Vehicle Registration Plates of The United States - Designs and Serial Formats

Designs and Serial Formats

The appearances of plates are frequently chosen to contain symbols, colors, or slogans associated with the issuing jurisdiction. Formats for license plate numbers, which are usually alphanumeric, are designed to provide enough unique numbers for all motor vehicles a jurisdiction expects to register. For example, the small states Delaware and Rhode Island are able to use formats of 123456 and 123-456, respectively, while California uses the seven-character format 1ABC234, and several other populous states use a seven-character ABC1234 format. Other formats include those that utilize a county-coding system or month of expiration is incorporated into the plate number as in Massachusetts, which uses the last digit, and West Virginia, which uses the first digit, which can be from 1-9 (January-September) or O (October), N (November) or D (December).

In 2010, New Jersey switched from their old ABC-12D format to the current A12-BCD format when they ran out of numbers. Their current format, for example, would run from A00-AAA to Z99-AAA, then would progress to A00-AAB.

Maryland, which used to have a 1AB-C23 format on their license plates, now has a 1 A/A 0000 format. The District of Columbia changed a few years ago from a 123-456 format to an AB1234 format.

Non-passenger vehicles tend to have their own special format and often have the vehicle type listed on the plate.

In the United States, many states distinguish their license plates through distinctive color schemes and logos, which historically have been changed annually. For example, the cowboy logo often associated with the state of Wyoming has appeared on that state's license plates continuously since 1936. Some early Tennessee plates were produced in a parallelogram shape approximating that of the state.

Vermont license plates have frequently featured a green and white color scheme, while Alaska and New York has preferred yellow and blue. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. all have plain white license plates with no or little decoration. Michigan issues a plain white license plate, but also offers plates with a background for an addition charge.

Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. have placed the address of the state's official or tourism web site on their general issue plates. Most plates in Washington, D.C. contain the phrase "Taxation without representation" to highlight the District's lack of a voting representative in the United States Congress.

Typically, the registration number is embossed — or, more rarely, impressed — onto the license plate. Other identifying information, such as the name of the issuing jurisdiction and the vehicle class, can be either surface-printed or embossed; Virginia, for example, does the former for passenger cars and the latter for most non-passenger vehicles. However, it is increasingly common in the U.S. for the registration number to be surface-printed using digital printing technology. Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington do so only for certain types of license plates, such as vanity plates and special issues; Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia have switched to the so-called "flat plate" technology for all their license plates. Delaware license plates have not been embossed for several decades. License plates originally were not embossed, but were merely flat plates in various forms, typically rectangular. It was found by the 1930s that they could be easily forged, and subsequently plates were embossed as the equipment to do this was not easily available to criminals wishing to create their own plates.

In 1956, the U.S. and Canadian federal governments came to an agreement with the Automobile Manufacturers Association that fixed the size for all their passenger vehicle plates at 6 inches (150 mm) in height by 12 inches (300 mm) in width, although these figures may vary slightly by jurisdiction. In North America, only Saint Pierre and Miquelon has not adopted these standards. (Although the Northwest Territories and Nunavut plates are cut in the shape of a polar bear, their overall size and mounting holes are compatible with those of the rest of Canada and the U.S.) The US Territory of Puerto Rico also offers an optional European Sized plate for European cars. Smaller-sized plates are used for motorcycles and, in some jurisdictions, mopeds and certain types of trailers and construction equipment.