An equipment bill of sale records the sale of a specific machine, or a list of machines, identified by serial number and hours, from one owner to another. It’s what contractors, farmers and small fleets use when a skid steer, excavator, tractor or forklift changes hands without a dealer in the middle. This free heavy equipment bill of sale template, in Word and PDF, includes an equipment schedule, a lien check, and a clause for who handles sales tax.

What kind of equipment is this template for?

It’s built for off-road, serial-numbered machinery: excavators, backhoes, skid steers, compact track loaders, dozers, tractors and implements, forklifts, generators, compressors, and big shop equipment like lifts and lathes. It works whether the seller is an individual or a business.

Street-legal vehicles are different. A dump truck, a service truck, or a pickup has a title and follows DMV rules, so use the vehicle bill of sale (or your state’s form) for those. Trailers go on the trailer bill of sale. For smaller items without serial numbers, such as hand tools or office furniture, the general bill of sale is enough.

If you’re renting a machine out rather than selling it, you want the equipment rental agreement. And if the buyer will pay over time, add a promissory note.

How do you check for liens before you pay?

Search the UCC records. When a machine has no title certificate, the main public record of a loan against it is usually a UCC financing statement filed by the lender. Under UCC 9-501, financing statements for most goods are filed in a central state office (in practice, usually the Secretary of State), and under 9-523 that office must tell anyone who asks whether there’s an unlapsed financing statement naming a particular debtor, along with its contents.

So, before paying, search the seller’s exact legal name (the business name if a company owns the machine) in the state where the seller is located. Financing statements can describe collateral broadly, like “all equipment,” so a hit doesn’t always mean your machine is pledged, but it does mean you should ask. If there’s a lender, get a written payoff and have the lender release the machine, or pay the lender directly at closing.

The law backs the buyer here too. UCC 2-312 says a seller warrants that title is good and that the goods are delivered free from any security interest or lien the buyer didn’t know about. That warranty can only be excluded by specific language or by circumstances that tell the buyer the seller isn’t claiming title, so don’t count on general “as is” wording to cover it. Our template keeps the seller’s title warranty in place and adds a written statement about liens.

Which details matter most on an equipment bill of sale?

Serial number or PIN. Copy it from the machine’s plate, not from an invoice. Photograph the plate. If the serial is missing or ground off, walk away.

Hours. Hour meters are the equipment equivalent of an odometer. Record the reading, and say if the meter has been replaced.

Attachments. Buckets, forks, thumbs, augers, breakers, grapples. List each with its own serial number where it has one, because attachments are expensive and easy to leave off. Say a hypothetical excavation contractor sells a 2017 compact track loader with 3,100 hours, a smooth bucket and pallet forks for $38,000. Without a list, the forks are a phone argument waiting to happen.

Location and removal. Heavy machines have to be loaded and hauled. The template says who pays for transport, when the buyer must remove the equipment, and who’s responsible if it’s damaged during loading.

Who pays sales tax on used equipment?

That’s set by the state, and the rules vary a lot. Some states exempt occasional sales by people who aren’t in the business of selling. Texas’s rule, for example, treats one or two sales of taxable items in any 12-month period, by a person who doesn’t hold themselves out as selling those items, as exempt; a third sale in 12 months can turn the seller into a retailer who needs a permit. Other states draw the lines differently, and a business selling off its own equipment may be treated differently from an individual.

The template doesn’t pretend to answer this for you. It has a clause saying which party is responsible for any sales or use tax, and a line for a resale or exemption certificate if the buyer has one. Ask your state revenue department, or your accountant, before you fill it in.

How do you fill it in and get it signed?

  1. Run the UCC search on the seller’s name and resolve any lender.
  2. Fill in the equipment schedule from the machines themselves, with photos of each serial plate.
  3. Pick as-is or specific written warranties.
  4. Agree price, payment, tax responsibility and the removal date.
  5. Both sign; the seller gives the buyer any lien releases, manuals and service records.

An equipment bill of sale is an ordinary contract, so it can generally be signed electronically. If the buyer is a company with several people who need to sign, see our guide on getting a document signed by multiple people.

Download it, fill in the blanks, and send it for e-signature with any tool you like. (This is the job we’re building SignWren to do; you can join the waitlist.)

This page is general information, not legal advice. For a specific sale, tax question or dispute, talk to a lawyer or tax adviser licensed where you are.