UK Registration Plates

Overview

UK registration plates identify all road vehicles operated by a motor (including cars) and registered in Britain or Northern Ireland.

History

The first plates produced date back to 1903, when the Motor Car Act of 1903 was issued; it entered into force on 1 January 1904. The use of registration plates became mandatory for all motor vehicles using the road network.

Issuance and Structure

New British signs (except Northern Ireland) are issued by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), an executive agency of the Department for Transport, based in Swansea. The license schema for license plates was introduced in 2001. This scheme is an AB12 VD format, where:

* A is a DVB region
* B is a local DVLA office within the region
* 12 is a registration period index
* D is a combination, which means a legal number as letters

Regional Encoding

The first letter of regional code is called the mnemonic index because it corresponds to the consonant representing the region. The following letters are not used in regional encoding: I, Q, Z.

Registration Periods

The encoding scheme has two periods of registration per year:

* 01 March-31 August
* 01 September-28/29 (next year)

Each period is represented by a unique code:

* The first period is coded for the last two numbers, which represent a valid year (e.g., in 2014, license plates with index 14).
* The second period is two digits representing the year of the beginning of the period plus 50 (e.g., period from September to August is represented by the code "S" + 50).

Mandatory Use

The British registration plate is one of the components of the device for the identification of a vehicle in the United Kingdom fleet. It is mandatory on most motor vehicles using the road network, and plates are attributed to the vehicle for life.