Temporary Tag in Florida

What the tag is

Section 320.131, Florida Statutes, authorizes the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to design, issue, and regulate temporary tags, and names the cases in which one may be used: where a dealer license plate may not lawfully be used; a casual or private sale, meaning any sale other than by a licensed dealer, including the sale of a marine boat trailer by a marine boat trailer dealer; certified common carriers and driveaway companies; banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions demonstrating repossessions for sale; a sale in Florida to a resident of another state for registration there, where the vehicle is not required to be registered under section 320.38; weighing, emission testing, or vehicle identification number verification before registration; an out-of-state resident who must secure ownership documentation from the home state; a rental car company holding a dealer license; resolution of a consumer complaint where more than two tags are needed; a personalized prestige or specialty plate being manufactured; any case where a permanent plate cannot legally be issued and no temporary plate is specifically authorized, on a showing of need; dealer transport to an off-premise sales location and back; an out-of-state title subject to a lien; and an active-duty servicemember deployed outside Florida. A temporary tag may be issued and displayed on one vehicle only, and reissuance of the same tag number is not lawful. Tags are issued through the Electronic Temporary Registration system as print-on-demand, except in an ETR outage or for a trailer under 2,000 pounds net weight. A tag must be displayed conspicuously in the rear license plate bracket, or on the front of a vehicle that requires front display, where the metal plate would normally be displayed. When use of a dealer license plate is valid, a temporary tag may not be issued. The consumer page on the department's site describes the same instrument as a temporary license plate and lists only 10, 30, and 90 days; the statute and the department's procedure both state four durations, and this page follows the statute set.

Durations by purpose

Except as specifically provided otherwise, a temporary tag is valid for 30 days, and no more than two may be issued to the same person for the same vehicle. The stated durations run including the date of issue, under the department's procedure. The 10-day tag covers weighing for registration, vehicle identification number verification or inspection for a Florida title or registration, and a rebuilt inspection scheduled at a Regional Office or an authorized private rebuilt-vehicle inspection facility within 10 days. The 30-day tag is the default for the remaining cases, including a casual or private sale, a lienholder title-release wait, common-carrier and driveaway transport, repossession demonstration, an out-of-state-resident sale, a rental car company with a dealer license, a marine boat trailer dealer sale, dealer inventory transport to an off-premise location and back where the dealer has no active dealer tag, and a commercial heavy truck, even carrying a load, that remains in Florida, with proof of heavy vehicle use tax unless purchased in the first 60 days; a commercial vehicle traveling out of state needs an International Registration Plan and International Fuel Tax Agreement trip permit instead. The 60-day tag has exactly two purposes: an existing owner who applied for a Florida title using a valid out-of-state title with an active lien, and an active-duty military servicemember with a valid Florida driver license who is deployed or stationed outside Florida, on duty orders or a signed affidavit. The 90-day tag covers one purpose: a personalized prestige or specialty license plate being manufactured. The 60-day material sits inside the Issuance section of procedure RS-31 as subsection B.3, added in the April 2025 revision; it has no separate section in the procedure's table of contents.

Who may issue, and the dealer limit

A dealer may issue only a 30-day tag, and after it expires, one additional 30-day tag. A dealer may issue no more than two temporary tags for a specific vehicle to one customer, and no more than four tags for the same vehicle across multiple customers. A Regional Office or tax collector office has discretionary authority to issue more than two temporary tags, and the statute separately allows the department to issue more than two in resolving a consumer complaint. The 10-day, 60-day, and 90-day tags are issued by a county tax collector, license plate agent, or Regional Office, not by a dealer: a dealer cannot issue the 10-day tag for a vehicle being shipped out of the country, and must send the customer to a license plate agent. The department may disallow the purchase of temporary tags by licensed dealers, common carriers, or financial institutions where abuse has occurred.

How to get one

A dealer issuing through the Electronic Temporary Registration system prints the tag on demand and remits the fee through the dealer's ETR provider. A dealer that does not issue through an ETR vendor submits all applications to a county tax collector or license plate agent, with form HSMV 83091, Application for Temporary License Plate, stating the purpose and signed by an authorized representative and the customer, plus a copy of the title or manufacturer's certificate of origin to verify the vehicle identification number. The customer keeps the original of the form and must always have it in the operator's possession while the vehicle is operated with the tag, until expiration; the issuing agency keeps the duplicate for at least 12 months. Proof of identity is required under procedure TL-01, and no expired driver license, identification card, or passport counts; a business must provide a federal employer identification number if applicable and verification that it may do business in Florida. Proof of insurance is required except for motorcycles, trailers, and federally owned vehicles. For a vehicle to be registered in another state, proof of issuance from that state is required, and out-of-state insurance is entered with code "S" and the company, policy number, effective date, and phone number in the comments field. No tag may be issued for a vehicle whose owner filed or intends to file a nonuse certification, while an electronic filing transaction is pending, after the electronic filing is completed, or once the department has issued a registration. When the ETR system is out, a dealer may issue a preprinted tag only during the outage, completing form HSMV 82082 in full, keeping it in dealer records for five years, and reporting the issuance information to the department within one business day, excluding weekends and holidays. Preprinted tags are also the form used for trailers under 2,000 pounds.

