What Paperwork Do You Actually Need to Ship a Car? (Less Than You Think)

One of the more common questions we get before a first shipment is some version of what paperwork do I need to gather. People picture a folder. For a normal domestic move, the honest answer is that you need your driver's licence and a document the driver brings with him. That is close to the whole list.

The document the driver brings is the Bill of Lading, and it does double duty. It is the contract for the move and it is the condition report -- the record of exactly what the vehicle looked like when it went onto the truck. You will walk around the car with the driver, note any existing damage, and both sign it. You get a copy. Keep it somewhere you can find it, because if anything goes wrong later, that piece of paper is the entire case.

What you do not need is the title. This surprises people, and it is worth being explicit about because it is also a useful red flag. A domestic auto transport move does not require you to hand over your title or sign anything transferring ownership. Nothing about the vehicle's ownership changes when it goes on a truck. If a company asks for your original title for a domestic shipment, stop and ask why, and be prepared not to like the answer.

Registration and insurance are the same story. The car does not need current registration to be transported, because it is not being driven on public roads by you -- it is cargo. Keep the documents with you rather than in the glovebox, along with anything else you would be upset to lose.

There are a few situations where the list genuinely does get longer, and it is worth knowing which one you are in before you book.

The big one is a financed or leased vehicle going somewhere by sea -- Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam. Ocean carriers will not load a vehicle with a lien on it without written authorisation from the lienholder. Your bank or leasing company issues that letter, and the timing catches people out constantly: it commonly takes one to two weeks, and the request has to go to the right department. Start it the day you decide to move, not the week the car is due at the port. We wrote a full guide to that letter if you are in that situation.

The second is when you are not the person handing over the car. That is completely normal -- you have already flown, a relative is releasing it, you bought the car from a dealer three states away. It works fine, but whoever meets the truck must be able to inspect and sign the Bill of Lading. Name them at booking with a phone number, and make sure they know they are signing something that matters rather than scribbling on a clipboard.

The third is a newly purchased vehicle that is not registered to you yet. A bill of sale covers it. Dealers do this constantly and know the drill.

International shipping is a different animal entirely, with export filings, title requirements and customs paperwork that runs weeks rather than days. If that is what you are doing, it deserves its own conversation.

For everyone else -- the overwhelming majority -- it is your licence, ten careful minutes with the driver at pickup, and the same ten minutes at delivery. The paperwork is genuinely the easy part of shipping a car. The part worth your attention is choosing who drives away with it, which is why every carrier bidding through our marketplace shows its federal authority status and safety record before you pick one.