Free Indiana Bill of Sale Template & Generator

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 costs a flat $30 late fee. Transfer-on-death transfers and newly arrived residents get 60 days. Second, Indiana does publish an official bill of sale — State Form 44237 — and it explicitly does not require notarization; the BMV states that no notary or witness is needed. 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 bill of sale documents the price (which sets the tax) and the odometer. 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 and Form 44237 within the 45-day window, paying the 7% tax and title fee. The seller completes the assignment on the back of the title and hands over a signed bill of sale. Keep copies on both sides — with no notary step and a flat, predictable tax, Indiana is one of the simpler Midwest states in which to complete a private vehicle sale.