Vehicle registration plates of Spain

Vehicle registration plates are the mandatory number plates used to display the registration mark of a vehicle, and have existed in Spain since 1900. Most motor vehicles which are used on public roads are required by law to display them. The government agency responsible for the registration and numbering of vehicles is the Directorate General of Traffic.

Current system

Spain has finished using the L-series, the format of which was nnnn LLL where:

• nnnn is a sequence number from 0000 to 9999,
• LLL is a "counter" comprising three letters, which increments after the sequence number reaches 9999. The consonants B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y and Z are used for a total of 80 million possible registrations in the system.
• L see Colour plates. It is not used in private vehicles.

This format, introduced on 18 September 2000,^[1] is used nationwide, so there is no way of knowing where the vehicle was registered. The "counter" gives a rough idea of when the vehicle was registered, but is less reliable for determining its age, as imported second-hand vehicles are registered in the same way as new models.

In August 2022 the three-letter counter reached the end of the L-series, and began the M-series, starting MBB. At the current rate of approximately five series per decade, the system will be exhausted around 2040.

The plates themselves are white with black characters, front and back, with a blue strip on the left containing the 12 stars of the flag of Europe and the country identifier E (for España). This strip is compulsory. The plates are usually rectangular and wide in shape, but there are also square-like plates for motorcycles, while some cars have a narrow plate inset (such as at the back of the SEAT 600).

History

Two previous systems have been used, both of which were province-based.

1900 to 1970

The first system, introduced in 1900,^[2] consisted of a letter code denoting the province the vehicle was registered in (see below for the full list of codes), followed by a sequence number of up to six digits (XXX-NNNNNN). The codes were normally made up of the first one or two letters of the province name or the name of the provincial capital (many provinces are named after their capitals), under the provisions of a 1926 regulation. In the earliest days, some provinces used three-letter codes, but these were abolished after 1926.

This system came to an end in October 1971, by which time both Madrid and Barcelona were approaching the number 999999. Older vehicles with such registrations, usually with five- or six-digit numbers, can still be seen on Spanish roads.

In the later years of this system, many plates were white with black characters. Today, there are a few rare cases where the blue EU country identifier strip is also carried, as plates are reissued in new format but with the same number sequence when deteriorated or lost.

1970 to 2000

The second system used the format XXX-NNNN-YY, where XXX was the province code or a one- two- or three-letter special code (such as ET for army cars and DGP for police cars), NNNN was a sequence number from 0000 to 9999 (always four-digit numbers, padded with leading zeroes if necessary), and YY was a "counter" series consisting of one and then two letters, which incremented after the sequence number reached 9999.

No "counter" series used the consonants Q and R (and Q has never been allowed in any way, the apparent reason for this being its resemblance to the vowel O and the digit 0), while two-letter combinations ending in the vowels A, E, I and O were also forbidden, apparently to avoid the forming of potentially offensive Spanish words when combined with some province codes (such as MA-LA, meaning "bad one", or CU-LO, meaning "arse"). This meant that, for instance, Z was followed by AB, while AN was followed by AP and then AS, and PZ was followed by SB.

Other potentially offensive combinations, however, were allowed, such as KK (resembling caca, meaning "shit") and PN (resembling pene, meaning "penis"). Also allowed were combinations with potential political connotations, such as HB (cf. Herri Batasuna) and PP (cf. Partido Popular). The only combination that was actually skipped was WC in Madrid and Barcelona. Finally, some otherwise "forbidden" combinations (particularly those containing R or ending in one of the skipped vowels) were exceptionally used in a few particular cases, such as on some special types of cars (e.g. RA, RB... for some police cars, and EA for Spanish Air Force land vehicles).

This system lasted until January 2000, by which time Madrid was running out of registrations again, its "counter" reaching series ZX. Barcelona reached series XG, while the next province by registration volume, Valencia, was far behind at series HJ. Therefore, the allowed combinations ZY and ZZ were never issued in any province.

Under this system, plates usually consisted solely of black characters on white, though the blue EU country identifier strip became an option in the 1990s.

Both systems were susceptible to problems with rivalries between regions, that caused trouble for drivers travelling out of their provinces or trying to sell their vehicles second-hand. The second system was also affected when the major languages of Spain were co-officialized, with the renaming of some provinces resulting in mismatches between the name and the code. For instance, the GE code for Gerona became mismatched when that province was renamed Girona after the Catalan became official, so it was replaced with the GI code. Similarly, the OR code for Orense was replaced with the OU code for Ourense (official Galician name for the province). There were also unsuccessful movements to have other province codes changed, such as replacing the Asturias code O (from its former name after its capital Oviedo) with AS, this movement being prompted by the rivalry between Oviedo and the province's largest city, Gijón, some of whose residents chose to register their vehicles in Girona, the GI code also being the first two letters of "Gijón". La Rioja code LO (from its former name after its capital Logroño) was finally slated for replacement with LR on the same day that the current system entered use.

