You do not need a pink slip to sell your car in New South Wales.
That is the first thing to clear up, because a lot of what you'll read online says otherwise. Transport for NSW is explicit: if you are transferring a current NSW registration, you will not need a safety inspection report. The eSafety check — what everyone still calls a pink slip — is a registration renewal requirement. It has nothing to do with selling.
What you do have to do is lodge a notice of disposal, and you have 14 days.
If you take one thing from this page: lodge the notice of disposal. Until it's in, NSW still has the car in your name, and so does everyone issuing fines and tolls.
Before you advertise
Nothing is legally required here, but three things make the sale go smoothly:
- Find the registration papers and service history. Buyers ask, and a folder of receipts is the cheapest trust you can buy.
- Note the odometer reading. You'll need it for the notice of disposal, and it belongs in the receipt.
- Know your rego expiry. Remaining registration is part of what the buyer is paying for, so it's worth stating in the ad.
If there's money owing on the car, sort that out before you advertise rather than during a negotiation — a buyer who runs a PPSR check and finds an encumbrance you didn't mention will usually just walk.
Selling the car
You don't need a written contract. You do want a receipt, and it should name both parties, give the date, the sale price, the VIN and the odometer reading, and be signed by both of you. Keep a copy. If anything goes wrong later, that piece of paper is what establishes who owned the car and from when.
Take the buyer's details from their driver licence, not from what they tell you. You need their full name and address for the notice of disposal anyway, and if the name on the licence doesn't match the name they've given you, that's a reason to stop, not a detail to work around.
Lodging the notice of disposal — 14 days
This is the step that protects you. It tells Transport for NSW you no longer own the car.
You can lodge it online through Service NSW in a few minutes. You'll need the plate number, the buyer's full name and address, the date of sale, the sale price, and the odometer reading.
Do it the day you sell. The 14-day window is not a suggested timeframe — until the notice is lodged, NSW treats you as still responsible for the vehicle, which in practice means speeding fines, toll notices and parking infringements keep arriving at your address with your name on them. Sorting that out afterwards means paperwork, deadlines and proving a sale you may not have documented — all of which lodging the notice would have avoided.
What the buyer does
The transfer is the buyer's job, not yours, and it runs on its own clock. In NSW they can do it online through Service NSW — but two conditions catch people out: the buyer needs a NSW driver licence, and your notice of disposal has to be lodged first. If you haven't done your part, they can't do theirs.
They'll pay the transfer fee and stamp duty. Duty in NSW is charged at $3 per $100 of value under $45,000, and $1,350 plus $5 per $100 above that. The buyer pays it, but expect it to come up in negotiation — it's real money to them.
Their deadline is theirs and yours is yours. Don't let a buyer talk you into holding off on your notice so their paperwork lines up more neatly.
Insurance and CTP
Two separate policies, and they behave differently when you sell.
Comprehensive insurance is yours. Cancel or transfer it once the sale is complete and the notice of disposal is lodged — not before the buyer drives away, because until then it's still your car. Ask your insurer specifically about test drives; that's the gap most sellers don't consider until it matters.
CTP (the green slip) works differently, and the detail is worth getting from the source rather than from a guide: ask your CTP insurer what happens to your policy on sale and whether any refund arises. The answer depends on your policy and on whether registration is being transferred or cancelled, so a general rule isn't much use to you.
Selling more than a couple of cars a year?
Worth knowing that NSW sets a threshold beyond which selling vehicles is treated as carrying on a business as a motor dealer, which brings licensing obligations with it. If you're selling several cars in a twelve-month period, check the current threshold with NSW Fair Trading before you list the next one — we've deliberately not quoted a number here, because it's the kind of figure you want from the regulator rather than from an article.
What this means if you're selling on MotorLoop
None of the above changes based on where you advertised — it's between you and Transport for NSW. What we can do is make the rest of it easier: listing a car on MotorLoop is free, and buyers message you in the app so your phone number stays private until you choose to share it.
When the car sells, mark the listing as sold, then go and lodge your notice of disposal. In that order.