Pre-Printed Temporary Tags
A pre-printed temporary tag is a paper tag that already carries its own tag number before you touch it. You fill one in by hand and give it to the customer when Florida’s system, or ours, is not available — then you come back and report it here so the state has a record of it. This article covers when to use one and how to report it. It is not how you issue an ordinary temporary tag; that one is printed from your own tag paper and is covered in Creating a Temporary Tag Registration.
When you use one instead of a printed tag
Section titled “When you use one instead of a printed tag”The app puts it plainly on the transaction card: report a pre-printed temporary tag you gave your customer when FLHSMV or our system was unavailable. That is the whole of it. If you could have printed a tag, print a tag — an ordinary Temporary Tag draws a control number from the stock you keep on hand and prints on your own tag paper.
The recordkeeping obligations and the 30-day life of the tag are the same as for any temporary tag. Voiding is the one thing that differs: a pre-printed tag carries no countdown. It can be voided for as long as Florida still has the transaction Approved, and not after.
Where pre-printed tags come from
Section titled “Where pre-printed tags come from”They are not stock My Dealer Jacket holds for you. What the app sells and counts is temporary tag paper and the control numbers that come with it — see Obtaining Temporary Tag Paper — and those are what an ordinary temporary tag spends. A pre-printed tag already carries a number that somebody else printed, so there is nothing for us to assign and nothing for us to count against.
That has one practical consequence worth knowing before you go looking for it: there is no pre-printed tag inventory screen. The Temp Tags list under Settings → Inventory Management is control numbers for printing, not pre-printed tags. Keep your own record of which pre-printed tags you hold and which you have used.
Where they come from: your local tag agency or tax collector’s office. They assign the tags to you on the state’s system, so they are tied to your dealer license number and cannot be passed to another dealership. When you report one here and submit it, Florida checks it against that assignment and approves or rejects it — which is why the plate number has to be exactly the one they gave you.
What it costs
Section titled “What it costs”The transaction fee is shown on the Transaction Type screen, on the Pre-Printed Temporary Tag card.
Record lookups are charged on top, one for each record Florida resolves for you — the vehicle when you check the VIN, and the customer when you look the buyer up. A lookup is charged again only when you ask about something different: another VIN, another customer. Moving back and forth through the wizard on the same vehicle and the same buyer does not charge you again.
Step by step
Section titled “Step by step”This is one of the shortest transactions in the system. There is no Tag step — you already have the tag, so there is no control number to pick — and no title work, sales tax, registration use or registration length.
| Phase | Screen | What it settles |
|---|---|---|
| Your vehicle | Transaction Type | Pick Pre-Printed Temporary Tag |
| Your vehicle | Vehicle | The VIN, plus the tag number and the date you gave it out |
| Owners | Buyer | Who you sold to |
| Registration | Insurance | The policy on the vehicle |
| Finish | Review | The checklist and Issue |
Which pre-printed tag did you use?
Section titled “Which pre-printed tag did you use?”On the Vehicle step, below the VIN, a card headed Which pre-printed tag did you use? asks for two things:
- License Plate Number — the number printed on the tag. Letters and digits only; no spaces, no dashes.
- Effective Date — the day you actually handed the tag over. It cannot be in the future, and it cannot be more than 30 days ago.
Both must be filled in before the transaction can be started with Florida at all.
Which pre-printed tag did you use?
An offline registration is filed against a tag you already issued by hand, so Florida needs its number and the day it took effect
The buyer and the insurance
Section titled “The buyer and the insurance”The buyer is searched against Florida the same way as on any other registration — by driver license, name and birth date, customer number, or for a business by FEIN or company name. If Florida has no record, you enter the customer and the transaction creates one.
Insurance is required. Only a few vehicle types are allowed to go uninsured, and a car is not one of them.
If it will not let you continue
Section titled “If it will not let you continue”| What it says | What to do |
|---|---|
| Plate number required | Enter the number printed on the tag |
| Plate number must be alphanumeric | Remove spaces and dashes |
| Effective date required | Enter the day you handed the tag over |
| Effective date cannot be in the future | You cannot report a tag you have not given out yet |
| Effective date cannot be more than 30 days ago | A Florida temporary tag runs 30 days, so a tag older than that has already expired and cannot be reported here |
The setup problems that stop any Florida filing — an unverified dealership, a missing license PIN, an expired driver license on the person signed in — are listed with their fixes in Creating a Temporary Tag Registration.
After you finish
Section titled “After you finish”The Documents tab carries a Registration and a Temporary Tag Application, plus an Insurance Affidavit when you entered an insurance company. There is no temporary tag document to print — the customer already has the physical tag. Use Print PDF for the lot, or the Print button under each document; the send button beside it emails or WhatsApps the package to the customer.
If something was wrong, you can void it for as long as Florida still shows the transaction as Approved — there is no same-day countdown on a pre-printed tag. See Editing or Canceling Temporary Tags.