In the United States , license plates are issued by an agency of the state or territorial government, and in the case of the District of Columbia the District government. Some Native American tribes also issue plates. The U.S. federal government issues plates only for its own vehicle fleet and for vehicles owned by foreign diplomats. Until the 1980s, diplomatic plates were issued by the state in which the consulate or embassy was located.
The appearances of plates are frequently chosen to contain symbols, colors, or slogans associated with the issuing jurisdiction.
The term license plate is frequently used in statute, although in some areas tags is informally used. The term tag stems from small stickers issued periodically to indicate that the vehicle registration is current, rather than replacing the entire license plate each year.
Designs and serial formats
Main article: United States license plate designs and serial formatsThe 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 and provinces use a seven-character ABC-1234 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. New Jersey currently uses a ABC-12D format which is nearly ready to run out of numbers, so officials decided to switch to a A12-BCD format when the existing format is exhausted. Maryland, which used to have a ABC-123 format on their license plates, now has a 1AB-C23 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 and provinces 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 has preferred yellow and blue. Arkansas, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin all have plain white license plates with little decoration.
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, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, 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, 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. states and Canadian provinces came to an agreement with the Automobile Manufacturers Association that fixed the size for all their passenger vehicle plates at six inches in height by twelve inches 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.) Smaller-sized plates are used for motorcycles and, in some jurisdictions, mopeds and certain types of trailers and construction equipment.
Showing current registration on plates
Historically, many U.S. and Canadian plates were replaced every year, although the most common practice in modern times is to send new validation stickers to vehicle owners every year or two, to indicate that the vehicle registration is still valid.
Tags that are not up to date quickly attract the attention of law enforcement, because registration "renewal" is a transaction that can usually be undertaken only by the car's registered owner, once certain requirements have been met, and because registration fees are a source of government revenue. A delinquent registration tag is often an indicator that the vehicle may be stolen, that the vehicle's owner has failed to comply with the applicable law regarding emission inspection or insurance, or that the vehicle's owner has unpaid traffic or parking tickets. Even with the tags, most states previously required that all license plates be replaced every few years; that practice is being abandoned by many states because of the expense of continually producing large numbers of plates. Maryland, for example, formerly mandated that all license plates be replaced every five years (except for apportioned trailers, which were registered on an eight-year schedule), but has not done so since 1986.
The sticker is usually placed on one corner of the plate, while the month of the year in which the plate would expire is printed in an opposing corner. Some jurisdictions combine the year and month on one sticker. In others, the plate's validation is a decal displayed from the inside of the windshield. The color of plate stickers and windshield decals often change annually, to allow for easier detection by police.
Most validation stickers are either serialized (with the serial number recorded on the registration), or are printed by a special printer at the time of registration or renewal with the vehicle's license plate number on them to discourage fraudulent sticker use, as the sticker will be valid only for the plate for which it was intended. In the District of Columbia, the license plate is validated with a windshield sticker that indicates the expiration date, the license plate number, the year and make of vehicle, and part of the vehicle identification number, thereby allowing easier detection of fraudulent use, as well as serving as a parking permit for neighborhood residents.
New York, Texas, and Washington, D.C. use windshield stickers exclusively, rather than plate stickers, for most vehicle classes. Connecticut switched to this method in September 2006. New Jersey required the use of plate decals for a few years, beginning with November 2000 expirations, but has not required them on passenger cars since October 1 , 2004 . New Jersey passenger vehicles do not display any registration information other than the license plate itself.
Pennsylvania issued validation stickers for Philadelphia residents that were displayed in the lower left corner of cars' rear windows for a few years, ending in late 2003 with the last stickers issued bearing January 2005 expirations, due to problems with theft of stickers attached to the license plate.
In Hawaii, the case of vehicle registration dues are a heated debate between the counties. Vehicles are purchased at a discount on O ʻ ahu compared to the neighboring islands where there is usually only one dealer per vehicle make. Because the outlying counties issue plates starting with M (Maui County), K (Kaua ʻ i), or H (Big Island of Hawai ʻ i), the source of the vehicle can be identified.
Life cycle
Under U.S. law, when a person moves to a new state, he or she is required to establish residency in the new state, which includes registering the vehicle with that new state's government — it will then issue a new plate or plates that must be attached to the vehicle. One prominent exception is active duty military service members; under federal law, they do not change their legal residence when they move to a n
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