Selling a car in France: cession, non-gage, ANTS

The day of a sale in France follows a fixed order: show the papers, fill in the contract, wait for the payment, cross out the carte grise and hand it over, then make the declaration through ANTS. That declaration is the step sellers forget most often, and the only one that protects them afterwards.

Besides the compulsory documents there are those that are not required but decisive for the price: the service book, invoices, all keys and the European certificate of conformity. The last plays no part in a sale within France, because the car is already registered there; for a buyer from abroad it is often the most important sheet in the pile.

The obligation itself, the cession, rests on four documents. They are not a recommendation but the seller's job, and a buyer who knows the ropes asks about them in the first phone call. Gather them before you list the car and you spare yourself the enquiry that begins with “is everything there?” and ends with a no:

In everyday speech it is still the certificat de non-gage; officially it is the certificat de situation administrative, or CSA. It states whether a pledge is registered against the car (gage), typically from a finance agreement, and whether there is a block (opposition) — for instance over sums owed to the authorities, or because a procedure for damaged vehicles is running after a serious accident. A car reported stolen also shows up here.

Both have consequences for the buyer. As long as a pledge or a block is registered, ANTS will not issue a new carte grise in their name, and a buyer from abroad who ends up with an encumbered car has a problem that is hard to solve from home. The certificate must therefore be recent; the maximum age at the time of sale is fixed and published on Service-Public, the state's administration portal.

The keeper obtains the CSA free of charge through HistoVec, the state's vehicle history service. HistoVec does more: there the keeper generates a report with the events in the registration file, the number of keepers, the contrôle technique dates with the mileage read at each, and any recorded damage procedures, and shares it with an interested buyer by link. The buyer cannot call it up themselves — they have to ask for it. A seller who sends the link without fuss makes the listing more credible than any sentence in its text.

At the handover the carte grise is not simply passed on but cancelled: the seller strikes a line across it and writes “vendu le”, the date, the time and a signature. The time is there for the same reason as in the contract — it divides responsibility for fines and damage to the minute. If the carte grise is in several names, all of them sign.

Newer cards have a detachable slip along the bottom (coupon détachable). The seller fills it in and gives it to the buyer, who may then drive in France for a limited period until their own carte grise arrives. The slip is meant for re-registration in France, and it is not valid outside France.

The French carte grise is a single document; there is no separate part II as in Germany. Lose it and there is no second paper from the register to fall back on. So photograph the card intact before you cross it out and again afterwards, and keep both photos with your copy of the contract.

After the sale, the seller declares the cession to ANTS, the state agency for secure documents, which now operates under the name France Titres — online through its portal or via an approved intermediary. The deadline is short and set by law; ideally do it the same evening. The declaration uses the details from the certificat de cession: car, buyer, date and time.

In return the seller receives an acknowledgement and a code de cession. The code goes to the buyer, who needs it to apply for the carte grise in their own name — also within a set deadline. The seller keeps the acknowledgement. It is the proof that speed-camera photos and fines after the declared time are no longer theirs.

Inform your insurer the same day. Under French law your policy is suspended from the day after the sale, and you can terminate it. Do not rely on an arrangement whereby the buyer drives home “quickly” on your insurance — make sure instead that they have a policy of their own from the handover.

Above a certain vehicle age, a sale requires a contrôle technique report, and a recent one: at the time of sale it may be no older than a set period. A report still valid for the periodic test can therefore already be too old for a sale. The periods in force are given by Service-Public and by every test centre.

The report grades defects by severity. Minor defects (défaillances mineures) are noted and have no immediate consequence. Major defects (défaillances majeures) require a repair and a re-test, the contre-visite, within a period of its own. The seller can get that done before the sale, or the buyer takes it on; who does it and who pays for the repair then belongs in the contract. Critical defects (défaillances critiques) severely restrict even driving the car away from the test centre.

For a buyer from abroad, the French report is above all a record of condition with a date and a mileage. Whether their registration authority accepts it is for that authority to decide; some countries require their own test on import anyway. As evidence of what an independent body saw shortly before the sale, it is still worth more than any assurance given on the phone.

Your obligations change very little: the four documents still belong to the sale, and so does the ANTS declaration. The code de cession is of no use to the buyer in this case, since they will not apply for a carte grise in France — but the declaration protects you, precisely in the situation where you would otherwise learn least about what happens to the car.

It is common to add “vendu pour export” to the crossed-out carte grise. The original goes with the buyer, because the registration authority in their country requires it; that authority will usually want to see the European certificate of conformity as well. If the COC is missing, it can be reordered from the manufacturer or its representative. That takes time, and it should be sorted out before the sale, not after.

Getting across the border is the buyer's business, but you should know how they plan it. The French plates stay on the car, since in France the number belongs to the vehicle; yet the slip from the carte grise only allows driving in France, and your insurance is out of the picture once the car is sold. The usual routes are therefore a trailer, a transport company, or a transfer plate from the buyer's own country, where one is issued for this and their insurance covers the whole route.

That leaves payment. For a buyer from the euro area an instant transfer is the simplest route, and the rule is the same as at home: carte grise and keys only once the amount is definitely in your account. In a cross-border sale, no authority will help you afterwards if it went differently.