Portugal license plates
Format, region codes and a plate generator for Portugal.
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Custom text: real plates never carry this combination.
This image is not a license plate: it must not be fitted to a vehicle and does not mean the combination is available.
How to read the plate
A Portuguese plate consists of three pairs of characters: since 2020 it is AA 00 AA, earlier combinations were 00-AA-00, 00-00-AA and AA-00-00. Numbers are issued in one national sequence, so car plates carry no region. District codes (L, P, C, AV and others) appear only on trailer plates and on vehicles registered for export. On the left is the blue EU band with the letter P.
Region codes
Plates in this country do not show the region — you cannot tell it from the plate.
History
In 1911–1936 the country was divided into zones N, C, S, A and M, whose letter preceded the number. From 1937 letter pairs were reserved for districts (MM and MN for Porto, UU for Coimbra, AN, AR, AS and HO for the Azores, MA and MD for Madeira), but from the 1980s numbers were issued nationally and the pairs stopped meaning a region. The current AA 00 AA format was introduced in 2020.