Your Definitive Guide to Vehicle Tag Transfers in Florida

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A quick guide to transferring or surrendering your tags

Written by Jennifer Mueller, JD

Last Updated: December 20, 2024 Fact Checked

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Transferring Florida Tags to a New Car

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Renewing Florida Registration

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Surrendering Unused Florida Tags

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FAQs

In Florida, motor vehicle tags and registration follow the owner, not the vehicle. This means that if you buy a new car, you can transfer your old tags—no need to get new ones! In fact, if you do opt to get new tags, you're expected to surrender those old ones to the state within 30 days. Read on to learn everything you need to know to keep your vehicle legal on Florida roads.

Transferring Plates in Florida

In Florida, you can transfer tags between any cars that you own as long as you pay the transfer fee and any associated taxes. While you can do this at any time, you have to do it in person—you can't do it online.

Section 1 of 4:

Transferring Florida Tags to a New Car

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Remove the plate from the old car. In Florida, registration and plate are associated with you as the owner, not with the vehicle they're attached to. That means that if you want to transfer those plates from one car you own to another, you're pretty much free to do so as long as you pay the fees and any taxes associated with the transfer.^{[1]
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- It's really important that you take your plate off of the old car before you do anything else to avoid any penalties when you cancel the insurance on the old car.^{[2]
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Sell or trade the old car and buy a new one. The easiest way to transfer your Florida registration and plate to a new car is through a dealer—mainly because they take care of all of the paperwork for you. Sometimes you don't even have to transfer the physical plates yourself.^{[3]
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- If your title is electronic, you don't even have to worry about taking a physical copy with you to the dealership—the dealer can access it and help you complete the transfer information.
- If you've already sold your old car, just bring your plate. The dealer can still update your registration for you in the same transaction.
- If you're selling your car through a private transaction, your nearest motor vehicle service center can help ensure that you have all the paperwork and documentation you need to successfully transfer your tag.^{[4]
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Sign an affidavit if you're keeping the old car. Do this if you've acquired a second car that you want to drive but you plan on keeping the first one. You're essentially telling the state that you want to drive a different car and you're not going to drive the other one any more.^{[5]
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- Florida has a General Affidavit form you can use. Just mark item 6, sign, and date it.
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Take your paperwork to the local tax collector's office. If you're going through a licensed dealer, they'll take care of all of this for you. Otherwise, head over to the local tax collector's office with the following documentation:^{[6]
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- Titles for the vehicles you own
- Florida certificate of registration
- Proof of insurance
- Completed application for transfer (you might also be able to fill out a paper form in the office)
- Payment of the transfer fee (use the application form to calculate your fee)
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Place your tag on your new vehicle. You'll get a temporary paper registration that you can use until the official one comes in the mail. That proves registration is complete, though, so you can go ahead and put the plate on the new car.^{[7]
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- This also means the tag is now associated with your new car and not the other one. If you want to swap the tags again, you'll have to repeat the same process.

Section 2 of 4:

Renewing Florida Registration

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Renew your registration before your birthday every year. Florida vehicle registrations expire at midnight on your birthday, so think of updated registration as a birthday gift to yourself. You can renew at any time up to 30 days before your birthday to make sure everything stays up to date and you don't have any problems.^{[8]
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- You'll usually get a renewal notice in the mail, but don't wait on that to renew. It's only provided as a courtesy—you'll still be on the hook if you're late, even if you didn't get one.^{[9]
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Go to MyDMV Portal to renew your registration online. Florida's website offers a convenient way for you to renew your registration at any time, day or night, from the comfort of your own home. On the website, you can renew any vehicle or vessel registration for either 1 or 2 years.^{[10]
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- Pay your fees or taxes using a credit or debit card. Some counties also accept electronic check payments.
- If you use the website, you'll get your updated certificate of registration in the mail in 7 to 10 days. Keep your email confirmation as proof that you've renewed your registration if it expires before you get the updated certificate.
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Use the mobile app and avoid duplicate fees. If you have multiple vehicles, you can save money by renewing the registrations all at once. The app, MyFlorida, offers the same payment options as online, except that you can combine multiple renewals together and pay them all at once so you're only charged one transaction fee.^{[11]
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- Download the app for free on iTunes or Google Play.
- The mobile app charges a single $4 processing fee per transaction. You can pay with a credit or debit card. You'll get a digital document that you can use as proof of renewal until the paper certificate comes in the mail.
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Visit the local tax collector's office to renew your registration in person. Walking into the office and renewing your registration the old-fashioned way is always an option if you're up against the deadline and want the peace of mind of knowing it's all done the same day and you don't have to wait on anything.^{[12]
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- Some offices have self-serve kiosks, which helps limit your wait time.

