Car Registration Years Chart: How Old is My Car?

Are you looking to find out how old your car is? By looking at your number plate, you can work out the original year of issue. Knowing this can be incredibly useful, whether you're buying a used vehicle, checking insurance rates, or planning maintenance. In the UK, cars are assigned registration plates with numbers and letters that reveal the vehicle’s age.

By looking at your number plate, you can work out the original year of issue. Below, we’ve created a car registration years chart. This helps you quickly work out your car’s age from the numbers and letters on your registration plate. 

How UK Car Registrations Work

There are three main styles of number plate: suffix, prefix and new style. This changes which part of the plate is the age identifier, so it’s important to know the difference to understand how old your car is. 

Vehicle registration plates follow a specific format depending on when the car was registered. The current system, introduced in 2001, consists of three parts: two letters, two numbers and some random letters.  

Number Plate Dates 2020 Onwards

When looking at number plate dates, it’s helpful to understand how this will look going forward. We have compiled the number plate dates for 2020 onwards. 
 

New Style Car Registration Years (2001-Present)

New style number plates are registration plates that we have used since 2001 and the end of prefix plates. New style number plates have tighter restrictions on their combinations, but they are still easily personalised. 

New style number plates were first issued in 2001 after prefix number plates stopped being issued. They are still being used today by millions of drivers and they are not expected to end until 2064. However, new restraints and regulations could come in before then.

What about older cars?

If your car was registered before 2001, it will have a different style of registration plate, known as the prefix system. These older plates start with a letter that represents the year of registration, followed by numbers and additional letters. To determine how old your car is, you need to look at the first letter of the number plate.

Prefix Style Car Registration Years (1983-2001)

The old prefix-style number plates were first issued in August 1983 to solve nationwide number plate shortages. As well as having more identifying characters, these number plates differed from the previous generation where the letter identifying the year was moved to the front of the sequence. 

Prefix style number plates were given to new vehicles registered until August 2001, when the current style registration took its place. The DVLA never released the age identifier letters for I, O, Q, U and Z due to these all looking similar to certain numbers.

To make it easier, here's a quick reference chart of registration numbers and the corresponding years:

Suffix Style Car Registration Years (1963-1982)

Suffix-style number plates were introduced after an explosion in the popularity of new cars. This style of a number plate is formatted with “XYZ 1A”, with the last letter of the plate signifying the year the car was registered.

History of Number Plate Years in the UK

Number plates have looked very different over the years in the UK, with the earliest number plates believed to have been dated back to 1903. 

As the number of vehicles on the UK’s roads rapidly grew, the DVLA had to invent new number plate formats such as prefix and new style number plates to keep up with the rising number of new vehicles being registered.

Learn more in our guide to the history of number plates in the UK.

Number Plate Years FAQ

How can you tell how old a car is by its registration?

In the UK, you can determine a car's age by examining its registration plate. The registration plate format changed in September 2001. Since then, the first two characters represent the region or local office where the vehicle was registered, while the following two digits indicate the year of registration. For cars registered between March and August, the third and fourth characters represent the last two digits of the year. For vehicles registered between September and February of the following year, an additional 50 is added to the third and fourth characters. This information allows you to estimate a car's age by decoding its registration plate.

Can I add a number plate from a different year to my car?

No, it’s not legal to display a registration plate that does not correspond to the vehicle's actual age. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) strictly regulates the use of registration plates, and any attempt to use a plate from a different year may result in fines, penalties or even prosecution. It is essential to adhere to the established regulations and use a registration plate that accurately reflects the age of your vehicle to comply with UK law.

When do the new number plates come out?

New number plates are released twice a year. The first at the start of March and the second at the start of September.

The March number plates are reflective of the year e.g. 2022, 22, while the September number plates add 50 to this number e.g. 2022, 72.

Buy and Sell Private Number Plates from Absolute Reg

Did you know that we stock over 50 million private number plates? That’s even more than the DVLA!

With such a huge selection of plates on offer, you can discover endless registration combinations based on your name, model, location or sports team. 

Private number plates add a personal touch to your vehicle, and they’re also a great investment too. Elevate your car or gift a plate to a friend or loved one.

Start your number plate search today. 

Read More

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How To Retrieve A Stolen Number Plate

How To Put A Private Number Plate On A Car

Funny Number Plates You Can Actually Buy in the UK

Sources

INF104 Document, DVLA