Yes — remove your license plates before the junk car leaves your driveway in Minnesota. Then cancel your registration with DVS. Doing it in that order protects you from parking tickets, toll violations, and tort liability the moment the car is no longer in your possession. The whole process takes about 10 minutes.
The Minnesota rule, in plain English
Under Minnesota Statutes 168.16 and 168A.10, license plates are issued to the registered owner, not to the vehicle. When you transfer ownership of a vehicle, you do not transfer the plates with it. The plates belong to you — either to surrender to DVS, to transfer onto another vehicle you own, or to destroy and discard.
This is the opposite of how some states (e.g. Iowa) handle it, where the plates stay with the vehicle. Minnesota is a "plates-with-owner" state, and getting this wrong is the single most common reason private sellers end up dealing with citations months after a sale.
Step 1 — Remove the plates before pickup
Use a Phillips-head screwdriver (sometimes a 5/16" socket on older vehicles). Two screws on the front plate, two on the rear. Take both. Drop them in your garage drawer until you have completed Step 2.
If the plate screws are rusted solid (common on 2010-and-older Minnesota cars after a few winters of road salt), spray with WD-40 or PB Blaster, wait 5 minutes, then try again. If you snap a screw, the plate will still come off with light prying — the screw is what holds it, not the plate's own structure.
Step 2 — Cancel your registration with DVS
This is the step most people skip — and it is the one that actually protects you from liability. Cancellation removes your name as the registered owner of record at the state level, so any future incident traced via plate or VIN does not bounce back to your address.
Three ways to do it:
Online (fastest, 5 minutes)
Log in at drive.mn.gov, navigate to "My Vehicles," select the vehicle you sold, and choose
"Report Sale or Transfer." Enter the buyer (Merritt's Auto Recycling, 3106 68th Ave N, Brooklyn Center,
MN 55429), date of sale, and sale price. The system updates immediately.
By mail
Submit Form PS2031 (Report of Sale/Transfer) along with the plates (yes, mail the actual plates) to the address on the form. Allow 2 to 3 weeks for processing.
In person
At any deputy registrar office. Bring the plates and the title (or a copy of the bill of sale if you have already handed the title over). They will process the cancellation while you wait.
Step 3 — Decide what to do with the physical plates
You have three options:
- Transfer to another vehicle. If you have another car registered in your name, the plates from the junked vehicle can be re-used on it via DVS plate transfer (Form PS2510, $4.50 fee). This saves the cost of buying new plates if you bought a replacement vehicle.
- Surrender to DVS. Mail them with Form PS2031 or drop them at any registrar office. No fee. DVS destroys them.
- Destroy and discard yourself. Legal in Minnesota — cut the plates in half with tin snips or large shears, then dispose with household metal recycling. Take a photo of the destroyed plates and store with your sale paperwork; this is a useful evidence trail if anyone later disputes the date of disposal.
What you must not do: throw intact plates in the trash. They can be retrieved, attached to another vehicle, and used to incur violations under your name. Always destroy or surrender.
Personalized plates
If you paid extra for a vanity or specialty plate (collegiate, veteran, critical habitat, etc.), follow the same removal and cancel-registration steps — but on Form PS2031 indicate that you want to retain the plate combination. DVS will note the reservation against your driver's license number. If you buy another vehicle within 12 months, you can transfer the same plate number onto it.
What about a refund on remaining registration?
Minnesota does not refund the unused portion of an annual registration. So if you renewed in January and junk the car in March, you do not get the remaining 9 months back. That said, your registration was valid up to the moment of sale, so the plates remained legal until pickup — no value is lost retroactively. Schedule pickups for the back half of your registration year when possible, but do not delay a sale just to wait out a few extra months.
The insurance side
Separately from DVS, contact your insurance carrier the day of the sale and remove the vehicle from your policy. This usually triggers a small refund on your prepaid premium. If the car was your only insured vehicle, ask whether dropping insurance entirely (vs. keeping a "non-owner" or named-non-owner policy) makes more sense — there can be downstream effects on continuous-insurance credits if you go fully uninsured for more than a month or two.
Liability scenarios this protects you from
Real cases we have seen in the Twin Cities over the years:
- A car sold without plate removal and registration cancellation accumulated $400 in parking tickets in St. Paul before the buyer registered it. The original owner got the citations.
- An abandoned car traced via expired plates was billed to the registered owner for the city's $325 tow and storage fee — six months after sale.
- A vehicle sold to an unscrupulous buyer was used in a hit-and-run; the original owner spent two days dealing with an officer's investigation before producing the bill of sale to prove they no longer owned the car.
None of these are common — but they are entirely preventable by spending 10 minutes on the plate-removal and cancellation steps.
Quick checklist
- Remove both plates with a Phillips screwdriver.
- Cancel registration online at
drive.mn.gov, by mail (PS2031), or in person. - Transfer plates to another vehicle, surrender to DVS, or destroy.
- Notify your insurance carrier same day.
- Keep your bill of sale from Merritt's filed for at least 3 years.
Ready to schedule pickup? Call 763-533-2775 — we will give you a firm quote in 90 seconds and walk you through the paperwork before the truck rolls. If your title is missing, see the title requirements guide before scheduling.
