United States license plates

Format, region codes and a plate generator for United States.

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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.

Plate types

How to read the plate

Region name

The region is written on the plate as a word — a state or province.

Series and number

Letters and digits — the registration itself.

County

The first characters are the code of the county where the car is registered: The county where the car is registered is shown separately on the plate:

In the US every state issues its own plates, and the region is read from the state name, usually printed at the top; the two-letter code (CA, TX) does not appear on the plate. Each state has its own colours, serial format and slogan: Texas has “The Lone Star State”, New Hampshire “Live Free or Die”, Illinois “Land of Lincoln”. In some states — Alabama, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho — the start of the serial also encodes the county. Besides the standard plates there are hundreds of specialty designs.

Region map

Click a region to see its codes.

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Region codes

56 regions

Region	Code
Alaska	AK
Alabama	AL
Arkansas	AR
American Samoa	AS
Arizona	AZ
California	CA
Colorado	CO
Connecticut	CT
District of Columbia	DC
Delaware	DE
Florida	FL
Georgia	GA
Guam	GU
Hawaii	HI
Iowa	IA
Idaho	ID
Illinois	IL
Indiana	IN
Kansas	KS
Kentucky	KY
Louisiana	LA
Massachusetts	MA
Maryland	MD
Maine	ME
Michigan	MI
Minnesota	MN
Missouri	MO
Northern Mariana Islands	MP
Mississippi	MS
Montana	MT
North Carolina	NC
North Dakota	ND
Nebraska	NE
New Hampshire	NH
New Jersey	NJ
New Mexico	NM
Nevada	NV
New York	NY
Ohio	OH
Oklahoma	OK
Oregon	OR
Pennsylvania	PA
Puerto Rico	PR
Rhode Island	RI
South Carolina	SC
South Dakota	SD
Tennessee	TN
Texas	TX
Utah	UT
Virginia	VA
U.S. Virgin Islands	VI
Vermont	VT
Washington	WA
Wisconsin	WI
West Virginia	WV
Wyoming	WY

History

States have issued their own plates since the early 20th century, and the common 12 × 6 in size has been in force since 1957. A state changes its base design every 5–10 years, and old plates stay on the road until replaced. Until the 1970s plates were often reissued every year, and many states used to code serials by county — Florida did so until 1977.