City stickers, village stickers and plates after you sell or junk a car

On pickup day, three small things leave with the car unless you stop them: the sticker on the windshield, the plates on the bumpers, and your link to the car in the state’s records. Each one has a rule, and none of them works the way most people guess.

The Chicago city sticker

If you live in Chicago, the City Clerk’s sticker FAQ is the authority, and it answers the sale question in pieces spread across several tabs. Put together:

There’s no refund for selling or junking. Stickers are refunded only for duplicate purchases, or if the Clerk’s office finds a customer got a sticker with invalid information. A car going to scrap with eight months left on its sticker isn’t covered.

You can transfer it to your next car. When you give up ownership of one vehicle and get another with a different VIN, the Clerk can move the sticker over. You bring:

• your old city sticker, “regardless of its conditions”, and
• your State vehicle registration card plus proof of the new car’s purchase date, such as a bill of sale.

The transfer fee is at least $20 if the license type stays the same, more if you move up a class (the FAQ’s example is sedan to SUV) or the price has gone up. If the old sticker expires in less than two months, you pay the renewal at the transfer. Dealerships, the Department of Finance and third-party sellers can’t do transfers; it’s the Clerk’s office only.

The buyer can’t use it. Stickers aren’t transferable between people or companies, and a driver showing the previous owner’s sticker can be fined under the Wheel Tax.

That “regardless of its condition” line is the useful part. Windshield stickers rarely come off clean. Scrape it off before the tow, keep the pieces in an envelope, and you keep your transfer option. If you leave it on a car headed for scrap, it’s gone.

Suburban village stickers

The suburbs we serve split three ways: some still require a sticker and tell the seller exactly what to do on a sale, one requires a sticker with no sale rule we could find online, and two have no sticker.

Village	Sticker required?	What the code says when you sell	Fee for a new tag on your other car
Summit	Yes; fiscal year July 1 to June 30	Seller removes the decal within 30 days; it stops applying to that car	$10, same vehicle class (10-19-7)
Burbank	Yes	Seller removes the sticker within 30 days	$5, same vehicle class (8-748)
Justice	Yes	Sticker comes off immediately on sale	$5, same vehicle class (6-25)
Hometown	Yes	Seller removes it immediately; the buyer applies for a new license	$3 transfer charge (11.466)
Stickney	Yes	Seller removes it immediately	$2 under 14-313; 14-307 lists a $5 transfer, so ask the clerk
Bridgeview	Yes, per the village FAQ	Not confirmed; we couldn’t find the municipal code online	Not confirmed
Evergreen Park	No; dropped by the village board on Feb. 5, 2024	Nothing to remove	None
Oak Lawn	Not in the code; its vehicle-license chapter is marked repealed	Nothing to remove	None

The Summit, Burbank, Hometown and Stickney codes each add, in their own words, that a sticker issued for one vehicle may never be attached to a different one. The replacement is a new tag with a new number, and only for another vehicle of the same class that you own. So in those villages, as in Chicago, the old sticker is your proof. Peel it, keep it, take it to the clerk.

Summit adds a timing wrinkle. Its Chapter 10-19 runs licenses on a July-to-June fiscal year, and a car bought on or after January 1 pays half the annual fee, with the 100% late add-on if you don’t apply within 30 days of buying it. If you’re replacing a junked car with another, that 30-day window matters more than the $10.

Your Illinois plates

Plates are simpler. The Secretary of State’s plate transfer page says plainly that in Illinois, license plates belong to an owner, not the vehicle, so you can’t transfer them when you sell a car or transfer a title. You can only move them to another vehicle you own.

To move them, you fill out the Application for Vehicle Transaction(s), VSD 190, and enclose your most recent registration card for that plate number. The state lists $25 for a transfer only, and $190 for title and transfer together. Its page also notes that the transfer-only transaction can’t currently be completed through the online system.

On a junk car the plates have nowhere else to go, so take them off before the tow truck leaves. Keep them with the sticker pieces.

Filing VSD 703 with the state

Then close the record. The Seller’s Report of Sale, VSD 703, says that when you sell or release interest in an Illinois-titled or registered vehicle, you complete the form immediately and mail it to the Secretary of State in Springfield, and that this releases your responsibility for the vehicle. It asks for the sale date, year, make, VIN, and the buyer’s name and address. The same form warns that it doesn’t transfer ownership by itself: you still sign the Assignment of Title section over to the buyer.

Sale-day order, start to finish

1. Pull your personal things and the garage opener.
2. Take off both plates.
3. Scrape off the city or village sticker and keep it.
4. Sign the title over when the car is picked up.
5. Mail the Seller’s Report of Sale that day.
6. Take the old sticker to your clerk if you’re buying another car.

When Masters Cash for Junk Cars picks up, the tow is free, and you’re paid at pickup in cash or by Zelle or Cash App. If the title is missing, read junking a car without a title in Illinois or our no-title junk cars page, then tell us what papers you have and we’ll confirm on the call. For wrecks, see wrecked and totaled cars.

Get a cash offer or call (708) 838-5553.