Everything a Wyoming private sale needs is printed on one side of one document, and the state has numbered the steps for you. The back of the certificate carries four boxed sections in order: the assignment of ownership, the odometer disclosure, the seller's transfer with its notary statement, and the purchaser's application - which is also the buyer's title application, so most private sales never touch a separate form. Here is that side, filled in, section by section.
Your 7 boxes
As a private seller you complete these and nothing else:
There is no blank Wyoming certificate to download: it is secure stock, printed with a watermark, a hologram and an anti-copy foil serial number, and issued over a county clerk's signature. The sample above is the closest thing the state publishes, and beside this paragraph is our printable checklist of the four sections in the order they are completed.
The head of the page reads THIS DOCUMENT IS VOID IF ALTERED, and under it the reminder that knowingly providing false or incomplete information is a felony under W.S. 31-4-102. Read the whole side before the pen comes out.
The clerk's own instruction sheet walks the same order: complete the purchaser's name in the first box before anything is signed, complete the odometer statement, then have every seller the conjunction rule requires sign in front of the notary - and it warns that a back that has not been correctly completed means being turned away at the counter or having the paperwork posted back.
The real thing, front and back
A conforming Wyoming certificate of title, published by the office that issues it
WYDOT publishes no picture of a Wyoming title, and it does not issue one either - under W.S. 31-2-103(d) the certificate is issued by a county clerk over that clerk's own signature and seal. So the specimen comes from a county clerk: the Fremont County Clerk publishes the front and the back of form MV-301, watermarked SAMPLE, made out to owners called QUE with a vehicle identification number that reads VIN2024SAMPLE1234 and a lender called LOTS OF MONEY BANK. This is the front, which a private seller never writes on.
Amber — you write it, in pen
Grey — not yours to fill
Numbered — matches the steps below
Published by the Fremont County Clerk as a sample title, and reproduced here as published. The greyed band is the lien table: if a lender is printed there and the facing release lines are empty, the seller has to get a signed release from that lender before the clerk can transfer anything. The front also settles two questions before you turn the page - whether the names are joined by AND or OR, and whether the certificate carries a vehicle brand.
The seller's half, at reading size
Sections 2 and 3: the mileage, the warranty, the price, and the notary
This is the part of the back that is yours. Section 2 prints the current federal odometer rule inside the box, splitting model year 2011-and-newer at twenty years of service from 2010-and-older at ten. Section 3 is the transfer itself - the warranty about liens, the two brand questions, the signature lines, the sales price and date of sale - and it ends in the sworn statement the state will not let a clerk skip.
Amber is the seller's; the grey band is the notary's own statement and the purchaser's acknowledgement line. Two details are easy to miss at full size. The brand questions in section 3 are not rhetorical - answering Yes means the buyer also needs a Branded Title Disclosure Statement signed before the sale. And the notary block names the sellers as the people who appeared, so a signature made before you got to the notary cannot be acknowledged afterwards.One side of one document does the whole job: the state numbers the sections 1 to 4 and they run in the order the sale happens. Section 4 is greyed because it is the buyer's - and it is worth telling them what it is, because it doubles as their application for the new title. A private buyer who fills it in properly needs no separate application form at the clerk's counter at all.
Step by step
Every box, in the order you meet it
0
You fill this in
Before any ink: read the front
Check the conjunction between the owner names, check the vehicle brand box, and check the lien table under FOR COUNTY CLERK'S USE ONLY for a lender with no release endorsed beside it.
Watch out: Those three readings decide who has to come to the notary with you, whether the sale needs a Branded Title Disclosure Statement, and whether you can sell at all this week or need a lien release from the lender first.
1
You fill this in
Section 1: write the buyer in, before anything is signed
Purchaser's names printed, the joint tenancy question answered Yes or No, and the buyer's mailing and physical address with a phone number. The section's own instruction is that the seller completes the purchaser's names and delivers the title to them at the time the vehicle is delivered.
