I want to know what lisence plates are like in other countries, like the number sequenceand if certain numbers or letters mean anything. Like for Britain, the numbers on the newer plates have to do with the registration year right? Well my question is, what's the sequence, the current numbers that are on the plates, as in what the government are now starting on. Like in California for example, we are on either 6E or 6F currently for the cars, and 8S for the commercial vehicles and pickups. How is it done in other countries or states?

All plates in Michigan now start with "B" and use the 7 letter seqence "xxx xxxx"

In Victoria, Australia, the plates are three letters, three numbers. NSW is the same, QLD is three numbers, three letters. Tasmania is two letters, four numbers

In Belgium it was typically 3 letters - 3 numbers, they switched it recently.
No link between plate age and vehicle age (you can put a new plate on old vehicle, or your old plate on a new vehicle)
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Belgium

Same in Australia

In North Carolina we use 3 letters - 4 numbers (on standard issue plates)

Example:

[XNZ-1234]

Recently they switched from blue format (blue letters and numbers) to a red format.

Does Belgium ever plan on converting to EU sized license plates?

For European plates I recommend that site: http://www.olavsplates.com/
(some links:
http://www.olavsplates.com/links.html )

The Norwegian guy has a good variety of pics. His explanations are always correct.

The item "License plates" is so big and wide, that you cannot collect all about this in just a thread (or even a forum). I'm engaged in the German plate-collector's forum and every day we find new informations. German plates are the main topic, but we discuss other countries, too. Actually members have shown pic from Romania, the Aland-Islands and Cabo Verde.


I'm collecting plates since I was a small school-boy 30 years ago. But in the last years I've reduced it, to collect only plates from German towns or countries, which have lost their own plates in the 70ies. I have a few newer German plates, also some Canadian and US-plates, mainly stuff, I collect on junk-yards on vacations in the past. So only plates, where I have personal rememberings are left.


About the German system: the first one, two or three letters are showing the town or county, the car is registrated. This goes for the regular plates. There are several exceptions, too.

In the Netherlands you canot see, where the car is coming from, but if you know the combination, you know the age of the registration.

In Switzerland the first letters show the country ("Kanton"), where the car is coming from. Or better the owner. There you have personalized plates, which belongs to the driver, not to the car.

In Italy and Spain they've changed the system. In the past you could see, where the car was coming from. These regulation was cancelled.

Denmark has a real detailed system. It's not easy to understand. There you can see the county, the way of using, the weight, the tax-class and so on.

In Sweden since 1972 you cannot see any more the are, where the car is registrated. If you can translate the code, you see the year, when the car was registrated. And imported used cars have different combinations.

In Poland and Austria it's similar to other countries, the letters are showing the place of registration. But nowadays in these two countries, also in Sweden, Britain and Latuvia you can have own personalized plates, which have no relation to the regular system.


In France the last to ciphers are showing the part of the country, where the car is coming from.

@MBSL65-fan: in Britain, you also can see by the letters, where the car is coming from (except personalized plate).

No idea.
When they switched letters & numbers, they changed a little the typeface (characters seem a little bolder) but kept the old narrow format.
It is nearly as narrow as US plates, allowing to put it on US-specs cars (borders have to be a little folded sometimes). I guess it is an advantage even if these cars are not very common. EU-plate would not add much. I would not like to lose our red+white colors for plates, but I am not against a EU-sized plate with euroband if Europe requires it some day.
Note that EU-format plates are already used for dealer plates (green on white, starting by Z) and trailer plates (black on white, starting by U or Q).
As front plates are made by the car owner (only rear plate is delivered by the state authorities), lots of cars have a EU-format plate on front.

But see, isn't this true everywhere? This is why I am confused when people say "oh, well that car is a 1991 model becuase the plate starts with J4Q" I seriously doubt that someone kept the same plate from the day they bought the car all the way until now. In some instances, people are even forced to changed their pates.
A good example of this is right here in Michigan. About a year ago in '06 or '07 (I forget which) all vehicles registered (old and new) were given completely new pates when it was time for their yearly registration renewal. This was done in order to introduce a new style of plate that reflected better, but unfortunately it is quite a bit more ugly too. Anyway, the point is every single plate on all the cars in Michigan is no older than 2006, even though the majority of the cars are. And no, the plates are not of a differnt style but have the same numbers, they are completly new in the number and letter regard too, so there is no correlation between the old in the new in terms of identifying them, in case you were wondering.

