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The bottom line: To sell a car privately in Delaware, sign the title, print your name, and have the buyer sign the same section. No notary is needed, and for a 2011 model or newer you also write the odometer reading on the back.
A bill of sale is recommended but not required, and Delaware has no form of its own, so a generic one works. You do not need an emissions test or a safety inspection to sell.
Right after the sale, mail or email the Seller’s Report of Sale, because removing the plates does not release your liability. Take the plates off and return them to any DMV office, or pay to have the number held for you.
If you have lost the title, mail Form MV-213 with the $50 fee, since there is no online replacement. If a lender still holds the title, send the lender Form MV-35. The lender mails the title to the DMV office you pick, and you finish the sale there.
Start with an offer from the online buyers, and sell privately only if you can beat it.
- Sign the title over to the buyerOdometer reading: required for model year 2011 and newer.
- Take your plates off the carCome off the car and go back to any Delaware DMV office, or go into retention so the number is held for you
- File Seller's Report of SaleRight after the sale, with no grace period in the statute. Mail the Seller's Report of Sale to P.O. Box 698, Dover, DE 19903, or email it to DMV.CorrespondenceServices@delaware.gov. It helps protect you from liability for the car after the sale.
- Cancel your insuranceOnly after you surrender the plate to the DMV; Delaware fines $100 for up to 30 days uninsured plus $5 a day after that.
- Write a bill of sale
- Emissions test
- Safety inspection
- Notary on the title
- Notarized bill of sale
- Replacing a lost title
- $50The DMV gives no set processing time, and a request made within 15 days of the last title being issued goes for further review first; can’t be ordered online; Form MV-213
- Two owners on the title
- Look at the front of the title: where the names are joined by "AND" every owner signs Section 1, and where they are joined by "AND/OR" one signature is enough.
- The buyer
- Registers the car within 30 days from the date of purchase$35 late penalty fee on top of the regular title transfer fee
Automated assistant: general info, not legal advice
Answers come from our state paperwork data and published guides. Confirm anything binding with your state DMV.
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Step-by-Step Process for Delaware
Step 1: Prepare Your Delaware Paperwork
Documents you’ll need:
- Vehicle title – the Delaware certificate, in your name, with no live lien on the front
- Photo ID – yours, and a look at the buyer’s before any money changes hands
- Lien release – only where a lender is still named on the record
If your title is missing:
The application is Form MV-213, which the DMV calls the Application for Duplicate Title. Every owner named on the title signs it and writes in their driver’s license number.
The fee is $50.
How long it takes: the DMV gives no set processing time, and a request made within 15 days of the last title being issued goes for further review first.
One thing worth knowing before you apply: a duplicate prints the last mileage the DMV has on record, and no new odometer disclosure is made on it.
If you can’t get a duplicate title:
Delaware will not accept a private sale of a car you cannot produce a title for. There is one exception and it is narrow.
21 Del. C. § 2505 covers one case: sale must be to a licensed automotive recycler for wrecking or dismantling, and the recycler accepts a salvage certificate or other acceptable evidence of ownership in place of a title.
Anything you plan to drive away needs a replacement title first.
If you still owe money on the car:
The document your lender produces is the title itself, and Delaware has a form for asking: you send Form MV-35 to your lender, your lender mails the Delaware title to the DMV office you picked, the DMV contacts you when it arrives, and it holds the title for no more than 60 days while you come in and finish the sale.
It goes to your lender, never to the DMV, and you pick which of the four Delaware offices the title is posted to.
Where the payoff is more than the sale price, you cover the gap yourself.
Step 2: Prepare Your Car
A clean car takes better photographs and prompts fewer questions.
Put the service records in the glovebox and run a VIN check before the first person calls.
Step 3: Price Your Car
Start with KBB and Edmunds, then look at what comparable cars are listed for around Wilmington and Dover.
Check the asking prices in Maryland and Pennsylvania too, because both are inside easy reach of most of Delaware.
Step 4: Advertise Your Car
Facebook Marketplace reaches the buyers around Wilmington, Dover and Newark. Cars.com and Autotrader widen it to Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which are all close enough for a buyer to drive over.
If you would rather not meet anyone, the online buyers price the car without a listing. Peddle and Wheelzy take older and damaged cars, and Carvana is the one to try on any car after 1992 that drives safely.
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Offer amount 35% 5/5
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Process ease 20% 5/5
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Offer validity 15% 4/5
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Pickup / drop-off 15% 4/5
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Payment speed 15% 4/5
- Accepts cars with active loans
- Trade-in can save on sales tax
- License plate starts the quote
- Direct deposit option available
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Offer amount 30% 5/5
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Quote speed 20% 5/5
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Pickup speed 20% 4/5
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Vehicle acceptance 15% 5/5
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Process ease 15% 5/5
- Free towing
- Fast payment
- Buys non running cars
- Pays by check at pickup
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Offer amount 30% 5/5
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Quote speed 20% 5/5
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Pickup speed 20% 5/5
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Vehicle acceptance 15% 4/5
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Process ease 15% 4/5
- Free pickup from anywhere in Delaware
- Paid on the spot when the car is collected
- Usually a cashier's check, cash in some areas
- No dealer sale fee, title transfer fee or removal fee
Step 5: Meet with Buyers Safely
Meet in daylight somewhere busy, and a bank parking lot is the easiest place to suggest without it sounding like mistrust.
