Sell your car in Hattiesburg: running or not, wrecked or flooded
Describe your car once, on the form or by phone, and you'll have an offer that day. The pickup area spans the Forrest-Lamar county line that runs through town, and goes well past it. Our offer doesn't swing with the semester the way private-sale prices can.
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From the form to pickup
- Describe the car. Use the form or call/text (877) 405-1808 with the year, mileage and condition. Every running car is worth the call. Straight answers in, straight number out.
- Set the pickup window. We set the pickup around your window rather than ours. If there's a date the car must be gone by, give us that date up front and we work backward from it.
- Parked at Southern Miss? USM parking permits are virtual and tied to license plates, up to four on one permit. If you replace the car and the permit already holds four, USM says one has to be removed before the new one can be added.
Where we pick up around Hattiesburg
Pickup covers the whole city in both counties, from downtown in 39401 to the west side toward Oak Grove in 39402. It also covers Petal (39465), which the Leaf River separates from Hattiesburg, and runs through Lamar County to Purvis and Sumrall. Farther out, it still reaches Columbia, Lumberton, Ellisville and Laurel. Pickup happens at the car's address, and an apartment lot near campus gets the same process as a driveway in Oak Grove.
Turn the plate in the same week. Lamar County's Tax Collector says the credit for tag tax you've already paid counts from the day the tag is turned in, not from the day the car was sold. A plate left in a drawer earns nothing while it sits there.
The county line runs through Hattiesburg
The city's own planning papers describe Hattiesburg as sitting mostly in Forrest County and extending west into Lamar County. The side you live on decides your tag office. For tags and titles, the office people call the Mississippi DMV is the county Tax Collector's tag office: the Forrest County Tax Collector in the Tax Services Building downtown, or the Lamar County Tax Collector, which has offices in Oak Grove and Purvis.
Part of every tag bill is local car tax. Forrest County's Tax Collector says the ad valorem tax on a vehicle includes county, municipal and separate school district taxes. Lamar County's licensing FAQ says the total depends on the vehicle's type, its value and where you live, city or county. So the same car can cost a different amount to tag inside the city than outside it.
Cash for your car in Hattiesburg
The city code puts a time limit on junk cars in Hattiesburg. Inside city limits, it gives a car that is wrecked, junked, partly dismantled or not running 72 hours on a property, unless it's inside an enclosed building (Sec. 36-118). Its definition of a vehicle also takes in one without a current license tag. If a car like that in your yard is what sent you searching for cash for cars in Hattiesburg, ask for a junk car offer and describe it as it sits, including what doesn't work.
Flooding is the other local risk to a parked car. The city's floodplain page (checked September 2026) says roughly 25 percent of property in Hattiesburg is in a special flood hazard area, and that some areas outside it flash-flood in heavy rain. If a car has already sat in water, read selling a flood-damaged car before you describe it.
If the car is wrecked rather than flooded, selling an accident-damaged car explains what a buyer checks and what you have to disclose, and selling a totaled car covers the payout and salvage title if the insurer called it a total loss. If it quit on you, see selling a car with a blown head gasket or seized engine or selling a car with a slipping transmission or no reverse.
Where Hattiesburg-area plates and titles are handled
- •Forrest County Tax Collector: Tax Services Building, 601 N. Main St., downtown Hattiesburg; (601) 582-8228; weekdays 8 to 5, closed on state holidays (source)
- •Lamar County Tax Collector, Oak Grove office: 4954 Old Hwy 11; (601) 264-2311 (address, phone)
- •Lamar County Tax Collector, Purvis office: 144 Shelby Speights Dr., Purvis; (601) 794-1020 (source)
Asked by Hattiesburg sellers
If I sell my car in Hattiesburg, MS on my own, where can I meet the buyer?
The city has set aside Safe Places for Online Transactions (S.P.O.T.): two painted, staked parking spaces at each of three city sites. They are Fire Station #1 at 810 North Main Street, Fire Station #8 at 104 Lamar Boulevard and the Hattiesburg Police Department at 300 Klondyke Street. The city says the spaces may be watched by video, but it won't witness the sale or check that it's legitimate. If you need police there, call 911, or (601) 544-7900 when it isn't an emergency.
How do I weigh a car trade-in value in Hattiesburg against your offer?
Hattiesburg's land-use plan puts automobile sales businesses in its regional business districts, mainly along U.S. 49, 98, 11 and 42, and names western Hattiesburg along U.S. 98 as the largest of them. Take our offer with you when you drive out for a trade-in figure, since a dealer's number is tied to the car it's selling you. Our trade-in or sell comparison covers the rest of the math.
My car quit on a Hattiesburg street. Can it wait there for pickup?
The city code names no time allowance for that. It bars leaving a partly dismantled, non-running, wrecked or junked vehicle on any street in the city (Sec. 36-117), and it lets the police remove and impound a car that seems to be in violation (Sec. 36-119). Get it off the street first, then ask for the offer.
I live in Oak Grove. Does the city's junk-car rule reach my driveway?
Not Hattiesburg's. The city's article on wrecked and junked vehicles defines property as real property within the city, and the Census lists Oak Grove as a census-designated place in Lamar County, not part of any city. For a car that won't run in an Oak Grove yard, Lamar County is the government to ask.
The title itself follows one state rulebook in Forrest and Lamar counties alike; it's on our Mississippi page.