Also, is it possible to get vanity plates in other countries than the US? It seems like the typical "stupid, useless" thing that only Americans would do. Though, I do have one on my own car, so I guess that's a bit hypocritical of me to say...

Regarding new plates – For North Carolina, you don’t have to get a new tag (unless you’re required to for some reason)

North Carolina Weighted Tags are a different story ...

I just got a brand new NC tag and they all seem to start with the letter "X" for 2008-2009.

Somebody's explained everything for me: http://www.bcpl8s.ca/
Basically: cars are three numbers and three letters since recently, before 2001 it was three letters and three numbers. Trucks have been four numbers and two letters since 1985.
Everybody gets a new plate when they insure a car for the first time. You're supposed to return them when you cancel the insurance or let it run out, but I've still got the plates on my Supra which has been sitting for several years.

I said that for Belgium.
For US I do not know.
For UK plates give year of the car: even if you register a car later you get a plate of its year, and not of the current year.



Yes, but again rules are different from one country to another.
In Belgium you must keep the official format of 3 letters + 3 numbers, and then by paying 620 € you can chose the contents.
For example the plate "XXL-911" is registered to a Porsche Cayenne
Or this DeLorean:



If you pay 874 € you can chose any combination from the 5-digit plates (still respecting the amount of letters/numbers which existed, so 1 or 2 letters only and 4 or 3 digits).

NSW ran out of combinations of 3 letter/3 number plates in late 2004 and replaced the general issue plates with 2 letter/2 number/2 letter plates, issued numerically, ie AA 00 AA then AA 01 AA through to AA 99 AA then AA 01 AB etc. Also since early 1990's NSW plates were available in slimline format as 3 letter/2 number/1 letter ie AAA 00 A

Originally NSW had all numerical plates, starting at 1, but they were replaced with 2 letter/3 number plates. These were again replaced with 3 letter/3 numbers about 1951. At that time Australian States were given certain letters to start their plates. NSW A-F with F reserved for haevy vehicles, Victoria G-L, Queensland N-Q (with Q p[lates used on State Government owned vehicles), South Australia R-T (starting from 1967), Western Australia U-W, Australian Capital Territory Y, and Northern Territory all numerals. Tasmania used 2/letter/4 numbers from 1970. Plates starting with Z were reserved for Federal Government vehicles. After these letter combinations ran out the states started doing their own thing. NSW continued to issue plates alpha-numerically, Queensland started using 3 number/3letter combinations WA changed over to 1 number/two letter/3 numbers.
Of course there were also special combinations available at different times.

In Germany the first letters (one, two or three) are fixed for the town or county, but you can choose the following letters (one or two) and ciphers (one, two, three or four). But the letters must come first and then the ciphers.

I think, that, since the new style of plates came out (then some more letters were possible), around 60 to 70% of the cars here, have vanity combinations. It costs around 12 to 15 Euro.

It's usually hard to get short combinations, like B-A 1 or M-X 5 or so. They are reserved for motorbikes and US-cars, where a European plate doesn't fit. Surely, good relations to the boss of the car-registration-authority helps, too.


I've seen, that owners of classic cars have often car-related vanity combinations, owners of other cars usually personal one, initials and birthday mostly.
There are exceptions: for example Porsche-owners. The most Porsche-plates over here have the numbers 911, 968, 924, 944 and so on.
And I saw several Citroens with XM or BX.

In Dortmund one plate-combination was becoming popular by a movie:
http://imcdb.org/vehicle_105927-Ford-Taunus-TC1-1974.html
But as I wrote, the holder in reality will not give it away.

Are you kidding? You don't mean 6.20 Euros do you? Here it is only 30 extra dollars to get those plates! (approx. 20 Euro). For the price they charge over there, you could buy a whole car!

In Sweden a personalized plate cost about 920 US dollars for ten years. If you want it longer you have to pay that money again. The personalized plate is bound to you so if you change car you can move it to the new car. The car don't loose its original licensnumber.

Edit: $920 is to get the plate, if you only want it for one year it still cost $920.