How to Sell a Car in NJ Privately: Title, Bill of Sale, Plates

To sell a car privately in NJ, you need a clean New Jersey Certificate of Title signed over to the buyer, a notarized bill of sale, your license plates off the vehicle, and a notification to the Motor Vehicle Commission that the car is no longer yours. Handle those four things correctly and you end your legal ties to the vehicle. Skip any of them and you can stay on the hook for tolls, tickets, or insurance claims tied to a car someone else is driving.

Get the Title in Your Hands and Clear

The New Jersey Certificate of Title is the only document that legally proves you own the car and can sell it. You need the physical title before you list the vehicle, not after a buyer shows up with cash.

If your title is lost, damaged, or unreadable, apply for a duplicate through the MVC using form OS/SS-UTA along with a current or expired registration and proof of insurance. The fee is $60, handled at a Vehicle Center by appointment or by mail.¹

If you still owe money on the car, the title will show a lienholder and you cannot transfer it until that lien clears. Once the loan is paid off, you need a signed and dated lien satisfaction letter on the lender’s official letterhead showing your name, the VIN, and the vehicle’s year and make. Bring that letter and the original title to an MVC agency (or mail them in) to have a lien-free title reissued. The fee is $60.²

If your original NJ title already carries the lien satisfaction signed and dated by the lender’s authorized representative on the title itself, no separate letter is needed. Lien satisfaction letters from individual lienholders, as opposed to banks or finance companies, must be notarized.²

Sign Over the Title and Record the Odometer

Flip the title over. The back has a transfer section for the buyer’s full legal name, current address, the date of sale, and the sale price. Sign in the seller’s section exactly as your name appears on the front. White-out marks or significant alterations can void the document, and voiding it means starting over with a new title application.³

Record the current odometer reading in the mileage section on the back of the title. Federal law requires this disclosure for any vehicle with a model year of 2011 or newer, because those vehicles don’t become exempt until 20 years after their model year. Vehicles from model year 2010 or older are already exempt under the previous 10-year rule.⁴ In practice, if you’re selling anything built after 2010 in 2026, disclose the mileage. Falsifying an odometer reading is a federal offense that can lead to civil liability of up to three times the buyer’s actual damages.

Prepare a Notarized Bill of Sale

The title proves ownership, but the buyer also needs a bill of sale to register the vehicle at the MVC. The MVC’s requirements for titling a pre-owned vehicle call for a notarized statement from the seller that includes the year the vehicle was manufactured, its make, VIN, the date of sale, and the purchase price. Both parties sign before the notary.⁵

Most sellers combine the bill of sale and the notarized statement into a single document. Make sure it includes:

Full names and addresses of both buyer and seller
Vehicle year, make, model, and VIN
Sale price and date
Odometer reading at the time of sale
Signatures of both parties, notarized

Notary fees in New Jersey are capped at $2.50 per notarial act for standard documents, so this step costs almost nothing. Banks, shipping stores, and municipal offices often have a notary available. Keep a signed copy for yourself. If a dispute arises later about the sale price or the date, this document is your proof.

Sell “As Is” and Disclose What You Know

Write “as is” or “with all faults” clearly and conspicuously on the bill of sale. For a private seller, this language tells the buyer they’re accepting the car in its current condition with no guarantee that everything works.

New Jersey’s Used Car Lemon Law applies only to dealers, defined as anyone who sells or offers three or more used vehicles in a 12-month period.⁶ As a one-time private seller, you’re outside that law. That said, “as is” language does not protect you if you actively lie about the car’s condition. Telling a buyer the transmission shifts fine when you know it’s failing is fraud regardless of what the paperwork says. Disclose known problems and you’re in a much stronger position if the buyer complains later.

Take Payment Without Getting Burned

This is where private sales go wrong most often, and it’s almost always because the seller handed over the title before confirming the money was real. The safest approach is meeting at the buyer’s bank during business hours. The buyer withdraws the funds, you count them on the spot or ask a teller to verify, and you deposit immediately. For larger amounts, a cashier’s check works if you watch the bank print it and cash or deposit it at the same branch right away.

Payment methods to avoid:

Personal checks from strangers. They can bounce days after your bank makes the funds available, and you’re left owing the full amount.
Overpayment schemes. If a buyer sends a check for more than the sale price and asks you to wire back the difference, it’s a scam. The original check will bounce after you’ve already sent real money.
Payment app screenshots. Confirm the deposit inside the app yourself. Don’t rely on a screenshot or email the buyer shows you.

The core rule: don’t sign over the title or hand over the keys until the payment is confirmed and final. “Initiated” or “pending” is not the same as completed.

Pull the Plates and the E-ZPass

New Jersey license plates belong to you, not the vehicle. You must remove them before the buyer drives away. If the buyer racks up toll violations or gets caught by a red-light camera with your plates still attached, those charges come to you first.³

Once the plates are off, you have two options:

Transfer them to another vehicle you own, as long as the registration is still valid. Plates can move between your vehicles but cannot be transferred to a different person.
Surrender them at any MVC agency. Get a receipt. That receipt proves the registration is closed and protects you if phantom charges appear later.

If an E-ZPass transponder is mounted in the car, remove it before the sale and either reassign it to your next vehicle or contact E-ZPass to close or update your account. Leaving a transponder in a sold car means toll charges will keep hitting your account until you take action.

Notify the MVC and Cancel Insurance

After the sale, notify the MVC that you’ve transferred the vehicle. The MVC’s transferring ownership page directs sellers to report the sale, either online through the MVC’s website or in person at an agency.³ Don’t put this off. Until the state’s records reflect the transfer, you’re still the registered owner on paper. If the buyer crashes the car a week later before completing their own title transfer, your notification creates a clear timestamp showing you weren’t the owner at that point.

Once the notification is in, call your auto insurer to remove the vehicle from your policy. Have a copy of the bill of sale ready, since most carriers want to see proof the car is no longer in your name before processing the cancellation. If you’re replacing the sold car with another vehicle, your insurer can usually roll the coverage over in the same call. If it was the only vehicle on your policy, ask about a refund for the unused portion of your premium.

What the Buyer Will Pay at the MVC

You won’t pay title transfer fees or sales tax as the seller, but knowing what the buyer faces helps you set expectations during negotiations. The buyer must bring the assigned title, the notarized bill of sale, and valid identification to an MVC agency to complete the transfer.

Title fee: $60 for a standard transfer, or $85 if the buyer is financing the purchase and a new lien needs to be recorded.⁷
Sales tax: 6.625% on the purchase price, paid at the MVC when the buyer registers. The sale price you write on the title and bill of sale is the figure the state uses to calculate the tax.
Registration: Fees vary by weight class and age but generally run about $47 to $84 for a standard passenger car.⁷

The buyer has 10 business days from the date of sale to transfer the title at the MVC. Missing that deadline triggers a $25 late-transfer penalty.³ That penalty falls on the buyer, but a buyer who drags their feet also hasn’t taken your name off the state’s records yet. Filing your own notification of sale promptly protects you regardless of what the buyer does.

1
New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Duplicate Title
2
New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Liens
3
New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Transferring Vehicle Ownership
4
GovInfo. 49 CFR Part 580 Section 580.17 – Exemptions
5
New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Pre-owned Vehicle Title
6
Justia Law. New Jersey Code 56-8-67 – Definitions Relative to Sale of Used Motor Vehicles
7
New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Registration and Title Fees