What do the characters on a number plate mean?

PEOPLE are finding out that the code on your registration plate is not random and gives a lot of information about your car.

Here is a breakdown of what each character on a number plate means.

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What do the letters on a licence plate mean?

Go.Compare car insurance has revealed that 22% of drivers do not understand the meaning of a car’s number plate.

Many have no idea of the rules over when plates change and how they have to look.

And from September 1, 2024, new cars will be registered with a 74-plate.

The 74 on the plate will indicate that the car was registered between that date and March 1, 2025.

It also replaces the 24 plate which was introduced in March 2024, and that itself replaced the 73 plate from September 2023.

So how does it work?

When the issues a car registration plate, they follow a very distinct system.

The first section of a number plate is the local memory tag - the first two letters of the plate identify where the vehicle was registered.

The first letter stands for the local area, for example, E denotes Essex, while L stands for London.

The plate's second letter then identifies at which DVLA office in that area the registration took place - multiple letters can signify the same DVLA office.

The letters I, Q and Z are not used as local office identifiers, while Z can be used only as a random letter.

How can you tell how old your car is using your licence plate?

The two numbers in the middle of your plate identify how old the car is.

The DVLA issues two lots of number plate combinations each year, on March 1 and September 1.

All plates issued between March 1 and the end of August will use the same two numbers as the year they are registered.

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For example, a car registered from March-August 2021 would have "21".

For cars registered between September 2021 and the end of February 2022, it will be the year - 21 - plus 50, which would make it 71.

The new system began in 2001 with registrations 01 and 51.

Is any of the number plate random?

The final three letters of the number plate tend to be a random combination that makes the registration unique.

But it's not uncommon for cars with neighbouring letter sequences to be from the same manufacturer, due to batch allocation of new registrations to dealers by the DVLA.

The letters "Q" and "I" are excluded from the random sequence, along with any phrases that are deemed offensive.

Using the current scheme, there will be sufficient combinations to last until the end of February 2051.

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What about registrations before September 2001?

From 1983 till September 2001 licence plates used a leading letter to represent the year of first registration.

The letter "A" was used at the front of the plate in 1983, progressing through the alphabet, finishing with "Y" at the end of August 2001.

There were hundreds of region codes using a combination of a leading letter and a second to identify where the car was from.

Before 1983, the same system was used, but with the year letters at the end of the plate rather than the beginning.

Car insurance spokesperson for Go.Compare, Tom Banks, said: “If you’re going to be picking up a new ’74 plate vehicle this September, you might be disappointed to know that almost a quarter of people won’t know that you’ve just driven this off the forecourt.

“It seems many drivers are still in the dark about what their number plate digits really mean, but it’s always good to be able to work out the age of any car you’re thinking of buying, particularly if it's second-hand.”