Free Idaho Bill of Sale Template & Generator

Idaho Bill of Sale Requirements

Additional Forms Required in Idaho

• Application for Certificate of Title (Form ITD 3337)
• Bill of Sale (Form ITD 3738)

The single most repeated error about buying a car in Idaho is that private sales escape tax. They do not. Idaho charges 6% sales tax on a casual (private-party) sale, and the county assessor collects it when the buyer titles the vehicle. Only narrow exemptions exist — the family exemption, for example, covers only a parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, or brother/sister transfer, and only if that family member paid sales or use tax when buying the vehicle. Because the tax is computed from the price you document, the bill of sale is the piece of paper that determines what you owe — which is why Idaho bothers to publish its own version, Form ITD 3738.

Idaho splits its paperwork across two ITD forms that are easy to mix up. ITD 3337 is the Application for Certificate of Title, the buyer's form for obtaining the new title. ITD 3738 is the Bill of Sale, documenting the transaction itself. They travel together with the seller-assigned title to a county motor-vehicle office. Note the venue: Idaho runs titling through county assessor offices rather than a central DMV counter, so the same visit handles the tax and the title application.

The filing deadline is 30 days from the transfer, and Idaho's late penalty is a comparatively gentle $20 — but it is a real fee. No notary step appears on Form ITD 3738 or in ITD's instructions for an ordinary title assignment, though a lost-title transfer on Form ITD 3369 needs a notarized or assessor-witnessed signature.

One extra step applies to vehicles arriving from out of state: a VIN inspection, verifying the vehicle identification number against the ownership documents, performed at a law enforcement office or an authorized inspection station. Vehicles already titled in Idaho and changing hands in-state do not need one, so a purely local private sale skips this entirely.

Inspections otherwise are light. Idaho has no statewide safety inspection, and emissions testing is handled at the local level rather than statewide — historically concentrated in the Boise and Canyon County area — so most of the state has no emissions requirement. Between that, the modest late penalty, and no notary step on the standard forms, an Idaho private sale is procedurally simple. The one thing to get right is the tax: budget for the 6%, document the price accurately, and bring the bill of sale to the county assessor.