When Do New Number Plates Come Out? UK Plate Dates

When new number plates come out

New UK number plates come out twice a year, on 1 March and 1 September. Since 1 September 2026, new numbers have carried a 76. That runs until the end of February 2027.

Then it changes again on 1 March 2027, when new cars get the 27 plate.

So the two numbers in the middle of a plate tell you roughly when the car was first registered. That's all they do. They say nothing about the car's condition or its history, and a car can be wearing a number it wasn't born with.

This is part of our guide to number plates.

How the current plate format works

The format you see on most cars dates from 1 September 2001. DVLA's leaflet on registration numbers, INF104, sets out its three parts.

Take a plate like AB76 CDE. The first two letters are what DVLA calls the memory tag. They show the region where the car was first registered, so AB is Peterborough and SA is Glasgow.

The two numbers are the age identifier, and they tell you when the number was issued.

The last three letters are random and carry no meaning at all.

One oddity is worth knowing. DVLA never uses I, Q or Z in a memory tag, and Z only ever appears among the random letters. So a current-style plate never starts with Z.

Northern Ireland plates work differently. They carry no age identifier, which is why DVLA sells them as "dateless".

Age identifier table, 2026 to 2030

The pattern is simple once you've seen it. A March plate uses the last two digits of the year. A September plate adds 50 to them.

So March 2027 gives 27, and September 2027 gives 77. Here's DVLA's own table from today's plate forward.

INF104's table stops at February 2030, and DVLA says the pattern carries on until every variation has been used. The same two dates have applied to every change since the first one in September 2001.

Working backwards is just as easy. A 24 plate is March to August 2024, and a 74 plate is September 2024 to February 2025. Anything from 51 upwards is a September plate.

Before 2001: the prefix and suffix years

Older cars follow two earlier systems, and DVLA's own sales site still describes both.

From 1983 to 2001 the year was a single letter at the front, as in P123 ABC. DVLA calls this the prefix style.

Before 1983 the year letter came last, as in ABC 123P. That's the suffix style, and it dates back to the early 1960s.

The suffix letter changed once a year. So did the prefix letter until 1999, when it moved to two changes a year, in March and September. If you want the full year-by-year run for a classic, the trade publishes charts. DVLA's own pages give only where each era starts and ends.

Why plates change twice a year

Two changes a year mean two fresh batches of never-used numbers. Dealers get a new plate to sell against, and buyers get a visible marker of a car's age.

It's widely reported to move the used-car market too. Dealers clear ageing stock in the weeks before each change, and a wave of part-exchanges tends to land in the weeks after. That's a trade pattern rather than a published figure. Our guide to the best time to buy a used car covers how to use that.

Can a plate make a car look newer?

No. DVLA's rule is one sentence long, and INF104 puts it plainly: "You can't use a registration number to make your vehicle appear younger than it actually is."

That covers private plates too. GOV.UK's guide to personalised registrations gives the example of an 07 number on a car registered in 2003. DVLA won't assign it.

A plate can go the other way, though. A dateless number, or one from an older series, can sit on a newer car quite legally. So a car wearing a 2015 plate might be a 2015 car or a 2022 one.

INF104 also sets out what happens when a number is displayed wrongly, with letters rearranged or misrepresented to spell a word. You could be fined up to £1,000, and the car will fail its MOT. In some cases the registration may be permanently withdrawn. If you misrepresent a number, you get back none of the money you paid for it.

Putting a private number on a car has its own conditions, from MOT status to five years of continuous tax or SORN. Those belong to our guides on what private plates are worth and buying a car with a private plate.

Checking a plate against the car's real registration date

Now for the useful bit. You can check it in a minute for free.

Run the car's plate through our free car check. It shows the date the car was first registered, alongside its MOT history and tax status. Compare that date with what the two digits on the plate imply.

Say the plate reads 19. DVLA issued 19 numbers from March to August 2019, so the car can't have been first registered before March 2019. If the check says March 2019, the plate fits the car's age.

If the dates don't line up, the car has most likely had a plate change at some point. The free check doesn't list plate changes, but a Basic check does, so you can usually see when.

On its own, that proves nothing bad. People buy private plates, move them between cars and take them off again when they sell. A new V5C (the logbook) gets issued every time a number changes, so recent paperwork on an older car is often just that.

What it does give you is a question for the seller. Ask why the plate was changed, and when. Then see whether the answer matches the check.

If it doesn't, our guide to number plate changes and red flags covers what a bad answer looks like. That's where cloned plates and the V5C angle live.

What about banned plates?

Each new series also brings a round of combinations DVLA refuses to issue. We've read the register it released under the Freedom of Information Act, and our guide to banned number plates covers what's in it.

It covers far more than one series.

Common questions about UK plate dates