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Indiana Bill of Sale Requirements

Additional Forms Required in Indiana

• State Form 205 (Application for Certificate of Title)
• State Form 44237 (Bill of Sale)

Indiana keeps its private-sale paperwork straightforward, and two facts are worth getting right because guides often garble them. First, the deadline is 45 days, not 31: Indiana Code 9-17-2-14.7 gives the buyer 45 days from acquiring the vehicle to apply for a certificate of title, and missing it means an administrative penalty. Transfer-on-death transfers and newly arrived residents get 60 days. Second, Indiana does publish an official bill of sale — State Form 44237 — and a bill of sale does not require notarization: the BMV says it "is not required to be notarized or signed under penalties for perjury." Both parties just sign.

What a bill of sale cannot do in Indiana is transfer ownership of a vehicle that requires a title. The assigned title is the operative document: the seller writes the odometer reading, date of sale, and purchase price (which sets the tax) on it, and a bill of sale supplies the date or price only when the title lacks them. There are narrow exceptions where a bill of sale is the primary ownership record — voluntary titling, certain older utility and pop-up trailers, older off-road vehicles, and a few sheriff/municipal-sale situations — but for an ordinary car sale, the title carries the transfer.

The tax is a flat 7% on the purchase price, paid at the BMV when you title, with no additional county sales tax layered on. Emissions testing is confined to Lake and Porter counties in the state's northwest corner near Chicago, where 1976-and-newer vehicles at or under 9,000 lbs GVWR test every two years; everywhere else in Indiana there is no emissions requirement.

The buyer files State Form 205 (the title application) with the assigned title within the 45-day window, paying the 7% tax and title fee. The seller completes the assignment on the back of the title — including the odometer reading, sale date, and price — and a signed bill of sale is a useful extra record. Keep copies on both sides — with no notary needed for the bill of sale and a flat, predictable tax, Indiana is one of the simpler Midwest states in which to complete a private vehicle sale.