Watch out: This is the box that makes an open title impossible in Wyoming. A clerk will not notarise section 3 while section 1 is blank, so filling it in is not a formality - it is the thing that lets the rest of the page happen.
2
You fill this in
Section 2: the reading, in whole miles
Your signature, your printed name, and the odometer reading with no tenths, plus a tick only if the mileage exceeds the odometer's mechanical limits or is not the actual mileage.
Watch out: Read the vehicle's model year against the note printed in the box rather than against what somebody told you. Model year 2011 and newer runs to twenty years of service; 2010 and older stopped at ten.
3
You fill this in
Section 3: the warranty and the two brand questions
The certification that you are the lawful owner and that the liens noted on the front are the only ones, then the two printed questions - has this vehicle ever had a branded title, and has it been declared a total loss or sustained 75% damage of actual cash value.
Watch out: Answer both honestly and in the buyer's sight. A Yes means an MV-602 disclosure is due before the sale, and a buyer who later proves you knew and did not say can unwind the deal.
4
You fill this in
Section 3, lower: price, date, and every signature the conjunction requires
Each seller signs on their own line, the printed names go underneath, and the sales price, date of sale and a phone number complete the row.
Watch out: The price is not decoration - the county treasurer computes the buyer's sales tax from the sale, and a blank there is a conversation at the counter that ends with somebody phoning you.
5
You fill this in
The notary block: sign it in front of the officer
The Seller's Notary Statement is marked MUST BE NOTARIZED. The officer writes the sellers' printed names into it as the people who appeared, adds the state and county, the date, their signature, their commission expiration date and their seal.
Watch out: Take photo identification and take every seller with you. An officer can acknowledge only a signature made in their presence, and a co-owner who signed at home in the morning has to come back.
6
The buyer fills this in
The purchaser acknowledges the mileage
One line below the notary block: Signature of Purchaser (Required to acknowledge odometer), with their printed name beside it.
Watch out: It is separate from their signature in section 4, and it is the one buyers most often skip - which leaves the odometer disclosure incomplete and the clerk unable to take it.
7
The buyer fills this in
Section 4: hand the page to the buyer
The purchaser's application - a sworn statement that they are lawfully applying for a Wyoming title, with the lien amount, date and document number and the lienholder's name and address if they borrowed, and their signatures and printed names.
Watch out: Tell them what it is. Completed properly, this section IS their title application, and a private buyer who fills it in needs no separate form at the clerk's counter.
8
You fill this in
Take your plates off before the truck leaves
The registration expired at the moment of transfer and the statute says the original owner shall immediately remove the license plates.
Watch out: There is no refund to claim - only a transfer, at the county treasurer, of the registration number onto a replacement vehicle within sixty days of acquiring it, with credit for the months you did not use.
9
The buyer fills this in
The buyer's forty-five days, and their sixty-five
Forty-five days to present the certificate to their county clerk and register, and sixty-five days from the date of sale before the sales tax starts drawing interest and a civil fee at the county treasurer.
Watch out: Both clocks run from the date you wrote in section 3, which is another reason it is worth writing accurately. During those forty-five days the properly executed title is what makes their driving legal.
Before the pen
Six rules for a certificate that is void if altered and sworn when it is signed
Six rules for a document whose own heading says it is void if altered, and whose signature has to be sworn.
Fill sections 1 and 2 first, sign section 3 last
Wyoming's order is not a preference. The notary cannot stamp a page whose purchaser block and odometer statement are empty, so the sequence is fixed by the person holding the seal.
Bring the pen to the notary, not the notary to the pen
A signature has to be made in front of the officer who acknowledges it, with identification produced. Every co-owner whose signature the conjunction rule requires has to be in the room.
Black or blue ink, no correction fluid, no writing over
VOID IF ALTERED is printed at the head of the section you are signing, and W.S. 31-4-102 makes altering an assignment with fraudulent intent a felony rather than a fine.
