Washington Affidavit of Loss Form (TD-420-040): Filing and Notarization

The Washington Affidavit of Loss form, officially TD-420-040, is filed with the Department of Licensing (DOL) either to request a replacement title, registration, or tabs, or to formally release your ownership interest in a vehicle or vessel during a transfer.¹ You download it from the DOL website, complete the section that matches your situation, get every listed owner’s signature notarized or certified by a licensing agent, and submit it with the applicable fee at any vehicle licensing office.

The form has two halves. Use the top half if you lost a document and need a replacement. Use the bottom half if you’re giving up ownership. You can use both at once when the situations overlap, such as selling a vehicle whose title you can’t find.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull this information together first so you can fill the form out in one sitting:

The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) for a car or truck, or the Hull Identification Number (HIN) for a boat. The VIN is on a plate inside the driver’s door jamb or at the base of the windshield; the HIN is stamped into a boat’s transom.²
The current Washington plate or registration number.
Year, make, and model.
Valid government-issued photo ID for every person who will sign — a Washington driver’s license, state ID, or U.S. passport.

Check the DOL’s current record for the exact spelling of each owner’s name. Your name on the form has to match what the state has on file, and small mismatches cause processing delays. If multiple owners are listed, all of them need to sign, so coordinate schedules before heading to a notary or licensing office.

Completing the Affidavit of Loss Section

The top half handles replacement documents. After entering the vehicle or vessel details, check the box for what you lost: title, registration, or tabs.² More than one box is fine if you misplaced several at once. You then swear that the original was lost, stolen, or destroyed. Print your name exactly as the DOL has it recorded.

If you’ve moved since the record was created, write your current mailing address. The DOL sends replacement documents to whatever address you list on this form, so verify it before signing.

Completing the Release of Interest Section

The lower portion is for owners transferring a vehicle or vessel to someone else and formally relinquishing their ownership stake. It’s especially useful when you don’t have the physical title to hand the buyer. Enter the new owner’s name, and by signing you declare that you give up all interest in the vehicle or vessel described at the top of the form.²

Filing this section also protects you after the sale. Once the DOL processes it, future parking tickets, toll violations, or liability tied to the vehicle stops tracing back to you in state records. If the buyer delays registering the vehicle in their name, the release of interest is your safety net.

Extra Documents for Non-Standard Releases

A straightforward sale between two living individuals generally needs only the completed TD-420-040 and the standard title transfer paperwork. Several other situations require additional documents:¹

Deceased owner with a probated estate: letters testamentary, letters of administration, or a completed county clerk certificate.
Joint tenancy with rights of survivorship: a copy of the deceased co-owner’s death certificate.
Community property agreement: a copy of both the death certificate and the community property agreement.
Small estate under $100,000 that isn’t being administered: a death certificate plus either a release of interest or an affidavit of succession.
Vehicle held in trust: copies of the relevant trust pages or a certificate of trust identifying the trustees, plus a signed, notarized Certificate of Fact stating your authority to act for the trust.
Name change: the current title (or an Affidavit of Loss) with the court order authorizing the change, or a Vehicle/Vessel Owner Name Update Affidavit.

Signatures and Notarization

Every registered and legal owner shown in the DOL’s records must sign the TD-420-040, and each signature must be either notarized or certified by a Washington vehicle licensing agent.³ This is the step most people trip on. A missing signature or an unwitnessed one gets the form rejected.

You have two ways to authenticate signatures. A notary public can witness each owner at a bank, shipping store, or private notary office. Washington caps notary fees at $15 per in-person notarial act and $25 for a remote online notarization. The other option is signing in front of a licensing agent at any vehicle licensing office, which the agent certifies as part of the transaction at no extra charge. If you’re submitting the form in person anyway, signing at the counter saves a separate trip.

When an Owner Can’t Sign in Person

Washington allows a designated representative to sign on an absent owner’s behalf using Form TD-420-050, the Release of Interest/Power of Attorney.⁴ The absent owner signs TD-420-050 in front of a notary to appoint someone to handle title and registration paperwork for that specific vehicle or vessel. The appointed person then brings the original signed power of attorney, not a photocopy, along with the completed TD-420-040 to the licensing office.

Where to Submit and What It Costs

Submit the completed, notarized form and the applicable fee at any Washington vehicle licensing office.¹ To mail it, send it to:

Department of Licensing
Application and Issuance
PO Box 9909
Olympia, WA 98507-8500

Use a mailing method with tracking. If the envelope is lost, you’ll have to start over with a new notarized form.

Fees depend on what you’re replacing:⁵

Replacement title by mail (4 to 6 weeks): $39.50 for vehicles and trailers, $30.75 for boats.
Quick Title (same day): $89.50 for vehicles and trailers, $80.75 for boats. The extra $50 is the statutory quick title service fee.⁶
Replacement tabs: $18.50.⁷
Duplicate registration: $1.25 plus approximately $19 in filing and service fees.⁷

Quick Title isn’t offered at every location. Confirm your nearest office participates before driving there expecting a same-day title.⁸

After You Submit

Standard replacement titles arrive by mail in four to six weeks.⁵ Quick Title at a participating office gets you the document the same day. Replacement tabs and registration cards come faster since they involve less processing than a title reprint.

Once a release of interest is processed, the DOL removes you as an owner in its records. You won’t receive a new title; that’s the buyer’s job through their own title application. If the original title later turns up in a drawer, destroy it so it can’t be used for a fraudulent transfer.

If something is wrong with your submission, a licensing specialist contacts you at the phone number or email you listed. The common reasons for rejection are a missing owner signature, a name that doesn’t match DOL records, or a notarization done outside Washington by someone who isn’t a Washington-commissioned notary. Fixing any of these means completing a fresh form and getting it notarized again, so verify everything before you submit.

1
Washington State Department of Licensing. Affidavit of Loss/Release of Interest
2
Washington State Department of Licensing. Affidavit of Loss/Release of Interest
3
Washington State Legislature. Washington Administrative Code 308-56A-270 – Affidavit of Loss/Release of Interest
4
Washington State Department of Licensing. Release of Interest/Power of Attorney
5
Washington State Department of Licensing. Replace a Lost Title or Registration
6
Washington State Legislature. Revised Code of Washington 46.17.160 – Quick Title Service Fee
7
Washington State Department of Licensing. Calculate Vehicle Tab Fees
8
Washington State Department of Licensing. Quick Title Offices