Texas splits the job across two documents. You assign the Certificate of Title to the buyer, and the buyer files a Form 130-U at a county tax assessor-collector’s office. Every box below is transcribed from the TxDMV’s own detailed instructions for that form, revision 05/26 - the same revision as the form itself.
As a private seller you complete these and nothing else:
There is no blank Texas title to download - yours came in the post from Austin. The 130-U you can download, and the TxDMV publishes a two-page instruction sheet for it that most people never open. This walkthrough is that sheet, turned into something you can follow while holding a pen.
Everything here is signed under one line: State law makes falsifying information a third degree felony.
The instructions open by telling the applicant to refer to the ownership document assigned to you by the seller. That is the title, properly assigned - the 130-U transcribes from it, it does not replace it.
Before you watch. The TxDMV does not publish a video on filling out the title itself. Plenty exist on YouTube and none of them are the agency - they are dealerships, title services and how-to channels, which is exactly why they are not embedded here.
Published by the TxDMV on its own channel, and the only one of its thirty videos aimed at a private seller rather than at dealers and motor carriers. It walks through the online transfer notification - the thirty-day filing that ends your exposure to what the buyer does next. There is a Spanish version on the same channel. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.
The TxDMV's first instruction to a Texas seller is to accompany the buyer to the county tax office to ensure a title application is actually filed.
Watch out: This is the step that decides everything below it. If the buyer never files, the vehicle stays in your name - and the TxDMV's own warning is that you could be held responsible for tickets, toll violations or even crimes committed with it. A tax office representative can also tell you both, before anything is submitted, whether the title being signed over is correct and whether it carries salvage or legal issues.
One of four boxes at the very top. An ordinary private purchase is Title & Registration.
Watch out: Title Only means the plates and registration have to be surrendered under Transportation Code 501.0275. It is not the box for a car the buyer intends to drive.
VIN, year, make, body style, model and colours - all copied from the title you assigned, not from the car.
Watch out: Body style is an abbreviation: PK for a pickup, CP for a coupe, 2D for a two-door sedan. TxDMV publishes the full list as Form VTR-249.
Current mileage in whole numbers, no tenths, and then three tick boxes: Not Actual, Exceeds Mechanical Limits, Exempt.
Watch out: The instructions say the reading and the brand come from what the seller disclosed on the ownership document. Exempt is federal, and it is twenty years for anything built in 2011 or later - not ten.
Individual, business, government, trust or non-profit; a photo ID number or an FEIN; and which of eleven ID types it came from.
Watch out: Every title application must include one of those IDs. A buyer who turns up at the county without one is turned away, whatever else is in order.
Legal first, middle and last name with a suffix if there is one, a second applicant if the car is going into two names, and the mailing address.
Watch out: Legal name, as the instructions put it - not the version used on the classified advert.
The county the buyer legally lives in.
Watch out: This is what decides whether the title fee is $28 or $33. It is not necessarily where the application gets filed - Texas accepts four different counties, and they are listed further down this page.
Your name, city and state as they appear on the assigned title.
Watch out: Name, city and state only - the form does not want your street address, and adding one does not help.
Whether there is more than one lien, whether an electronic title is wanted, the certified lienholder ID and first lien date, and the lienholder name and address.
Watch out: If there is no lien, the instructions say to indicate NONE. A blank is not the same answer - and box 31 cannot be ticked if box 30 is.
The sales price on line (a), the taxable amount on (d), and 6.25 per cent of it on (e).
Watch out: The flat alternatives sit in the right-hand column. The gift one is narrow - immediate family, a guardian, a decedent estate or a qualifying 501(c)(3) - and it needs the Comptroller joint affidavit, Form 14-317, filed in person by the donor or the recipient.
A tick box printed as $28 or $33 Application Fee for Texas Title.
Watch out: The form itself says to contact your county tax assessor-collector for the correct one. A separate $2.50 moves the current registration to the new owner, on top of this.
Your signature, printed name and date, in the first of three rows. The TxDMV asks the seller to provide a signed 130-U with the sales price clearly shown - so this is your form too, not only theirs.
Watch out: This is the row that may be faxed or photocopied. It is the only signature on any Texas form here that may be, and it is why a seller who genuinely cannot get to the county office is not stuck.