Whole miles, no tenths, and no word where a number belongs
The odometer box wants a figure and, if either applies, one tick. Writing exempt across it on a car that is inside the window leaves the section incomplete rather than excused.
Do not sign a second time to fix the first
There is one assignment on a Wyoming certificate. A mistake is fixed at the county clerk's counter - ask before you write anything else, because the alternative is a $15 duplicate and a second trip to the notary.
Photograph the finished back before it leaves the table
Wyoming has no notice of sale, so what you keep is what you can later show: the completed sections, the notary's seal and date, and the plate numbers you removed.
The ink rule is WYDOT's own: “It is the policy of the Fremont County Clerk's office never to notarize any signatures unless the Assignment of Ownership and Odometer Disclosure Statement are completed (we do not notarize open titles).”
— Fremont County Clerk, Wyoming Certificate of Title sample and information.
Check your source
Three things Wyoming sellers are told that are not true
Three things Wyoming sellers are told at the tailgate, each of them a rule from somewhere else, and each contradicted by a Wyoming source you can read for yourself.
"Sign the title now and let the buyer fill in their name later - a notary is only for the buyer's side."
Both halves are wrong, and the second one is what makes the first one impossible. W.S. 31-2-104(a) requires the seller's assignment to be signed before a notarial officer and acknowledged - it is your signature, not the buyer's, that is sworn - and the clerk's own published policy is that it will not notarise anything until the purchaser's names and the odometer statement are already written in. The purchaser's application in section 4 carries no notary block at all.
"Leave the plates on so the buyer can drive it home, then get your registration refunded."
Wyoming does the opposite of both. The registration expires at the moment of transfer and the original owner shall immediately remove the license plates, so plates left on the vehicle are a dead registration travelling on somebody else's truck. And there is no refund to claim: fees come back only where they were paid and collected by mistake. What you get instead is sixty days to move the registration number onto a replacement vehicle with credit for the unused portion. The buyer needs no plates from you - a properly executed title covers them for forty-five days.
"Both owners are on the title, so we both have to sign - or one of us can sign for the other."
Neither is a rule you can apply without reading the certificate. Under W.S. 31-2-104(m) an owner may transfer the whole interest alone unless the title says joint tenancy with rights of survivorship or tenancy by the entirety, or the names are joined by AND. But that only holds for titles issued on or after 1 January 2020: the county counters work from a table showing that on any certificate issued before that date every owner must sign whatever the conjunction says. Nobody signs for anybody - each signature is acknowledged individually by the notary.
Six signature rules from the certificate's own printed lines and the statute behind them - and note that the seller signs in two different places for two different reasons:
Every owner the conjunction requires, in section 3
On a title issued on or after 1 January 2020, OR or no conjunction lets one owner sign; AND requires them all; JTWROS requires them all whatever the connector. On a title issued before that date, all of them, always.
The same owners again, in front of a notarial officer
The Seller's Notary Statement under the signature lines is marked MUST BE NOTARIZED, and the officer prints the sellers' names into it as the people who appeared. A county clerk's office will do it; so will a bank or any commissioned notary.
The seller, once more, in section 2
The odometer disclosure carries its own signature and printed name. It is not part of the notary statement and it is not optional on a vehicle still inside the twenty-year window.
At least one purchaser, to acknowledge the reading
The line under the notary block reads Signature of Purchaser (Required to acknowledge odometer), and it is separate from their signature in section 4.
The purchaser or their agent, in section 4
Signed under penalty of perjury, with the lien block above it completed only if they borrowed to buy. A business signs in its own name with the signer's title beside it.
Nobody, on the front
The face of the certificate belongs to the county clerk that issued it. The lien table under FOR COUNTY CLERK'S USE ONLY is where a release is endorsed, and it is endorsed by the clerk, not by you.
Once it is signed
The notarised assignment ends your ownership. The plates come off the same afternoon, and the sixty-day clock for moving that registration number onto your next vehicle starts the day you sign.