Section 3 of 4:

Surrendering Unused Florida Tags

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Take unused tags to the local tax collector's office. According to Florida law, if you no longer have the vehicle that was originally associated with a particular Florida tag and registration, you have 30 days to return that tag to the local tax collector's office. In most cases you don't have to physically walk the tag into the office if you don't want to—check your local office's website for an address where you can mail it.^{[13]
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- Most offices also have a form you can fill out—either in the office or on the website—so you can make sure your tag is properly surrendered and disposed of.
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Send in a signed statement if the tag was lost. It's a different story if you have a Florida tag that's not being used on a car, but you don't know where it is. You're technically still supposed to surrender that tag, though, so what to do? Just write out a statement with the tag number and a brief explanation of what happened to it^{[14]
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- Some counties even have an online form you can use.^{[15]
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  Research source} You can also check item 13 on the General Affidavit form.
- Florida law requires you to include a statement to the effect that if that tag should happen to turn up, you won't use it on a car again. So if you happen to find it in the back of your closet later, you're free to use it as decor for your backyard tiki bar.
- Keep in mind that most counties do require you to provide your driver's license information, so be careful about how you use a plate you've reported lost.^{[16]
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- If that plate does happen to end up on a car, you're on the hook for anything that happens.
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Save your receipt as a credit for future registration. When you surrender your tag, you'll get a receipt from the tax collector's office. Keep that wherever you have important documents related to any vehicles you own. If you later register a new vehicle in Florida, that receipt will keep you from having to pay the initial registration fee.^{[17]
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- If your tag was a specialized tag, such as a tag commemorating military service, you will have to pay whatever fees are associated with that tag if you want to get another one.
- If you surrendered your tag through the mail, look for a receipt to get mailed back to you within a couple of weeks after you mailed it.
- If you surrendered your tag through the mail and you haven't gotten anything within a month, call the office you mailed it to and double-check that they got it.

Section 4 of 4:

Florida Registration FAQs

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Is the tag transfer process different if you have a personalized tag? Nope! The process is exactly the same as it would be for any other tag. If the personalized tag is registered to you, you can put it on any car you own. If you sell a car you had the tag on, you can take the tag with you.^{[18]
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- Specialty tags are transferred using the same process as well. There aren't any additional fees for transferring a specialty tag to another vehicle.
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Can I transfer a Florida tag online or through the app? No, tags can't be transferred online or through the app because someone in the tax collector's office has to verify your identification and proof of insurance. This way the state makes sure that you can only register a vehicle if you can prove that you own it and have it insured.^{[19]
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- The only thing you can do online or through the app is renew your existing registration. If you need to update the address, you can do that during the renewal process, but you can't change the name or vehicle associated with the tag you're renewing.
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Why should I surrender my tag if I'm not using it? In real terms, Florida might cancel or revoke your driver's license if you don't surrender an unused tag. But it also means that tag can't potentially be used by scammers or criminals.^{[20]
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- One common scam involves selling old plates to use when going through tolls or red light cameras. If the plates weren't surrendered, the previous owner of those plates is who police are going to contact.
- While it's reasonable to assume you'd eventually be able to get yourself off the hook, you'd have to go through a lot of hassle that could have easily been avoided by simply surrendering your tags.
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Can I transfer my tag to another person? No, you can't. In Florida, registration follows the owner and can't typically be transferred to someone else. Even if you sold the person the car, you'd still keep the tags.^{[21]
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- You can relinquish a personalized tag, which doesn't transfer your physical tag to someone else, but it does allow them to get the personalized tag that you previously had.^{[22]
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- For example, if you had a personalized tag that read "FASTEST," you could write a statement relinquishing that tag and sign it. The person you gave that statement to could then get their own personalized tag that read "FASTEST."
- Another thing you can do with personalized tags is transfer them to a car that you co-own with someone else. If you then put both of your names on the registration, either of you can transfer the tag to a car that either of you owns individually (or to another car that both of you own jointly).^{[23]
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- If the registered owner of a plate dies, you can take the death certificate to your local motor vehicle service center and they will issue an updated registration certificate in your name.^{[24]
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Is it worth it to transfer my tag or should I just get a new one? That's entirely up to you. If you transfer your tag, you save the initial registration fee, which is a few hundred dollars. But if you plan on driving both cars, you'll need to have tags on both of them. In that case, it would make sense to go ahead and bite the bullet and get the second tag.^{[25]
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- Sometimes when you buy a new car from a dealer, the dealer goes ahead and processes the paperwork and puts a new tag on it. When that happens, there's really no point in doing anything about it unless you just prefer having the same tag on the car that you drive.
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Can I keep my tag forever? Well, not forever. Florida law states that metal plates are good for 10 years. In the 10th year after your tag was first issued, the state will send you a new tag. It should look exactly like your old one, just clean.^{[26]
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- If you keep a tag long enough that you're sent a new one, it's up to you what you do with the old one. You can send it back to the tax collector's office for disposal, but you're free to just keep it if you want.