Fees

The fee for a temporary tag is $2 each. One dollar from each tag sold goes to the Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Program Trust Fund, and the remainder goes to the Highway Safety Operating Trust Fund. An agent of the department sells tags for $2 each and charges the service charge authorized by section 320.04 per transaction, regardless of the quantity sold. That service charge is $2.50 per application, and a tax collector may impose an additional service charge of up to 50 cents on a transaction at a branch office. A service fee and a branch fee, if applicable, may also be collected when a county tax collector, license plate agent, Regional Office, or Direct Mail section issues the tag. A dealer issuing through ETR remits the $2 fee to the department through the ETR provider; the dealer may disclose the $2 as a state-mandated fee, but any amount collected above $2 may not be identified as a state-assessed fee and must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously in the sales agreement. No mail-fee figure is stated on this page: the procedure's preprinted-tag mail-fee table did not read cleanly in the source consulted, and the department's fees chart was not opened.

The temporarily-employed plate is a separate statute

Section 320.1325 requires registration for motor vehicles owned or leased by persons temporarily employed in Florida who are not residents. On payment of the fees and proof of insurance coverage as required by the applicant's resident state, the department provides a temporary registration plate and registration certificate valid for 90 days, renewable one time for an additional 90 days; at the end of 180 days the applicant must apply for permanent registration if there is a further need to remain in the state. The fee is $40 plus the applicable service charge required by section 320.04. A temporary registration plate under this section may not be issued for any commercial motor vehicle. The department's consumer page lists a customer temporarily employed in Florida among its 90-day temporary license plate circumstances; that listing is the consumer page's presentation, not the statute's. The statute set for temporary tags under section 320.131 does not include temporary employment, and the $40 plate is never stated as a temporary tag on this page.

Shipping, sales tax, and edge cases

One 10-day tag may be issued for a vehicle being shipped out of the country, if a title-transfer application and applicable sales tax are in place; the dealer cannot issue it, form HSMV 83091 is marked for other purposes with an explanation that the vehicle is being shipped out of the country, and no proof of shipping is required. No 10-day tag may be issued if a title-only transfer on a nonuse affidavit is already done, or if a plate was already bought and has expired: the tag issues only at the time of title transfer. An out-of-state resident who buys in a casual sale with an out-of-state title and drives home gets no Florida tag and must use a home-state tag or a trailer; the same buyer with a Florida title may get a tag if paying the applicable sales tax. Where a third tag is approved, the agency uses a Registration-Original-Regular transaction, entering the reason and the dealer license number. For an out-of-state resident buying in Florida, the sales tax equals but does not exceed the purchaser's home-state rate, claimed on form DR-123, with no county discretionary surtax. A temporary tag is not payment of registration tax: Florida registration tax is due from the date of sale or transfer.

Penalties, in separate lanes

The statute, the procedure, and the form state penalties differently, and this page does not resolve them into one rule. Under section 320.131(3), unlawfully issuing or using a temporary tag, or violating the section or its implementing rules, is a noncriminal infraction, punishable as a moving violation, with additional administrative action by the department; using a tag expired for 7 days or less is a noncriminal infraction and a nonmoving violation. Under section 320.131(5), knowingly and willfully abusing or misusing temporary tag issuance to avoid registering a vehicle is a misdemeanor of the first degree. Under section 320.131(6), knowingly and willfully issuing a tag to a fictitious person or entity to avoid disclosing the true owner is a felony of the third degree. Under section 320.131(7), knowingly and willfully failing the records requirement is a misdemeanor of the second degree. Form HSMV 83091 carries its own warning paragraph stating that unlawful use is a misdemeanor of the second degree; that is the form's text, stated here as form text only, and it is not reconciled with the statute's noncriminal-infraction lane. The consumer page quotes subsections (5) and (6) in the same terms as the statute.

Source

Section 320.131, Florida Statutes (Online Sunshine, current text read 2026-10-30, including subsections (1)(a) through (1)(n), (2) through (9), and the 2024 amendment history line); section 320.1325, Florida Statutes (current text read 2026-10-30); section 320.04, Florida Statutes, subsection (1)(a) and (1)(c) (service charge $2.50 per application; branch-office additional up to 50 cents; text current as of January 1, 2025, read 2026-10-30). FLHSMV Procedure RS-31, Registration: Temporary Tags, Revision Date 04/25, Effective Immediately (full text read; revision and structure confirmed live 2026-10-30; 60-day material is subsection B.3 inside the Issuance section). FLHSMV License Plates and Registration consumer page, Temporary License Plates section (read live 2026-10-30; no revision date is stated on the page, and its 10/30/90-only duration set and temporarily-employed listing are the page's presentation, not the statute set). Form HSMV 83091, Application for Temporary License Plate (Rev. 08/14), FLHSMV-hosted, rendered live 2026-10-30 (form fields, instructions, and warning paragraph as form text). Not opened for this page: the department's fees chart (procedure RS-31 points to it for preprinted-tag mail fees), procedure TL-01 in full, procedure RS-05, and procedure RS-27; no figure from any of them is stated. Florida Administrative Code Rule 15C-16.006 governs temporary plate transfers, not temporary tag issuance, and is not cited for any tag fact on this page. Research rows A388, A389, A391, and A392 in the Veldica value backlog record the full grounding chain, including the dealer-cap, conflation, and form-versus-statute findings this page follows. This page explains how the process works and what the official rules say. It is general information, not legal advice. For a dispute about your specific situation, talk to your state motor vehicle agency or court.