Take someone with you. It is free and it makes the whole meeting easier.
Step 6: Handle Payment and Negotiate
The money lands before you sign Section 1, not after. Take a cashier’s check and confirm it at the branch that wrote it.
Work out your floor before the buyer arrives and hold it. One round of haggling is normal here.
Step 7: Complete the Delaware Title Transfer
Section 1 on the back of the Delaware title is the whole of your paperwork at the sale.
The Delaware DMV recommends that all parties appear at any Delaware DMV office (Wilmington, Delaware City, Dover, or Georgetown) to complete the transfer, and a title associate will check the form while you are both standing there.
What to fill in:
- Buyer’s full legal name and complete address
- Date of sale and purchase price
- Odometer reading
- Your signature, with your name printed beside it
The buyer signs Section 1 as well, and then completes the Purchaser’s Application in Section 4 with their own driver’s license number and date of birth. Where the car is financed, their lender goes in Section 3.
Two names on the title?
- Before the buyer arrives, look at the front of the title: where the names are joined by "AND" every owner signs Section 1, and where they are joined by "AND/OR" one signature is enough
Odometer disclosure: required for model year 2011 and newer, with 2010 and older, non-motorized vehicles, and vehicles rated over 16,000 lbs exempt.
Delaware records it in the same section as the sale, and it is written in whole miles with no tenths. A reading lower than the one printed on the front of the title gets the transfer rejected, unless you tick the box for an odometer over its mechanical limits or one that is not showing actual mileage.
Made a slip? Do not reach for white-out. Delaware has a form for this: a slip on the title is fixed on Form MV-216, the multipurpose form, which covers a corrected title, a defaced title and a VIN correction; the original title goes in with it, and the fee is $35 with no lien on the car. An odometer mistake has its own form, MV-809.
Before handing over the title: detach the Seller's Report of Sale tear-off from the bottom. That is yours. The rest of the title goes to the buyer.
Buyer’s deadline: what the buyer owes at the counter is a document fee of 5.25 percent, worked out on the sale price or the NADA average trade-in value, whichever is higher. Delaware charges that instead of sales tax and it is the buyer’s to pay.
The clock on it runs from the sale. The buyer has 30 days from the date of purchase to apply for the new title, and past that they face $35 late penalty fee on top of the regular title transfer fee.
Date the title accurately, because that is the date the late fee is counted from.
One more thing to say out loud before they arrive: the car may not be driven until the new title is issued in their name.
Step 8: Handle Delaware License Plates and Registration
The plate is the State’s property, not yours. Delaware law puts it plainly: number and registration plates are the property of the State, furnished for each registered vehicle at no extra cost to the owner.
So the tags come off before the car leaves. They stay with you and they never go with the vehicle.
From there they come off the car and go back to any Delaware DMV office, or go into retention so the number is held for you.
Retention is worth the money if another car is coming and you want the same number on it. If nothing is coming, hand the plate back and be done.
The DMV is blunt about what happens if you leave it on. A plate that is neither returned nor retained can bring red light, toll and parking violations back to the seller.
Step 9: Submit the Release of Liability
This one is required, and the form says so on its face: the Report of Sale is required by 21 Del. C. 2502.
When: right after the sale, with no grace period in the statute.
The form is the tear-off at the bottom of the newer Delaware titles, and there is a standalone PDF for older ones. Fill in the buyer’s name and address, the date and hour of the sale, and your signature.
The buyer signs it too and adds their driver’s license number, so get that while the two of you are still sitting together. Chasing a signature afterwards is how this form goes unfiled.
If you do not file: no fixed dollar penalty, and the filing does not end the exposure by itself: the Division flags the record on the date reported, which is your dated proof the car changed hands.
The form states in capitals that the flag does not change ownership and does not stop law enforcement, the DMV or parking authorities contacting you about the car. An incomplete or illegible form gives you none of it, so write it out properly.
Step 10: Cancel Insurance
Cancel last, once the title is signed, the Report of Sale has gone in and the plate is back at the DMV.
Nothing that releases you depends on the buyer.
Delaware Sale Checklist
Before the Sale
At the Sale
After the Sale
Delaware DMV Resources
State Resources:
Phone Support (by location):
Office hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 8 AM to 4 PM. Wednesday, 11 AM to 6:30 PM.
Delaware Fees and Costs
| What You Pay? | Cost | When? |
|---|---|---|
| Duplicate title (if needed) | $50 | Before sale |
| Retain your Delaware tag number (optional) | $35 to put the plate into retention with no lien on the car, $55 with one, and $20 to take it back out | As the tag comes off |
| Lien payoff (if applicable) | Loan balance | Before sale |
| Everything else | $0 | Buyer pays |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to get the title notarized when I sign it over in Delaware?
