European vehicle registration plates

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Many member states of the European Union issue vehicle registration plates based on a common EU format. The EU format is optional in Finland, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Cyprus, Belgium and Denmark have not yet implemented the EU format. [1]

All Euro plates are of a standardised format, either white or yellow in colour with black characters. Yellow registration plates are used in the Netherlands and in Luxembourg; France and the United Kingdom use yellow plates at the rear and white at the front. The UK also uses plastic plates, as opposed to metal plates in most other EU countries (see British car number plates). Denmark uses yellow plates for vehicles registered as commercial vehicles and in Sweden yellow plates are used for taxi vehicles. Belgium uses red characters.

A common design consists of a blue strip on the left of the plate. This blue strip has the European flag motif (12 yellow stars), along with the country code of the member state in which the vehicle was registered.

By convention vehicles are expected to display oval nationality stickers at the rear when driving in other countries, but this rule has not always been observed. With a standardised EU registration plate, the nationality sticker is not needed, since the country is denoted on the registration plate.

[edit] Common letter and digit systems between countries

Several countries have made efforts to avoid duplicating registration numbers used by other countries. Nevertheless this is not completely successful and there are occasional difficulties for example in connection with parking fines and automatic speed cameras.

Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Belgium each use combinations of three letters and three digits. Earlier there was an informal way of preventing duplication at least between Sweden and Finland. Swedish plates began with letters A up to L, (except I). Finland used first letters I and T through Z. In the last ten years, however, Sweden has begun using first letters previously reserved to Finland. ^{[citation needed]}
Norway and Denmark use two letters and five digits. The plates look very similar, but Denmark has a red border around the plate. Denmark has begun running out of combinations in this style. Use of the country code on the plate may mitigate this problem, though neither Denmark or Norway has begun using the system (Norway begins on November 1, 2006).

[edit] Differing numbering systems

Individual EU member states still use differing numbering schemes and text fonts:

Most countries, including: Germany, Norway, Poland, the Baltic countries, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ireland, and, formerly, Spain and Italy, all have a system with a direct geographical letter relation to the town the plate was issued (e. g. "B" and "M" in Germany for Berlin and Munich as well as "B" and "M" in Spain for Barcelona and Madrid); Some countries even have a regional or municipal (Slovenia, Switzerland) graphic coat of arms on the plate which are very popular (see Region (EU)).
France (until 2008), Greece and Russia use a system with an indirect number relation to the car's place of registration.
The UK uses a system based on the region where and when the car was first registered and the date of registration.
Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands use plates which do not denote location.
Belgium has several systems of registration in use.

Future common EU numbering systems may denote the town or region of registration, using a three-letter code.

Car registration plates from France, as observed 2004.	Car registration plate from Germany, as observed 2005.	United States military in Germany plates	Car registration plate from Sweden
Manx (not in the EU) car registration plate	Polish plates. New with EU stars and old issued before May 2006.	Lithuanian plate issued shortly before EU membership	Danish plate issued in 1998 (also showing the country sticker). The same format is still used. Number plates with EU logo are not available.
A plate from Andorra.	Faroese number plate issued since 1996 (not in the EU).	Bulgarian number plate	Irish number plate
Norwegian number plate