Call Us: 1-855-928-2611In most states, license plates belong to you, not to the car. When you sell a junk car, the plates come off before the tow truck pulls away.
People forget this constantly, and it is one of the easier ways to inherit somebody else’s parking tickets.
Why you take them off
A plate is what ties a vehicle to a person in every automated system that matters — parking enforcement, toll gantries, red light cameras, police databases. If your plate is still bolted to a car you no longer own, you are the name those systems return.
Once the car has been scrapped the plate should be out of circulation entirely. Leaving it attached means it can end up on a vehicle you have never seen, which is a much worse problem than a parking ticket.
What to do with them once they are off
You generally have three options, and which applies depends on your state:
Transfer them to another vehicle
If you are replacing the car, most states let you move the plates across. This is usually the cheapest route because you keep the registration and just update the vehicle it applies to.
Surrender them to the DMV
Some states require you to hand plates back when a vehicle is sold, scrapped or the insurance is cancelled. Surrendering them also produces a receipt, which is useful evidence that the car is no longer your responsibility.
Destroy or dispose of them
A few states simply tell you to destroy expired plates rather than return them. If that is your state, cut them so they cannot be reused rather than dropping them in a bin intact.
The rules genuinely differ, and the penalties for getting it wrong are usually small but annoying. Check your own DMV before you assume — we list DMV offices by county on each of our state pages.
Do not cancel the insurance too early
This trips people up. Cancel the policy before the car physically leaves and you may have a gap in coverage while the vehicle is still legally registered to you. Some states treat a registered, uninsured vehicle as a violation in its own right, regardless of whether it is drivable.
The safe order is: car gets collected, plates come off, release of liability filed, then cancel the insurance. Some insurers will also want the plate surrender receipt, so keep it.
What about the registration sticker?
If your state uses a windshield sticker, remove or deface it too. It carries the same identifying information as the plate and there is no reason to leave it on a car headed for a scrapyard.
The order that works
- Agree the sale and confirm the pickup time
- Clear your belongings out of the car
- Take the plates off before the truck loads it
- Get a signed receipt with the VIN on it
- File your state’s release of liability
- Transfer, surrender or destroy the plates as your state requires
- Cancel the insurance
None of it takes long, and doing it in this order means nothing can come back to you afterwards.
If you are ready to move the car on, we buy junk cars in any condition with free towing and payment at pickup — and the driver will remind you about the plates before the car goes on the truck.
