Vehicle registration plates of China

Vehicle registration plates in China are mandatory metal or plastic plates attached to motor vehicles in mainland China for official identification purposes. The plates are issued by the local traffic management offices, which are sub-branches of local public security bureaus, under the rules of the Ministry of Public Security.

Hong Kong and Macau, both of which are special administrative regions of China, issue their own licence plates, a legacy of when they were under British and Portuguese administration, respectively. Vehicles from Hong Kong and Macau are required to apply for licence plates, usually from Guangdong province, to travel on roads in mainland China. Vehicles from mainland China have to apply for Hong Kong licence plates or Macau licence plates to enter those territories.

History

1986-series plate

In July 1986, the 1986-series Plates were put into use. The layout and format for them are listed out as follows: {| class="wikitable" !Vehicle type !Colouring !Size (mm) !Notes |- |Light passenger/cargo vehicles |style="background:forestgreen; color:white;"|White on light green | rowspan="6" |440 x 140 |May come with a letter replacing the first number. |- |Heavy goods vehicles |style="background:mediumvioletred; color:white;"|White on violet

|Heavy/light hand-assisted tractors, special-use vehicles, electric cars |style="background:gold; color:black;"|Black on yellow

|Testing vehicles and training vehicles |style="background:mediumblue; color:white;"|White on blue

|Temporary plates |style="background:white; color:black;"|Black on white

|Two/three-wheeled motorcycles |style="background:forestgreen; color:white;"|White on light green

|Light motorcycles |style="background:white; color:mediumvioletred;"|Violet on white

Hong Kong and Macau vehicles are issued with plates for Shenzhen () and Zhuhai (), respectively. Red-on-black plate-bearing vehicles are only allowed to drive within said cities. White-on-black vehicles are permitted to drive within Guangdong province, while if the vehicles are issued with green or violet plates according to their types, they have no area limitations.

Public security vehicles (e.g. police) are issued with single-line plates with the format GARR-####, where the RR is the regional code, and the following numbers are the serial number, with the "GA" (abbreviation for , gōng'ān, "Public security") in red.

The regional codes are as follows:

{| class=wikitable !Region !Code |- |Anhui

|Beijing

|Fujian

|Gansu

|Guangdong

|Guangxi

|Guizhou

|Hainan

|Hebei

|Heilongjiang

|Henan

|Hubei

|Hunan

|Inner Mongolia

|Jiangsu

|Jiangxi

|Jilin

|Liaoning

|Ningxia

|Qinghai

|Shaanxi

|Shandong

|Shanghai

|Shanxi

|Sichuan

|Tianjin

|Tibet

|Xinjiang

|Yunnan

|Zhejiang

Note: Chongqing was separated from Sichuan as a directly administered city in 1997, and the 1986-series standard was abolished in 1997 as well, therefore Public security vehicles in Chongqing bear the Sichuan code of GA51, instead of the later-introduced GA50.

1986-series plates are allowed to have the first number in the serial replaced by a letter with a special meaning, such as T for "taxi", Z for (zìbèichē, "self-reserved vehicle"), G for (gètǐhù, "entrepreneur").

Current series types

Common types

The current plates are of GA36-2014 standard, a further update of the original GA36-1992, made from GB/T 3880.1 and GB/T 3880.2-compliant aluminum material with a thickness of no less than 1.2mm (for rear plates for large vehicles and trailers) or 1.0mm (for any other non-temporary plates), or 200-220g dedicated watermarked paper with plastic sealing for automobiles and motorcycles entering the border on a temporary basis, or 125g white paper-card for temporary license plates. The plates accommodate a one-character provincial abbreviation, a letter of the Pinyin alphabet, and five numbers or letters of the alphabet (Ex. ; ; ; ; ). Previously, all licence plates had used the five-number designation. As the number of motor vehicles grew, however, the number had to exceed what was the maximum previously allowable—90,000 or 100,000 vehicles. Therefore, there had become a need to insert Latin letters into the license plate to increase the number of possible combinations (for the full list of alphanumeric sequences permitted see below). This was first done in the bigger cities with only one prefix. Nanjing, for example, began the change with only the first number, which increased the number of possible combinations to 340,000 (with the exceptions of O & I, which cannot be printed without confusion with the numbers 0 & 1). Further changes allowed the first two places, or the second place alone on the plate to be letters, allowing 792,000 more combinations mathematically. More recently, cities have taken to having the third letter alone being a letter, the rest numbers.

Permitted alphanumeric combinations per GA36-2014 standard are listed in the table below. Should the number of combinations issued exceed 60% of the theoretical capacity of its type, the combination next in the list may be put into use after approval from the Vehicle Management Office of the provincial Public Security authority and reporting to the Vehicle Management Office of the Ministry of Public Security.

Note: Y and N in this table reflects whether or not this combination type may be used in registration plates with 4 or 5 places for digits/numbers, while D and L represents any permitted digit or letter respectively.

Order Combination 4 places 5 places 1 DDDDD Y Y 2 LDDDD Y Y 3 LLDDD Y Y 4 DLDDD Y Y 5 DDLDD Y Y 6 DDDLD Y Y 7 DDDDL N Y 8 LDDDL N Y 9 DDDLL N Y 10 LDLDD Y Y 11 DLLDD Y Y 12 LDDLD Y Y 13 DLDLD Y Y 14 DLDDL N Y 15 DDLLD Y Y 16 DDLDL N Y

The numbers are produced at random, and are computer-generated at the issuing office. Numbers with a sequence of 6s, 8s, or 9s are usually considered to be lucky, therefore special sequences like "88888" or "86888" can be purchased through auction. A previous licence plate system, with a green background and the full name of the province in Chinese characters, actually had a sequential numbering order, and the numbering system was eventually beset with corruption.