No, on the title or on a bill of sale.
The two Delaware forms that do want a notary are the survivor’s transfer form for an inherited vehicle and a power of attorney used on a title application. Neither is part of an ordinary sale.
When is a bill of sale required in Delaware?
Nobody asks you for one at the sale. The DMV asks the buyer for it later, when they apply for the title, and that is the only place it matters in Delaware.
A bill of sale is recommended, and on the form itself Delaware offers nothing: no state-issued bill of sale form; a generic document works for titled vehicles.
The reason is the buyer’s bill. With no bill of sale and no price written on the title, the DMV works the document fee out from the book instead.
Which is also why an accurate price is worth more to the buyer than a low one. A figure below the NADA trade-in value does not lower it.
Use our free bill of sale generator if you want one drawn up.
Can you sell a car in Delaware that isn’t tagged?
Yes. What the buyer needs from you is the title, signed over in Section 1, and tags have nothing to do with it.
Tags are the State’s property in Delaware, so they come off the car and go back to the DMV whether the car is being sold, scrapped or parked up. A car with no tags on it can change hands perfectly legally.
What the buyer cannot do is drive it away. The Delaware DMV’s rule is that the vehicle may not be operated until a new title is issued in their name, so they will be trailering it or buying a temporary tag at a DMV office before they leave.
My car was inherited. What Delaware forms do I need?
It turns first on whether the estate went through probate, not on what the car is worth.
Where it did, the executor assigns the title and brings certified Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
Where it did not, Delaware has an affidavit route, and it is capped: $50,000 in personal estate, and no Delaware real estate, for the affidavit path under 12 Del. C. 2306; a larger estate or one holding Delaware real estate goes through probate.
The form for that route is Form MV-11 (Survivor's Transfer Form for a Vehicle) for the small-estate path, or the title assigned by the executor with Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration if the estate is probated, and a certified death certificate goes with either path.
The buyer is from out of state. Does Delaware require anything special?
Nothing extra from you. Sign Section 1, complete the odometer disclosure, take your tags off and send in the Report of Sale, exactly as you would for a Delaware buyer.
The difference is on their side of the counter, and it is a tag: with yours gone the car has none.
Do I keep the tags when I sell my car privately in Delaware?
You take them off, but you don’t get to keep them indefinitely. They go back to a DMV office once the car is gone.
If you want to hold on to the number for the next car, that is what retention is for, and the number stays yours for 365 days past the plate’s expiry date.
Either way they come off before the buyer drives off.
Can you sell a car without a title in Delaware?
Generally no. Delaware’s one route round a missing title is a sale to an automotive recycler, and for anything you want to sell to a private buyer a replacement title comes first.
On the paperwork Delaware is loose: no set form; a salvage certificate or other acceptable evidence of ownership takes the place of the title
How do I sell a junk car in Delaware?
With the title, the same way as any other sale. Online buyers like Peddle and Wheelzy pick the car up for free, and their driver collects the signed title.
A typical junk car in Delaware is offered $600 (cars 10 years and older, 41 offers, ranked 11 of 44 states).
You still take the tags off and still send in the Report of Sale.
Article Update History
Every rule on this page now comes from the Delaware DMV's own pages and forms.
Checked against the Delaware DMV's title transfer requirements.
Originally posted and shared with our readers.
Sources
Release of Liability Form Name
"Seller's Report of Sale" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Buyer Penalty for Missing Registration Deadline
"$35 late penalty fee on top of the regular title transfer fee" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"not required" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"$50" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"you send Form MV-35 to your lender, your lender mails the Delaware title to the DMV office you picked, the DMV contacts you when it arrives, and it holds the title for no more than 60 days while you come in and finish the sale" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Safety Inspection Required to Sell?
"not required" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"required for model year 2011 and newer, with 2010 and older, non-motorized vehicles, and vehicles rated over 16,000 lbs exempt" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV)" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Inherited Vehicle Title Transfer Form
"Form MV-11 (Survivor's Transfer Form for a Vehicle) for the small-estate path, or the title assigned by the executor with Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration if the estate is probated" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"yes" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Replacement Title Processing Time
"the DMV gives no set processing time, and a request made within 15 days of the last title being issued goes for further review first" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Emissions Testing Required to Sell?
"not required to sell; Delaware tests before a registration renewal and on a vehicle titled or registered here for the first time" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
What to Do With License Plates
"come off the car and go back to any Delaware DMV office, or go into retention so the number is held for you" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"Delaware DMV, Dover 302-744-2500, Wilmington 302-434-3200, Delaware City 302-326-5000, Georgetown 302-853-1000" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Inherited Vehicle Estate Value Threshold
"$50,000 in personal estate, and no Delaware real estate, for the affidavit path under 12 Del. C. 2306; a larger estate or one holding Delaware real estate goes through probate" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Junk Car Value Statistics, Sell Car Advisor
"On this page: 1 figure from 17,628 instant cash offers" Accessed Oct. 2, 2026
