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The bottom line: To sell a junk car in Minnesota, get quotes, sign the title over when the tow driver arrives, then report the sale to the state. Your plates stay with the car, so leave them on. Most sales finish in about two days.
Three online buyers work across the state and tow for free. Peddle, Wheelzy, and CashForCars all buy cars that don’t run. Most junk cars bring $150 to $600.
On pickup day you need the title, a photo ID, and no open loan on the car. There’s no notary, no emissions test, and no safety inspection to arrange.
Lost the title? A deputy registrar can usually print a replacement while you wait. If the car is inoperable and old enough, a licensed scrap yard can take it with no title at all.
Compare offers from multiple buyers before you book a pickup.
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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How to Sell a Junk Car in Minnesota, Step by Step
Six steps, and most of them take minutes. With the title in hand, the whole thing usually runs one to two days from quote to towed away.
Step 1: Get quotes from several buyers
Every quote form asks the same handful of things. Year, make, model, mileage, whether it starts and drives, and what damage it has. Most also ask for the VIN.
The VIN sits on a small plate where the dashboard meets the windshield on the driver’s side. It’s also on your insurance card and on the title itself. If you can’t get to the car, the title copy works fine.
The offer is calculated from what you type, so describe the car honestly and the number won’t move. The driver checks it against your description before handing over payment.
How long an offer holds varies by buyer. Some lock it for a week, others want you to confirm sooner, and your offer email will say which.
You don’t need to fill in three separate forms. Compare offers from multiple buyers takes about two minutes and puts several numbers in front of you at once.
Top junk car buyers in Minnesota. All three buy cars that don’t run, tow for free, and reach the Twin Cities metro and the main population corridors along I-94 and I-35.
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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
- Quote stays valid for 7 days
- Handles all the paperwork too
- Buys cars that are missing keys
- Pays cash or 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
- Assists with replacement titles
- Buys cars stripped for parts
- Driver pays you before loading
- Quote often needs a phone call
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Offer amount 30% 4.5/5
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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% 4/5
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Process ease 15% 2/5
- Over 200 locations nationwide
- Drop off your car at any yard
- Backed by Copart auction yards
- Pays a check right at pickup
Step 2: Check your paperwork
You need the title and a photo ID. That’s the whole list for a normal junk sale.
Expired tabs don’t block it. Registration and title are separate records.
Odometer disclosure: required for model year 2011 and newer vehicles, with model year 2010 and older, trailers, and vehicles over 16,000 lbs GVWR exempt
If a document is missing, sort it out before you accept an offer.
Every form you might need
Most junk sales need no forms. These three come up when something is missing or the car isn’t straightforwardly yours.
Lost title
Form: Form PS2067A (Application for Duplicate Title, Registration, Cab or Lien Card)
The fastest fix on this page. How to apply.
Owner has died
Which one you use depends on probate. Selling a car not in your name.
Loan on the car
No seller form here, the lender does it. What to ask your lender.
Step 3: Accept an offer and book the pickup
Once you accept online, a local tow operator calls you, usually within a few hours. They pick a day and give you a window, often two or three hours wide.
The person named on the title has to be there to show ID, sign it, and take the payment.
In the metro, next-day pickup is normal. Up in the Arrowhead or out on the western edge of the state it can stretch to two or three days, and a bad snow week stretches it further.
Step 4: Get the car ready for the tow truck
Clear a straight path for a flatbed. Move the other cars, and in winter shovel out enough of the drive that a truck can back in and a car can roll onto the bed.
Empty it out. Glovebox, center console, trunk, under the seats, and the visor where the garage remote clips on. Whatever is left in the car leaves with the car.
No keys is worth flagging on the quote form rather than at the curb. The driver may need to read the odometer, and a car that can’t be steered or shifted out of park needs different equipment, so missing keys can change both the truck and the number.
Step 5: Sign the title and take payment
You sign the assignment section at the car with the driver standing there, and that’s the transfer done. For the section-by-section walkthrough of the title itself, see how to sign your title in Minnesota.
Payment is usually cash or check. It depends on the tow company.
Photograph the signed title before the truck pulls away, front and back. Some buyers email the receipt afterwards, so that photo is your own record of the date the car left.
Step 6: Close it out
Start with the plates.
Then file the notice of sale. It’s the one item here you shouldn’t skip.
File the Notice of Vehicle Sold online through the Minnesota DVS portal within 10 days of the sale.
Report it as a sale to a business, because a scrap yard is one. It takes a couple of minutes and it takes your name off the vehicle on state records.