The buyer signs, prints and dates the second row. A third row exists for an additional owner.
Watch out: Original ink, no exceptions - and then the whole package has to reach a county office within 30 days of the date of sale.
Six habits, and one of them is a genuine Texas oddity: your signature may be a photocopy and the buyer’s may not.
| Black or blue ink | The power of attorney names them and rules everything else out. Nothing in Texas motor vehicle paperwork wants pencil. |
|---|---|
| No alterations | The VTR-271 says no alterations are allowed on the form. Not crossed out, not initialled, not tidied up - a fresh copy is free. |
| Your name as the title has it | The transfer notification asks for your first name as shown on the Texas title, not as you usually write it. |
| Whole miles, no tenths | Both the 130-U and the salvage application say it in the box label. |
| Original where it says original | A release of lien, a power of attorney and a certified copy application all require original ink. The buyer's signature on the 130-U does too - only yours may be faxed. |
| Read the line above the signature | State law makes falsifying information a third degree felony. It is printed on nearly every form here. |
The ink rule is the TxDMV's own: “Original signatures are required, only black or blue ink are acceptable, and no alterations are allowed on this form.” — TxDMV Detailed Instructions for Application for Texas Title and/or Registration (VTR-130-UIF), Rev 05/26.
Three things repeated confidently about selling a car in Texas, and each one costs a seller either money or a wasted trip to a county office. Every correction below links the Texas source it comes from.
"A Texas title transfer costs $2.50."
That is the registration transfer fee. Form 130-U prints the actual title fee on its face - $28 or $33 Application Fee for Texas Title, with the instruction to contact your county tax assessor-collector for the correct one - and then adds that a $2.50 transfer fee is paid to transfer current registration to the new owner in addition to the title application fee. Quoting $2.50 understates it more than tenfold.
TxDMV Form 130-U, Application for Texas Title and/or Registration
"You need a safety inspection before the buyer can register it."
Not since 1 January 2025. The TxDMV's registration page states that as of that date non-commercial vehicles are no longer required to obtain a safety inspection prior to vehicle registration. House Bill 3297 made the change, and its own text reads: this Act takes effect January 1, 2025. Emissions inspections continue in seventeen counties, and commercial vehicle rules did not change.
"Leave the plates on the car for the buyer."
That is the rule in California and it is the opposite of Texas. The TxDMV states that the seller has the option to remove their license plates and registration sticker from the vehicle, and the transfer notification asks whether you did. Leave them on and they are still registered to you.
Three signature rows sit at the foot of the 130-U, and the title itself has to be properly assigned before any of them matter:
| Seller(s), donor(s) or trader(s) | The signature, printed name and date of everyone shown as an owner on the title being surrendered. |
|---|---|
| Applicant / owner | The buyer signs, prints their name and dates it. This is the one signature Texas will not accept as a copy. |
| Additional applicant(s) / owner(s) | A third row, for a car going into two names. |
| Yours may be a fax, theirs may not | The form says an application may be reproduced or faxed and the seller’s signature may be reproduced or faxed - but a completed form must contain the original signature of the buyer. |
| A company or business | Signs in the entity name, and box 14 takes an FEIN or EIN rather than a photo ID number. |
| Where a lien is being released | The lienholder signs the title’s own release section, a VTR-266, or their letterhead. All three need original ink and a date; a copy is accepted on none of them. |
Signing is the middle of the job. In Texas the plates come off with you, and the clock that matters to you is the thirty-day transfer notification - not the buyer’s thirty days to file, which is a different thirty days entirely.
The two things that follow a signed title — what happens to the plates and telling the TxDMV the car is gone — are set out in full on the Texas paperwork page rather than repeated here.
The forms that go with it: the transfer notification, which is the thirty-day one that protects you, a release of lien, if a lender is still on the record and a certified copy of title, if yours has gone missing.
Every field description here is taken from the TxDMV Detailed Instructions for Application for Texas Title and/or Registration (VTR-130-UIF), Rev 05/26 and the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles title pages, current as of 2026-08-23. Plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.
Back to all Texas paperwork, or what selling a car in Texas involves.