00 at 76 to 135 and $75.00 beyond that. Not sales tax. An Infrastructure Maintenance Fee of five per cent, capped at $500, and on a private sale it is charged on fair market value rather than automatically on the figure written in the assignment - S.C. Code Ann. 56-3-627(C) defines that as the total purchase price less any trade-in, or the valuation shown in a national publication of used values adopted by the department. The title fee is $15.00, the same $15.00 whether it is a first title, a transfer or a duplicate, with $20.00 more for an expedited title bought over a counter. A standard passenger plate is $40.00 on top, or $10.00 to move a plate the buyer already owns.
What they need to bring:
The SCDMV's own list of what a buyer brings to title and register a car runs to five items and not one of them comes from a workshop: the assigned certificate, a completed Form 400, a bill of sale, the fees, and - if they want a plate - a paid property tax receipt from their county treasurer. Nothing on the Department's vehicle-owner pages asks a private seller for an inspection certificate, an emissions result or a sticker, and those pages were read one by one for this. The one inspection South Carolina does insist on has nothing to do with condition: where a vehicle has no previous title behind it, TI-021B is a physical verification of the vehicle identification number by a Dealer License and Audit Agent or a member of law enforcement.
South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, what a buyer brings to a branch.
South Carolina 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 South Carolina and the rest of the guides.