Cancel the insurance last, after the car is physically gone. Call rather than cancelling online in advance, because if the pickup slips a day you want coverage still running.
Your Minnesota Junk Car Checklist
Before the Sale
At Pickup
After the Sale
What Your Junk Car Is Worth in Minnesota
$150 to $600 covers most junk cars. Complete trucks and SUVs run to around $1,500, and a newer car with fixable damage goes higher still.
Two things set the number. Scrap metal weight puts a floor under it, and whatever parts are still worth pulling sits on top. That’s why a heavy pickup with a dead engine beats a light sedan in the same condition.
Rust is the Minnesota exception. Road salt eats undercarriages and body panels, so a car that would be a solid parts donor somewhere dry gets valued closer to bare scrap here.
Weight raises it. Full-size trucks, vans, and three-row SUVs carry more metal than anything else in a driveway, and it shows up directly in the offer.
A complete car raises it. Engine, transmission, wheels, and catalytic converter all still attached is what buyers are quoting against.
Demand for the model raises it. Common trucks and long-running sedans have people looking for their parts. Something rare and old has almost no parts market at all.
A missing catalytic converter lowers it. It’s the single most valuable part on most junk cars, and losing it takes a few hundred dollars off.
Missing paperwork lowers it. Some buyers reduce the offer without a title, and some won’t quote at all.
A hard pickup lowers it. Cars in back yards, behind other vehicles, or in hard to reach spots cost more to recover, and that comes out of the offer.
Offers on the same car vary by a few hundred dollars between buyers. See who gives the most cash for junk cars.
Companies That Buy Junk Cars in Minnesota
All three of these buy cars that don’t run. A dead engine, a bad transmission, flood damage, or a car that hasn’t moved in four winters are all normal quotes for them, not exceptions.
Peddle
Peddle buys junk, salvage, and non-running cars
- Quote stays valid for 7 days
- Handles all the paperwork too
- Buys cars that are missing keys
- Pays cash or 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% 4/5
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Vehicle acceptance 15% 5/5
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Process ease 15% 5/5
Peddle picks up across Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, Duluth, St. Cloud, and Mankato, and reaches most towns off the main highways.
The form is short and Peddle holds its offer for seven days, which is enough time to pick up a replacement title. Old, high-mileage cars that stopped running years ago are its usual work.
Wheelzy
Wheelzy is best for older, junk or damaged cars
- Assists with replacement titles
- Buys cars stripped for parts
- Driver pays you before loading
- Quote often needs a phone call
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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
Wheelzy works through local partner yards and covers Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Eagan, Plymouth, Moorhead, and the Twin Cities suburbs.
You can get a number by phone as well as online, which helps if the car is at a different address than you are. Wheelzy also helps sellers sort out replacement titles.
CashForCars
CashForCars runs on Copart's nationwide auction yards
- Over 200 locations nationwide
- Drop off your car at any yard
- Backed by Copart auction yards
- Pays a check right at pickup
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Offer amount 30% 4.5/5
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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% 4/5
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Process ease 15% 2/5
CashForCars runs on the Copart network and reaches Duluth, Rochester, Winona, St. Cloud, and the Iron Range towns that other buyers sometimes skip.
Pickup is often same or next day in the metro, and you can drop the car at a yard yourself if that suits you better. Wrecked and accident-damaged cars are where it tends to be strongest.
You don’t have to choose between them upfront. One form gets you all three numbers, and it saves you the ten minutes that three separate quote forms take.
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Selling a Junk Car Without a Title in Minnesota
Minnesota has one exemption from the title rule. Everything outside it runs through a replacement title.
Option 1: check whether the exemption fits your car. Two things have to be true: the vehicle must be inoperable with a model year that is 20 or more years before the current year, and the buyer must be a licensed scrap vehicle operator such as a scrap metal processor, used vehicle parts dealer, or junk yard
Only a licensed scrap yard can use it. Enter the car as having no title on the quote form and the buyer sends it to a yard that qualifies.
Option 2: get a replacement title. If the car still runs, or it’s newer than the cutoff, this is the only route. It’s cheap and a deputy registrar can usually print one while you wait.
Option 3: sell it for parts yourself. Slower and more work, but it sidesteps the title question on a car worth more in pieces. See best places to sell a car for parts.
What you sign instead: none; the licensed scrap vehicle operator records a signed statement from the seller that the vehicle is not stolen and is free of liens, along with a copy of the seller's photo ID
Bring your ID. Without a title, the ID and that signed statement are the only things showing the car was yours to sell.
