Number plates
What your number plate says
Type any UK registration to read the age and the region off it.
Decoded in your browser as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored.
Type a registration
The age identifier and the issuing region are printed on the plate itself, so they can be read without looking anything up. Nothing about the vehicle is available here.
What does this guide cover? A current UK plate carries two facts and no more. The two letters are the region that issued it, and the two digits are the six month period it was issued in. Everything else about the car is somewhere else entirely, and no plate has ever encoded it.
98
19
50
- Plate rulesSpacing, fonts, flags, 3D and 4D plates, and what is not legal.
- Private platesHow a transfer works and what it cannot do.
- Write-off categoriesWhat Cat A, B, S and N mean before buying.
- V5C logbookKeeper changes, missing documents and taxing after purchase.
- Age codesOne page per identifier, from 02 to 99.
- Region codesNineteen regions and the offices behind each one.
The last ten age identifiers
| Code | Registered | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | March to August 2050 | 1 March 2050 | 31 August 2050 |
| 99 | September 2049 to February 2050 | 1 September 2049 | 28 February 2050 |
| 49 | March to August 2049 | 1 March 2049 | 31 August 2049 |
| 98 | September 2048 to February 2049 | 1 September 2048 | 28 February 2049 |
| 48 | March to August 2048 | 1 March 2048 | 31 August 2048 |
| 97 | September 2047 to February 2048 | 1 September 2047 | 29 February 2048 |
| 47 | March to August 2047 | 1 March 2047 | 31 August 2047 |
| 96 | September 2046 to February 2047 | 1 September 2046 | 28 February 2047 |
| 46 | March to August 2046 | 1 March 2046 | 31 August 2046 |
| 95 | September 2045 to February 2046 | 1 September 2045 | 28 February 2046 |
Every region tag
| Letter | Region | Issuing offices |
|---|---|---|
| A | Anglia | Peterborough, Norwich, Ipswich |
| B | Birmingham | Birmingham |
| C | Cymru | Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor |
| D | Deeside and Shrewsbury | Chester, Shrewsbury |
| E | Essex | Chelmsford |
| F | Forest and Fens | Nottingham, Lincoln |
| G | Garden of England | Maidstone, Brighton |
| H | Hampshire and Dorset | Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Southampton |
| K | Luton and Northampton | Luton, Northampton |
| L | London | Wimbledon, Stanmore, Sidcup |
| M | Manchester and Merseyside | Manchester |
| N | North | Newcastle, Stockton |
| O | Oxford | Oxford |
| P | Preston | Preston, Carlisle |
| R | Reading | Reading |
| S | Scotland | Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness |
| V | Severn Valley | Worcester |
| W | West of England | Exeter, Truro, Bristol |
| Y | Yorkshire | Leeds, Sheffield, Beverley |
Common questions
- What year is my number plate?
- The two digits after the letters give it away. A number from 02 to 50 means March to August of that year, so 24 is March to August 2024. Add 50 for the autumn series, so 74 is September 2024 to February 2025.
- What do the first two letters mean?
- They are the memory tag. The first letter is the region and the second narrows it to the local office that issued the mark. DVLA closed the local offices in 2013 but tags are still allocated on the same map, so it remains the correct way to read a plate.
- Why are there two new plates a year?
- The current scheme changes on 1 March and 1 September, which was designed to spread new car sales across two peaks instead of one. Those two months are still by far the biggest for new registrations in Britain.
- Can a plate tell me the car's real age?
- Only if it is the original mark. A transferred private plate hides the age completely, which is why a car can wear a mark from a different decade. A Q mark means the age was never established at all.