Number plate checker
Enter a UK registration to check its format and decode when it was registered.
- Format
- Registration year
- Registered
- DVLA memory tag
That doesn't look like a valid UK registration.
Try a current-style plate such as .
This tool decodes the plate format only: it doesn't look up the vehicle. For real DVLA data, use the Vehicle Details API or try the sandbox.
How UK number plates show the year
Since September 2001, UK plates use the format two letters, two numbers, three letters (e.g. AB12 CDE). The two numbers are the age identifier: plates issued March to August use the year's last two digits (12 = 2012), and plates issued September to February add 50 (62 = Sep 2012 to Feb 2013). Earlier prefix (1983 to 2001) and suffix (1963 to 1983) plates carry a single year letter instead.
Reading the current format
The first two letters are the memory tag, which records where the vehicle was first registered. The first letter is the region and the second identifies the DVLA office within it, so AB is Anglia and LA is London. The final three letters are random, chosen to make each plate unique rather than to encode anything. Nothing in the plate tells you the make, model or colour: that only comes from the DVLA record itself.
Why the age identifier jumps by 50
Two plate releases happen a year, in March and September. The March release uses the year's last two digits, so a car registered in March 2024 carries 24. The September release adds 50 to the same number, giving 74 for September 2024 through February 2025. That is why you see 24 and 74 plates on cars of the same model year, and why the higher number is the later vehicle. The scheme runs out in 2050, at which point the format changes again.
What a valid format does and does not prove
This tool checks the shape of a registration and works out when a plate in that shape would have been issued. It does not confirm the vehicle exists, that the plate is currently assigned, or that the age identifier matches the car it is attached to. A personalised or cherished registration deliberately hides age, and a plate can be transferred between vehicles, so the year a plate implies is a starting point rather than a fact about the car.
Confirming any of that needs the DVLA record. The Vehicle Details API returns the registration date, make, model, colour, fuel type, engine size, CO₂ figure, tax status and MOT expiry for a given registration. Where a plate has been transferred, the registration date on the record is the one that matters.
Common reasons a plate fails validation
- Letters that are never used. I and Q do not appear in the memory tag, and Q is reserved for vehicles of uncertain age such as kit cars and some imports.
- Northern Ireland plates. These use a different scheme entirely: three letters and up to four numbers, and carry no age identifier.
- Spacing and characters. Spacing is cosmetic and ignored here, but non-standard fonts, added dots or altered spacing on the physical plate are an offence and an MOT failure.
- Trade and diplomatic plates. Both sit outside the standard format.
Using this in your own product
Format validation is worth doing client-side before you spend a lookup. Rejecting an obviously malformed registration in the browser saves a round trip and, on a metered API, saves the credit too. VehicleMatic only charges for successful lookups, but the fastest lookup is still the one you did not need to make. Once the format passes, send it to the API and let the DVLA record answer everything else. You can try that against real sample data in the sandbox without an account, and work out what it would cost at your volume with the API cost calculator.