Learn more: Best Places to Sell a Car Without a Title
Getting a Replacement Title in Minnesota
Only the registered owner can apply, and you’ll need the vehicle details from your registration card.
Timing: usually same-day at a deputy registrar office in person, or by mail from the DVS Central Office
Expedited service: yes, Minnesota offers an expedited service that returns the title within three business days of the request under Minn. Stat. § 168.326
Extra fee for expedited: $20 in addition to all other applicable fees and taxes
If the name on the record isn’t yours, a duplicate won’t help. You need the transfer forms in selling a car that isn’t in your name instead.
Get quotes while you sort this out. There’s no reason to wait until the title is in your hand to find out what the car is worth.
If a lender still holds the title
The lien comes off before anything else happens. No buyer will take the car with an open loan attached, and a duplicate title won’t clear it either.
It depends on the title type: for a paper title, the lender returns the title to you with the lien released or provides a signed lien release card; for an electronic lien held in the ELT system, the lender releases it and DVS then issues a paper title before the sale
Call the lender and ask which of the two applies to you. If the loan is paid off but nobody ever sent you the released title, that phone call is usually the whole job.
If your title is electronic
Allow for the printing and mailing time before you book a pickup. The driver needs a paper title to take from you.
If the car is titled in another state
You can still sell it here. The car sits in Minnesota, the yard is in Minnesota, and the title you sign is whichever state issued it.
Tell the buyer during the quote so the right paperwork gets prepared. If that out-of-state title is also lost, you apply to the state that issued it, not to Minnesota.
Don’t retitle it here first. Paying to bring the car onto Minnesota records just to scrap it a week later is money spent for nothing.
Selling a Car That Isn’t in Your Name
The title has to move into your name before it can move out again. That’s true whether the owner died, gave you the car, or left it on your property years ago.
You file all of these at any deputy registrar office in Minnesota, along with the original title and a photo ID.
Owner has died. Which form you file depends on whether there’s a surviving spouse and whether the estate went through probate. You’ll also need a certified copy of the death certificate.
Someone gave you the car. A gift between close family is exempt from motor vehicle sales tax, but the paperwork still gets filed.
It was abandoned on your property. This one is slow and it runs through your local law enforcement agency. Start with selling an abandoned vehicle before you call a tow company.
Signing someone else’s name is forgery, not a shortcut. Yards ask for ID at pickup for exactly this reason.
What Counts as a Junk Car in Minnesota
There’s no label you apply for. What matters is which bucket a buyer puts your car in, because that’s what sets the offer.
| What you have | What it means for the sale |
|---|---|
| Runs, high miles, worn out | Quoted on parts value, not scrap weight. Usually the highest junk offers. |
| Won’t start, otherwise complete | Normal junk quote. Free towing, no discount for being dead. |
| Wrecked or accident damaged | Quoted on the undamaged parts. Rear-end damage costs less than front-end. |
| Rusted through the frame | Close to bare scrap weight. Common on salted roads. |
| Missing engine or transmission | Big reduction. Say so when you quote or the number changes at pickup. |
| Salvage or rebuilt title | Sells normally to junk buyers. The brand matters far less here than in a private sale. |
Cars stripped for parts are the one real exception. Buyers quote against a complete vehicle, so pulling the wheels and the stereo before pickup lowers what you get.
If yours still runs and drives, check what a normal sale would bring first. A running car is often worth more than any junk car quote, even at 200,000 miles.
Local Yards vs Online Buyers
A local yard sets its own price and can decide on the spot about odd situations, including a car with no title. You may also have to arrange your own towing, and the quoted number can change once someone looks at the car.
Online buyers give you a number without anyone visiting first. They subcontract the tow to a local operator, so the pickup itself is much the same, and paperwork problems get handled by phone rather than in person.
Use both. Take the online quotes as your floor, then call a yard or two nearby and see if anyone beats it. Junk car buyers near me covers how to find the local ones.
Storing a Junk Car While You Sort It Out
Many Minnesota cities have ordinances about inoperable vehicles parked in view. Rules vary by city, so a car that’s fine in a rural township can draw a notice in a Twin Cities suburb.
Keep it in a garage or behind the home if you can, and off the street. Street parking is where complaints start, and winter parking bans will get it towed at your expense.
Fluids are the other risk. A car sitting on a driveway for years leaks oil and coolant onto the pavement and into the ground, and that cleanup is yours until the car is gone.
Minnesota Motor Vehicle Resources
State agency: Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS)
Title information: Minnesota DVS Vehicle Titles page
Report a sale: File online
For the full process on a car that still runs, see how to sell a car in Minnesota.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to sell a junk car in Minnesota?
