"Sell my semi truck in California" is a three-step job with us. Send the year, make, model and VIN with a set of photos, and an offer comes back. Take it and we settle the way that suits you: we collect the truck where it's parked, we buy it from wherever you are without a visit, or you drive it to us.
As of October 2026, FMCSA's carrier census lists more than 328,000 carriers with a California address. About four in five of them hold in-state authority only, so a great many California trucks never cross the state line, and roughly one in five is a private fleet hauling its own goods. Almost twenty-seven thousand of those carriers tell FMCSA they haul fresh produce, and close to sixteen thousand haul intermodal containers. So the truck you're selling might be the day cab that drays boxes out of the Los Angeles and Long Beach terminals, the sleeper that runs produce up I-5 from the valley, a dump truck hauling out of Azusa Rock or the Irwindale pits, a garbage truck on a county contract, a log truck from the north end of the state, or the tanker that loads at Montebello. Every one of them is a truck we buy.
Where California's trucks are parked follows the work. Containers come over the docks at Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, with smaller ports at Richmond, Redwood City, San Francisco, Stockton, Sacramento, San Diego and Hueneme, and vehicles roll off at Point Potrero in Richmond, at Port Hueneme and at National City. Rail ramps load at City of Industry, Hobart, Commerce and Lamar Street in Los Angeles, at San Bernardino, Lathrop and Stockton, and at the ICTF in Long Beach. Cement comes from Victorville, Oro Grande, Lebec, Tehachapi, Mojave, Cushenbury and Redding, rock from Azusa, Irwindale, Corona, Santee and the San Rafael quarry, and the racks at Montebello, Vernon, Van Nuys, Orange, Colton, Richmond, Martinez, San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Chico, Eureka and San Diego fill the tankers. If yours is sitting at a container yard, a rail ramp, a pit, a rack or the far end of a ranch road, tell us which, and we'll work out between us whether we come to it, buy it from where you are, or you bring it in.
Title first, then the DMV
Have the title in hand and most of the paperwork is already done. If it's lost, California issues a duplicate through the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the field offices handle it: in Los Angeles that's 3615 South Hope Street, in Fresno 655 West Olive Avenue, in Oakland 5300 Claremont Avenue, in San Diego 3960 Normal Street, in Sacramento 4700 Broadway, in Bakersfield 3120 F Street. Go in with your ID and the truck's VIN, start the duplicate, and send us the truck's details while it's being processed.
If a lender is on the title, get the payoff figure early; that's the slow part. A salvage certificate or a rebuilt title doesn't stop the sale; just say so when you write. Then one last step that's yours alone: the DMV wants your notice of the sale within five calendar days of the handover, under Vehicle Code 5900, and that's the last thing you do.
What the road allowed
On the interstates California allows 80,000 pounds with the federal bridge formula, and on state roads the ceiling runs from 34,000 to 80,000 pounds depending on how many axles the truck has and how far apart they sit, under Vehicle Code 35550 to 35558. Two tandem sets can carry 34,000 pounds each if the first and last axles are at least 36 feet apart, and never more than 68,000 between them, under Vehicle Code 35551. That's the arithmetic your truck worked under, and it has no bearing on selling it. A heavy-haul tractor that ran on permits is as ordinary to us as a day cab that never left the port.
Here is the whole of what we ask for: the year, make, model and VIN, a good set of photos, a photo of the title, and the address where the truck is. Sleeper or day cab, heavy-haul tractor, dump truck, roll-off, mixer, garbage truck, wrecker or rotator, log truck, tanker, boom or crane truck: same list, same conversation. Send it and the offer follows.