Bulgarian car number plates

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A Bulgarian license plate from the city of Sofia
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A Bulgarian license plate from the city of Sofia
A Dobrich Province license plate
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A Dobrich Province license plate

The standard Bulgarian license plates consist of a blue vertical strip (the European strip) on the left side of the plate containing the flag of Bulgaria and the country code of Bulgaria (BG), always followed on a white surface, using black font, by the one- or two-letter province code, four digits and a final two-letter code, called a serie. They thus take the form X(X) NNNN Y(Y).

Since 1992, the letter license plate codes use letters common to both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, no matter whether they have the same phonetic value (as per ISO 3166-2:BG). Thus, letters like "T" and "K" may not be misleading, but using Latin "B" (/b/), "H" (/h/), "P" (/p/), "C" (/s/), "Y" (/i/), "X" (/ks/) to substitute Cyrillic "В" (/v/), "Н" (/n/), "Р" (/r/), "С" (/s/), "У" (/u/), "Х" (/x/) are an example of intentional false friends.

Since 2006, all military vehicles' plates are subject to change with the new ones: the letters "BA" (for Bulgarian Army) and 6 digits - the form is BA NNNNNN. The same form is adopted for the new license plates of the Civil Protection Service of Bulgaria, beginning with "CP" (for Civil Protection) followed by 6 digits - CP NNNNNN. On the left side of both kinds of plates there's a blue vertical strip, same as the one described above.

[edit] List of license plate codes

Current province code Province Old province code (pink fields indicate changed codes)
A Burgas Province Cyrillic Б
B Varna Province Cyrillic В
BH Vidin Province Cyrillic ВД
BP Vratsa Province Cyrillic ВР
BT Veliko Tarnovo Province Cyrillic ВТ
C or CA City of Sofia Cyrillic С or А
CC Silistra Province Cyrillic СС
CH Sliven Province Cyrillic СЛ
CM Smolyan Province Cyrillic СМ
CO Sofia Province Cyrillic СФ
CT Stara Zagora Province Cyrillic СЗ
E Blagoevgrad Province Cyrillic БЛ
EB Gabrovo Province Cyrillic Г
EH Pleven Province Cyrillic ПЛ
H Shumen Province Cyrillic Ш
K Kardzhali Province Cyrillic К
KH Kyustendil Province Cyrillic КН
M Montana Province Cyrillic М
OB Lovech Province Cyrillic Л
P Ruse Province Cyrillic Р
PA Pazardzhik Province Cyrillic ПЗ
PB Plovdiv Province Cyrillic П
PK Pernik Province Cyrillic ПК
PP Razgrad Province Cyrillic РЗ
T Targovishte Province Cyrillic Т
TX Dobrich Province Cyrillic ТХ
X Haskovo Province Cyrillic Х
Y Yambol Province Cyrillic Я

Additionally, there is a special code for Bulgarian Army vehicles:

Current code Entity Old code
BA Bulgarian Army vehicles Cyrillic В, red on a white plate
CP Civil protection vehicles Cyrillic ГЗ

Diplomatic and consular car number plates are similar to ordinary ones, in that the first 1 or 2 characters identify the province (almost always "C" for Sofia), but recognizably different in their color—white symbols on a red background—and the absence of the blue "Europlate" elements. Additionally, the first two digits of the numeric group represent the country of the diplomatic or consular mission to which the vehicle belongs.

Code Country
01 Great Britain
02 United States
03 United States
04 Germany
05 Turkey
06
07 India