How do British license plates work?

[5v3d3b0]

I hear people talking of K plates, 55 plates etc etc etc etc and I haven't a clue what it means. Something to do with the date?

[The Shaggy D.A.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_car_number_plates
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[kawakid]

Yeah though is weird.

There are 2 plates a year, one March time, one september time.

so my bike is YX58ABC

The Y stands for Yorkshire, the biggest and best county in England.

The X is for the area in Yorkshire

58 is a 2008 September plate

ABC is unique to you.

-----------------------

A plate like YX08ABC

Would be a March 2008 Plate

-----------------------------

ie 55 = September 2005,
06 = March 2006
56 = September 2006
07 = March 2007
57 = September 2007


And so on.
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[Dragonfly]

Here its 3 letters and 4 numbers easy to remember. I never got the English ones as I to see people here talking about k regs ???

down the south of Ireland its the year t he car was made the initials or the county and then 4 numbers. I am on the border so see a lot of different plates from north and south of Ireland and even English plates. Lost of Polish plates now to.
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[Fahd]

To add to the above, when people refer to letters, as in 'K' like you said above, this type of number plate was used before 2001. In 2001 the new system was introduced (51,02,52,03,53 etc.).

So, for example before the new plate system 'Y' was for the year 2000 numberplate (I believe we didn't go up to 'Z' because it could easily be confused with 'S' but I could be wrong).

This should hopefully help you:

https://www.vrm-group.co.uk/car_registration_year.htm
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[WildGoose]

https://www.paganotter.org.uk/misc/regmarks.html

This table can allow you to pinpoint the DVLA office that the vehicle was registered with from the first 2 digits of the post 2001 registrations.
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[ms51ves3]

[jack_zxr400]

whats it guna look like for 2010?

YU10 ABC

?
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[ms51ves3]

[Mark65]

[Tome]

Depends how far back you go!

'ABC 123D' would be an old 'D' reg used from 1963 - 1982, still see a few around on some very nice old and classic bikes, these were before the 'A123 BCD' style ones that were used from 1983 - 2001

And then the new style ones are pretty well explained above and will be used from 2002 - 2050! Then they'll probably reverse it like before haha.

Also a selection of letters not used on old style plates are I, O, Q, U and Z because they look too similar to numbers or another letter.

Our 'personalised' plates are nowhere near as cool as ones in places like USA/Canada or NZ where it seems you can have just about anything!
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[NSR Mick]

[Drew]

[Charlie]

look at the link on the first reply Drew, its got them all written there
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[The Disapproving Brit]

So, to sum up:

AA02 AAA = the numbers are the year. 0x for March, 5x for September.

A9(99) AAA - Before 2001. The earlier in the alphabet the first letter is, the older the vehicle.

AAA 9(99)A - Really bloody old. Before 1980ish. Either really expensive or really shit (or both), and a pain in the arse if it breaks either way. The earlier in the alphabet the last letter is, the older it is.


Note: you can have a private plate that's makes your vehicle appear older than it is, but not newer. So it's not bombproof
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[ms51ves3]