License plates have different formats that are issued to different vehicles: Vehicle TypeExampleColoringIssued toSmall/Compact VehiclesWhite-on-BlueRegular vehiclesSmall/Compact Vehicles (New Energy)京A·D12345

京A·F12345Black lettering on Gradient greenStart with D (stands for 电) and A, B, C, E is for regular EV vehicles, start with F (stands for 非电) and G, H, J, K is for regular plug-in HEV or hydrogen fuel cell vehiclesLarge Vehicles (front) (rear) (trailer)Black-on-yellowVehicles longer than 6m or certified to carry 20+ passengersLarge Vehicles (New Energy)京A·12345D

京A·12345FBlack lettering, yellow for the province code, green for the restEnd with A, B, C, D, E is for large EV vehicles, end with F, G, H, J, K is for large plug-in HEV or hydrogen fuel cell vehiclesAgricultural/Municipal vehicles (i.e. forbidden to leave city territory)京01-00001

北京A-00001

连港·A0018

民航A·A0125White-on-greenMainly agricultural vehicles. Vehicles operating in transport hubs (e.g. airports, ports) receive the "民航"(civil aviation) (for operation in airports) or "X港" (port X) (for operation in seaports, where X is the name of the port) instead of the Chinese character and the first pair of digits.Coach carsBlack-on-yellowCars belonging to driving schoolsTest car京A·0001试Black-on-yellowTemporary license (intra-province)Black on patterned light blue (paper)Cars eligible for on-road driving but have not received a license plate yetTemporary license (cross-province)Black on patterned brown (paper)Prototypes沪A·1234超Black on patterned light blue (paper)Foreigner-owned (Discontinued)京A·10000White-on-BlackCars belonging to foreigners, joint-stock companies, foreign companies and diplomatic staff.Small Motorcycles (50cc or below)54321 (Front) (discontinued per GA36-2014 standard)

沪 · C

54321 (Rear)White-on-BlueLarge Motorcycles (Above 50cc)Same as aboveBlack-on-yellowForeigner-owned motorcycleSame as aboveWhite on blackDiscontinued from October 2007

Since October 2007, black plates are no longer issued for vehicles belonging to foreigners, as this was "deemed discriminatory" and instead standard looking blue plates are now issued. However, foreigners still are issued a separate dedicated letter/number sequence to denote that they are a foreign owned/registered vehicle—e.g. in Beijing, the foreign owned plates are in the , , and sequence. The black plates are still issued to those who registered in both mainland China and Hong Kong or Macau, specifically in Guangdong province, which are in the sequence of 粤Z·####港/澳.

Registration combinations of written-off vehicles may be "recycled", or used again on a different vehicle only after 6 months from the write-off according to relevant regulations, but as a matter of fact, certain serials of number like 京A·##### in Beijing is not available for general public once recycled for unspecified reasons. In 2015, a former Commissioner of Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, the traffic branch of Beijing Municipal Public Safety Bureau, was sentenced for life, having been found guilty of corruption relating to fraud in issuing these licence plate combinations.

People's Police, PAP, and PLA

Licence plates for the People's Police, People's Armed Police (PAP), and People's Liberation Army (PLA) are in a white background, with red and black text.

The People's Police plates have a designated format of X·LLNNN (X is the geographical abbreviation, N is a digit, and L is either a digit or a letter; "" means police and is coloured red, but the separator dot is no longer a circle, rather, a dash). These plates are issued to traffic police, some patrol vehicles, court, and procuratorate vehicles.

The plates’ combination of the People's Armed Police ("") begins with the pinyin wujing abbreviation WJ.

The 2012 series of PAP vehicle registration plates is in the WJ P NNNNL pattern, where the stands for a Chinese character i.e. 京 for Beijing, serving as the provincial identifier, and the L denotes the first letter in pinyin of the branch of service. e.g. WJ = a vehicle for firefighting use in Shanghai

The 2004 series use the format WJNN-NNNNN. The first two small letters behind the WJ are area prefixes: WJ01-NNNNN. = Headquarters WJ31-NNNNN. = Beijing WJ14-NNNNN. = Shandong WJ21-NNNNN. = Hainan The Alphabet Numeral behind the area prefix shows the section of the Armed police: WJ01-JNNNN. = Official Guards, Official and Diplomatic Escorts WJ01-BNNNN. = Border Police WJ01-XNNNN. = Firefighter (Fire Department) WJ01-1NNNN. = Headquarters

PLA vehicles previously had plates using a code of heavenly stems in red. After reorganization in 2004, again in 2013 military vehicles now use a more organized prefix. These licence plates use the format XL·NNNNN (X is a prefix, L is a letter).

The People's Liberation Army vehicle prefixes 2013: Military vehicles can be identified by having a red letter from the alphabet *V V PLA Central Military Commission K PLA Air Force H PLA Navy B PLA Beijing Military VA PLA Central Military Commission VB PLA Political Works VC PLA Logistical Support VD PLA Equipment Development

The People's Liberation Army vehicle prefixes 2004: "" (Jūn; "Military") Vehicles of the Central Military Commission Vehicles of the Headquarters of People's Liberation Army Vehicles of the PLA's units at Army-Grade or above. Deputy-Military-Region-Grade, Military-Region-Grade.

Vehicle registration plates of China

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