DO YOU KNOW WHICH UK REGISTRATION PLATES ARE COMPATIBLE WITH THE YEAR OF YOUR VEHICLE?
If you're not sure, relax. As always, NetPlates is here to help.
One of the key issues with fitting a vehicle registration plate in the United Kingdom is a potential conflict between the age of a plate and the age of the vehicle.
This is a critical issue to bear in mind, since it's not possible to assign an inappropriate year of registration to a vehicle. Thus, if you were to buy a reg from an incompatible year, you'd end up with something you couldn't legally fit. At least as regards vehicle you bought it for.
HOW DO THE RULES ON NUMBER PLATE AND VEHICLE AGES WORK?
There are one or two myths - which this post will address. But in a nutshell:
Dateless UK number plates can be fitted to any vehicle. That's one of the reasons they're so popular.
However…
Suffix-, Prefix-, and Current-format registrations can only be fitted to vehicles which are either newer than, or the name age as the registration.
The latter rule is due to a DVLA regulation which stipulates - in the DVLA's own words:
You can’t make the vehicle look newer than it actually is. For example, you can’t put an ‘07’ registration number onto a 2003 registered vehicle.
It's easier to envisage wth actual registrations:
EXAMPLE 1
- You have a 2012 vehicle, whose original registration is AA12 ABC.
- You buy the 2021 registration AA21 ABC.
- You cannot fit your new purchase to your vehicle, because doing so would make the vehicle look newer than it really is. You'd be implying that your 2012 vehicle was made in 2021, and that could significantly mislead a potential buyer of the vehicle.
EXAMPLE 2
- You have a 2021 vehicle, whose original registration is AA21 ABC.
- You buy the registration AA12 ABC.
- You can fit your new purchase to your vehicle, because doing so would not make the vehicle look newer than it really is.
The above examples are simplified for clarity. But in practice, it can get more complicated for buyers. Here's how you can make sure you get it right:
THE EASY ROUTE
We've made a couple of in-page web applications which will enable you to check the year of any UK mainland registration. Firstly - especially if you're buying privately and not from a reputable dealer, use our Number Plate Re-spacer to ensure the spacing is being correctly advertised.
On the private market, we've frequently seen sellers mis-spacing number plates. For example, the might try to sell P3 TEX as P3TE X. Our re-spacer will correct the spacing for you, ensuring that you don't purchase a sequence you can't legally display.
And secondly, drop the registration into our Number Plate Assessment App. Provided it's a legitimate UK reg (and the re-spacer will tell you if it's not), the assessment app will tell you the year, along with a bit of eaxtra info about the registration. You can then easily determine whether the reg is compatible with your vehicle.
THE CONSIDERED ROUTE
Recognise The Registration Format
It's vital to make a distinction between the different formats of number plate when assessing the compatibility. We've discovered during interactions in our Facebook Number Plate Group, that the prefix-format in particular confuses a large number of people. For instance, let's imagine that a potential plate-buyer has a 2010 car:
When the current-format registration AA21 ABC is offered, we've seen that most people correctly identify the plate as incompatible. AA21 ABC is a 2021 plate, and therefore it's too new for a 2010 car.
However, when the prefix-format registration A21 ABC is offered, many people - this time incorrectly - still believe the plate is incompatible. The prefix registrations, including A21 ABC, are older than the current format. They're the next series heading back through time. They differ from the current format in that there's only a single letter before the number in the first block - not two letters. In the prefix-format plates, the year was representated not by the number, but by the first letter. The letter A kicked off the prefix series beginning in August 1983. "A" covered the period from August 1983 to July 1984. Then "B" took over. And so the progression went, until 2001, when the series finally concluded with the letter Y.
In their day, the prefix registrations, and the suffixes before them, were referenced by their prefix or suffix letter. A prefix plate beginning with A would be known as an "A reg". A suffix plate ending with an S would be known as an "S reg". Although the letters didn't have an obvious visual connection with a year, they were, in their time, widely associated with their year. In the prefix era, a "G reg" would be well recognised as coming from the 1989 to 1990 period. It's just that the current series has now been with us for so long that a huge number of drivers have no association with that previous era. Hence, there are lots of drivers who visualise the number 21 in A21 ABC as a year - as indeed it would be in a current style plate.
What this Means for the Buyer
Only when a number plate begins with two letters and two numbers does it contain the year as an actual number.
If the registration does not begin with a four character block, rigidly comprising two numbers then two letters, the year - if it's designated at all - will be designated by a letter.
If you're interested in taking a much deeper look at how UK number plates have been formatted over the years, our [Number Plate Formats]() post covers the different periods and their formats, with examples.
You can find out more about the different UK mainland registration formats in our major Number Plate Formats post.
UK number plates can only be fitted t