UK Number Plate Area Codes

UK number plate area codes reveal far more than the age of a vehicle. Since the early 20th century, registration formats have included regional identifiers, known today as DVLA memory tags, that indicate where a car was first registered. From the early suffix and prefix systems through to the current style launched in 2001, these codes provide insight into the history and location of a vehicle’s registration.

While personalised and reissued plates may obscure the original meaning, understanding area codes remains an important way of tracing a car’s origin and interpreting how DVLA registration systems have evolved.

Most people know that a vehicle’s number plate will tell you when a car was first registered – but fewer people realise that a number plate can actually tell you where a car was registered too.

Here, we’ll explain everything there is to know car registration areas and the DVLA codes used on number plates in different parts of the UK. Alternatively, you can browse the DVLA records of area codes.

• Current DVLA Number Plate Area Codes
• Historic DVLA Number Plate Area Codes

Understanding car registration area codes

To make it easy for the authorities to identify vehicles, every registration mark is actually a code that gives a clue to where that car was registered.

If you look back to the first number plates issued to cars, there was little hope of understanding where that registration was issued unless you had access to DVLA records. More recently though, DVLA number plate codes have become fairly easy to understand.

There are slightly different rules depending on which kind of number plate you’re looking at. Let’s start with current vehicle registrations – the ‘AB01 ABC’ format that was launched in 2001.

Current number plate area codes

Take a glance at a current number plate and it might just look like a series of random letters and numbers – but it’s actually only the final three letters that are randomly generated.

The numbers give you an indication of that year (and the part of the year) the car was registered – and the first two letters actually tell you where in the UK the vehicle first hit the road.

For example – the ‘AB01 ABC’ example we’ve just used would be a car that was registered in 2001 in the Anglia region. What’s more, the area code also tells you which DVLA Office first registered the car too.

These two letters are referred to as a ‘memory tag’ by the DVLA.

Most people know that a vehicle’s number plate will tell you when a car was first registered – but fewer people realise that a number plate can actually tell you where a car was registered too.

Here, we’ll explain everything there is to know car registration areas and the DVLA codes used on number plates in different parts of the UK. Alternatively, you can browse the DVLA records of area codes.

• Current DVLA Number Plate Area Codes
• Historic DVLA Number Plate Area Codes

Understanding car registration area codes

To make it easy for the authorities to identify vehicles, every registration mark is actually a code that gives a clue to where that car was registered.

If you look back to the first number plates issued to cars, there was little hope of understanding where that registration was issued unless you had access to DVLA records. More recently though, DVLA number plate codes have become fairly easy to understand.

There are slightly different rules depending on which kind of number plate you’re looking at. Let’s start with current vehicle registrations – the ‘AB01 ABC’ format that was launched in 2001.

Current number plate area codes

Take a glance at a current number plate and it might just look like a series of random letters and numbers – but it’s actually only the final three letters that are randomly generated.

The numbers give you an indication of that year (and the part of the year) the car was registered – and the first two letters actually tell you where in the UK the vehicle first hit the road.

For example – the ‘AB01 ABC’ example we’ve just used would be a car that was registered in 2001 in the Anglia region. What’s more, the area code also tells you which DVLA Office first registered the car too.

These two letters are referred to as a ‘memory tag’ by the DVLA.

Number plate memory tags

Until 2013, the memory tag showed which DVLA office registered the vehicle – however, these regional offices are now all closed and the system is centralised.

Despite this, the DLVA still tend to issue these regional specific number plates to dealers in those areas. As such, if you buy a new car in Yorkshire, it will almost certainly have a registration mark beginning with Y. The same applies to E plates in Essex, O plates in Oxford – and so on.

A full list of car registration areas

Take a look at the codes for all of the UK’s regions and DVLA offices that issued them before 2013:

What about old number plate area codes?

Since our new number plate system has only been around since 2001, it’s not uncommon to see older cars with ‘prefix’ number plates.

These types of plate are a one letter, one-to-three number, then three letter format – like ‘A123 ABC’, for example. In this type of plate, the first letter indicated the car’s registration year – and the final two letters acted as the area code; in this case, BC.

Before these prefix plates came ‘suffix’ plates – which used the same format but backwards. An example of a suffix plate would be ‘ABC 123A’. Here, the final letter indicates the registration year of the car, and the second and third letter indicate the registration region; again, in this case, BC.  

The same area codes were used for prefix and suffix plates – so the following chart will help you identify the original location a registration mark comes from. There are a lot of them – so we’ve sorted them into alphabetical order so you can quickly sort through them:

"A" number plates

"B" number plates

"C" number plates

"D" number plates

"E" number plates

"F" number plates

"G" number plates

"H" number plates

"J" number plates

"K" number plates

"L" number plates

"M" number plates

"N" number plates

"O" number plates

"P" number plates

"R" number plates

"S" number plates

"T" number plates

"U" number plates

"V" number plates

"W" number plates

"X" number plates

"Y" number plates

How do these codes apply to personalised number plates?

Many of the prefix and suffix number plates that are seen on the road today have been put on newer vehicles retrospectively.

For example, the number plate ‘A911 POR’ will almost certainly now be on a Porsche 911, rather than a car that was registered in 1983 in Portsmouth.

The truth is, when number plates are re-sold or put on different vehicles, their original meaning is lost – but even if you own a personalised plate; it’s interesting to consider where it was originally issued and where it started its road-going life!