Sell your car in Mississippi — no notary, no inspections, no separate form
Mississippi keeps a private car sale about as lean as it gets: the transfer is just the assignment printed on your title, no notary ever enters the picture, and inspection stickers went away in 2015. The rule that actually trips people is subtler — hand over a title with the buyer's name left blank and you've broken state law, not just etiquette. Here's the full picture, then a local playbook for five very different Mississippi markets.
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Pick your metro
Five markets, five different games: Jackson sells to a metro whose buyers moved to the suburbs, Gulfport prices around water history, Biloxi turns cars over on PCS orders, Hattiesburg breathes with the Southern Miss calendar, and Southaven booms against the Tennessee line. Pick your city for the local read.
What Mississippi requires when you sell
| Notary | No. Mississippi doesn't notarize title assignments. The DOR's transfer instructions have the seller fill in everything on the assignment except the buyer's printed name and signature, and nowhere in those steps does a notary appear. |
|---|---|
| The title form | There isn't a separate one — the assignment on the certificate of title is the entire transfer. Two DOR warnings deserve bold print: never deliver or accept a title that's incomplete or improperly assigned, and never leave the buyer's name blank to fill in later — that's a violation of Mississippi law. Selling to a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling? Complete an Affidavit of Relationship alongside it. |
| Lost your title? | Mail Form 78-006 with $9.00 to DOR Motor Vehicle Services, P.O. Box 1383, Jackson, MS 39215-1383; standard replacements typically issue in about six weeks. The Fast Track route — Form 78-026, $39.00 — issues within 72 hours of reaching the DOR. Forms and details. |
| Protect yourself after the sale | There is no notice-of-sale or release-of-liability filing in Mississippi — the DOR's complete title-forms list simply contains no such form. Your armor is procedural: an assignment filled out to the last field, a dated bill of sale in your records, and your plate off the car before it drives away. The forms list. |
| License plates | The tag stays with you, not the car — the DOR instructs the previous owner to remove the plate once the title is assigned and the vehicle handed over. No refunds exist for unused registration, but surrender the tag to your county Tax Collector and the remainder becomes a credit toward your next Mississippi registration, good in any county from the first day of the following month — and forfeited if you leave the state. Registration FAQs. |
| Sales tax | A buyer-side cost, collected by the county Tax Collector at titling. Casual sales of vehicles under ten years old carry Mississippi's 5% rate on automobiles and light trucks (10,000 lbs. or less) — computed on a pre-determined value for the vehicle, not the figure on your bill of sale. Ten years old or older: exempt. So are transfers between spouses, parent and child, or grandparent and grandchild; siblings, cousins, and in-laws get no such break. Rate schedule. |
| Inspections | Gone since July 1, 2015, when Mississippi retired its annual inspection sticker. The lone holdover is a one-time check for aftermarket window tint — nothing periodic, nothing emissions-related, and nothing standing between you and a sale. |
Every fact above was checked against the Mississippi DOR's motor vehicle title pages in August 2026 — and if the DOR or your county Tax Collector says otherwise tomorrow, they outrank us.
Asked by Mississippi sellers
Do I need a notary to sell a car in Mississippi?
No — and this surprises people arriving from notary states. Mississippi's title assignment is complete when you've filled in the seller sections and both parties have signed; no stamp, no witness, no extra trip to a bank.
Who pays the sales tax when I sell my car privately in Mississippi?
The buyer does, at the county Tax Collector's window when they title and tag it. For vehicles under ten years old the rate is 5%, applied to a value the state pre-determines for that vehicle rather than to your actual price; at ten years old and beyond, no tax applies at all. Spouses, parent-child, and grandparent-grandchild transfers are exempt — siblings and in-laws pay like strangers.
What should I do with my license plate after the sale?
Take it off the car — the DOR requires it, and the plate is yours anyway. Turn it in at your county Tax Collector's office and the unused portion of the registration becomes credit against your next Mississippi tag, usable in any county; there are no cash refunds, and the credit evaporates if you move out of state before spending it.
I can't find my title — how do I get a replacement in Mississippi?
Send Form 78-006 and $9 to the DOR's Motor Vehicle Services box in Jackson and a standard replacement arrives in roughly six weeks. If a buyer is waiting, Form 78-026 — the Fast Track application — costs $39 and the title issues within 72 hours of the DOR receiving it.