Reference Source

Vehicle title transfer deadlines and late penalties by state

For each US state: how many days a private-party buyer has to apply for a new certificate of title after buying a vehicle, and what the statute charges for missing the deadline — each from the state's own titling statute with a verbatim quote. There is no federal rule and the answers spread from 10 days (California, Minnesota's notice-of-sale) through 15 (Washington) to 30 (Texas, Ohio, Florida), and the penalties are just as scattered: Florida a flat $20, Washington $50 on the sixteenth day plus $2 for each additional day capped at $125, Texas escalating to $250. Answers 'how long do I have to transfer a car title after buying in [state]', 'what is the penalty for late title transfer in [state]', and 'is there a late fee if I miss the title deadline'. The Washington and Texas penalty formulas are stated as day-rate schedules, so a late-penalty calculator (inputs: state, days late) falls straight out of the data. One record per state statute.

Records13
Sources16
Verified
Review by
Licenceunknown

The data

StateDeadline to apply for titleStatutePenalty for missing it
Arizonawithin fifteen days after the relinquishing owner transfers or assigns the relinquishing owner's certificate of title or interest in the vehicle28-2058
Californiathat person shall, within 10 days thereafter, forward the certificate with the proper transfer fee to the department and thereby make application for a transfer of registrationVehicle Code section 5902
Floridamust be filed within 30 days after the delivery of the motor vehicle or after consummation of the sale of the mobile home to the purchaser319.23a fee of $20, in addition to all other fees and penalties required by law, for failing to file such application within the specified time
Illinoiswithin 20 days after delivery to him of the vehicle and the assigned title625 ILCS 5/3-112
Minnesotawithin 20 calendar days after assignment to the transferee of the vehicle title certificate168A.10
North Carolinawithin 28 days after the vehicle is transferredG.S. 20-73
Ohiowithin thirty days after the assignment or delivery of the motor vehicleSection 4505.06
Oregonwithin 30 days of the date of transfer of interest803.092
Pennsylvaniawithin 20 days of the sale or transfer of a vehicle or its entry into this Commonwealth from another jurisdiction, whichever is later§ 1103.1
TexasNot later than the later of the 30th day after the date of assignment on the documents or the date provided by Section 152.069, Tax CodeSec. 501.145
Virginiawithin 30 days of the purchase or transfer§ 46.2-600
Washingtonwithin 15 days of delivery of the vehicleRCW 46.12.650
Wisconsinpromptly after delivery to him or her of the vehicle342.15

Where this came from

Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 16 sources this dataset was assembled from.

Machine-readable

From your own code

Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.

pip install refsource
refsource lookup vehicle-title-transfer-deadlines-by-state state=Arizona

npx -y refsource lookup vehicle-title-transfer-deadlines-by-state state=Arizona

Set your AI assistant up to use this

Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "referencesource": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project

Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:

When a question needs "Vehicle title transfer deadlines and late penalties by state", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `vehicle-title-transfer-deadlines-by-state`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.

What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.

13 records. last verified against source . due for re-check by .

Licence. unknown