One to two days with the title in hand. The quote takes a couple of minutes and pickup is usually next day in the metro.
Without the title, add a trip to a deputy registrar. Outstate pickups and heavy snow weeks can push the whole thing to three or four days.
Do I need a title to sell my junk car in Minnesota?
Title required to sell: yes
One exemption exists. Two things have to be true: the vehicle must be inoperable with a model year that is 20 or more years before the current year, and the buyer must be a licensed scrap vehicle operator such as a scrap metal processor, used vehicle parts dealer, or junk yard
For anything else, a replacement title is the answer.
How much does a replacement title cost in Minnesota?
Cost: $21.50 by mail or $22.50 at a deputy registrar office
Available online: no
Do I remove my license plates before pickup in Minnesota?
Where plates go: with the vehicle
Does handing them in release you: no, surrendering plates alone does not release liability; the seller must report the sale online through the DVS Notice of Vehicle Sold portal within 10 days
Does my junk car need an emissions test or safety inspection in Minnesota?
Emissions test: no testing required
Safety inspection: not required
Does the title have to be notarized in Minnesota?
Title notarization: not required
Bill of sale notarization: not required
Is a bill of sale required to sell a junk car in Minnesota?
Bill of sale: recommended
Write one anyway. It’s the only document that fixes the date you gave up the car, which matters if a dispute comes up later.
Learn more: Free Bill of Sale Generator
What paperwork do I file with the state after selling in Minnesota?
File the Notice of Vehicle Sold online through the Minnesota DVS portal within 10 days of the sale.
That’s the only filing you owe. The buyer handles the rest, and they have 10 business days from the date of sale to do it.
Can I sell a junk car with a loan on it in Minnesota?
Not until the lien is released. The lender holds the claim on the title and no buyer will touch it while that’s open.
If the loan is paid off, ask the lender to send the released title or a lien release card. If you still owe more than the car is worth, you pay the difference to close it out.
Can I sell a junk car with expired registration in Minnesota?
Yes, and you don’t need to renew anything first. Paying to register a car you’re about to scrap is money gone.
The title is what transfers ownership, not the registration.
What if the offer changes when the driver arrives?
The offer is calculated from what you described, and the driver checks the car against it. A missing catalytic converter, a stripped interior, or an engine that isn’t there will change the number.
You can decline. Nothing obligates you to hand over the car, and you can send the driver away and get quotes from other buyers instead.
Over-describe the damage when you quote and it won’t come up. An accurate form means the number you were shown is the number you get.
Article Update History
Originally posted and shared with our readers.
Sources
"required for model year 2011 and newer vehicles, with model year 2010 and older, trailers, and vehicles over 16,000 lbs GVWR exempt" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Duplicate Title Application Form
"Form PS2067A (Application for Duplicate Title, Registration, Cab or Lien Card)" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Inherited Vehicle Title Transfer Form
"Form PS2071 (Assignment of a Vehicle to a Surviving Spouse/Not Subject to Probate) for a surviving spouse, an Affidavit for Collection of Personal Property for a small estate, or court-issued probate documents for a probated estate" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"for a paper title, the lender returns the title to you with the lien released or provides a signed lien release card; for an electronic lien held in the ELT system, the lender releases it and DVS then issues a paper title before the sale" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Title Notarization Explanation
"Minnesota does not require the title assignment to be notarized; sign in blue or black ink exactly as your name appears on the title" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
What to Do With License Plates
"leave your plates on the car for in-state sales; remove them if the buyer is taking the car out of state; personalized or specialty plates can be transferred to another vehicle you own" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
How to File Release of Liability
"File the Notice of Vehicle Sold online through the Minnesota DVS portal within 10 days of the sale." Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Conditions to Sell Without Title
"the vehicle must be inoperable with a model year that is 20 or more years before the current year, and the buyer must be a licensed scrap vehicle operator such as a scrap metal processor, used vehicle parts dealer, or junk yard" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
How to Apply for a Replacement Title
"complete and sign Form PS2067A, then submit it at any deputy registrar office or mail it to the DVS Central Office in St. Paul" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Title Replacement Expedited Option?
"yes, Minnesota offers an expedited service that returns the title within three business days of the request under Minn. Stat. § 168.326" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS)" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"Minnesota DVS Vehicle Titles page" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"yes" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
Buyer Registration Deadline After Sale
"10 business days from the date of sale" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
"No separate gift transfer form. No affidavit is required between qualifying relatives, and the former gift affidavit has been withdrawn" Accessed Sep. 10, 2026