Provincial codes

Code	Province	Notes
A	Alicante
ALB	Albacete	Used until 1926, replaced by AB.
AB		Used since 1926.
AL	Almería
AOE	Africa Occidental Española †	Used until 1951, replaced by I and SHA.
AV	Ávila
B	Barcelona
BA	Badajoz
BI	Biscay	BI stands for its capital Bilbao.
BU	Burgos
C	La Coruña
CA	Cádiz
CAC	Cáceres	Used until 1926, replaced by CC.
CC		Used since 1926.
CAS	Castellón/Castelló	Used until 1926, replaced by CS.
CS		Used since 1926.
CE	Ceuta	Used since 1922.
CO	Córdoba
CR	Ciudad Real
CU	Cuenca
FP	Fernando Poo †	Used from 1961 until 1969.
GC	Las Palmas	GC stands for Gran Canaria. Used since 1926.
GE	Gerona/Girona	Used until 1992, replaced by GI.
GI		Used since 1992.
GR	Granada
GU	Guadalajara
H	Huelva
HU	Huesca
I	Ifni †	Used from 1951 until 1961, replaced by IF.
IF		Used from 1961 until 1969.
PM	Islas Baleares	PM stands for its capital Palma de Mallorca. Used until 1997, replaced by IB.
IB		Used since 1997.
J	Jaén
L	Lérida/Lleida
LE	León
LO	La Rioja	LO stands for Logroño, its former name after its capital.
LR		Replaced LO, but was not used.
LU	Lugo
M	Madrid
MA	Málaga
ME	Marruecos Español †	Used for Ceuta and Melilla, replaced by CE and ML in 1922.
ML	Melilla
MU	Murcia
O	Asturias	O stands for Oviedo, its former name after its capital.
OR	Orense/Ourense	Used until 1998, replaced by OU.
OU		Used since 1998.
P	Palencia
PA	Navarre	PA stands for its capital Pamplona. Used until 1918, replaced by NA.
NA		Used since 1918.
PO	Pontevedra
RM	Río Muni †	Used from 1961 until 1969.
S	Cantabria	S stands for Santander, its former name after its capital.
SA	Salamanca
SE	Sevilla
SEG	Segovia	Used until 1926, replaced by SG.
SG		Used since 1926.
SHA	Sáhara †	Used from 1951 until 1961, replaced by SH.
SH		Used since 1961 until 1976.
SO	Soria
SS	Gipuzkoa	SS stands for its capital Donostia/San Sebastián.
T	Tarragona
TE	Canarias †	TE stands for Tenerife. Used until 1926, replaced by GC and TF.
TER	Teruel	Used until 1926, replaced by TE.
TE		Used since 1926.
TEG	Territorio Español de Guinea †	Used until 1926, replaced by TG.
TG		Used since 1926, replaced by FP and RM in 1961.
TF	Santa Cruz de Tenerife	TF stands for Tenerife. Used since 1926.
TO	Toledo
V	Valencia
VA	Valladolid
VI	Álava	VI stands for its capital Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Z	Zaragoza
ZA	Zamora

Special plates

Commercial Vehicles

To comply with Third-party insurance risks, vehicles carrying goods or persons not otherwise insured require a small white plate (150mm×75mm) with the letters SP (for servicio publico) in black. this is fixed near the rear numberplate^[3]

Taxis and private hire (VTT) that have authorisation to operate display the rear plate with a blue background and an SP plate mentioned above ^[4] Vehicles without these markings are not legal for hire.

State codes

These keep the old system of letter code plus numbers.^[5]

Code	Organization	Meanings	Notes
CME	Cos dels Mossos d'Esquadra	Autonomous police force of Catalonia
DGP	Dirección General de la Policía	Spanish National Police
CNP	Cuerpo Nacional de Policía	Spanish National Police	Since 2008
E	Ertzaintza	Autonomous police force of the Basque Country	The E on the plate is in a special Basque font.
EA	Ejército del Aire	Spanish Air Force
ET	Ejército de Tierra	Spanish Army
FAE	Fuerzas Aliadas en España	Allied NATO Forces in Spain
FN	Fuerzas Navales / Armada	Spanish Navy
PGC	Parque de la Guardia Civil	Fleet of the Spanish civil guard	These are a militarized police force similar to French Gendarmerie nationale or Italian Corpo dei Carabinieri.
MF	Ministerio de Fomento	Ministry of Public Works	No correlation with MOP.
MMA	Ministerio de Medio Ambiente	Ministry of Environment
MOP	Ministerio de Obras Públicas	Ministry of Public Works	Now replaced by MF.
PME	Parque Móvil del Estado	State owned vehicles
PMM	Parque Móvil del Ministerio	State owned vehicles, on a Ministry	Now replaced by PME.
Crown	Vehículo de la Corona	Crown's Car	The car carrying the King in an official capacity has a crimson plate with the royal crown in gold. The car carrying the Princess of Asturias in an official capacity has a blue plate with the royal crown in gold.

Diplomatic plates

Diplomatic plates are either red, green, yellow or blue and start with the letters "CD" (red) for diplomatic cars, "CC" (green) for consular cars, "TA" (yellow) for ancillary workers' cars or "OI" (blue) for cars belonging to international organisations. The first set of numbers stands for the embassy or organisation and the second for the specific car from an organisation.

U.S. military

Up until 1972 U.S. Military personnel were required to have special plates.

Colour plates

There are other plates with different background colours for trailers and the so-called "tourist plates", provisory plates that allow foreigners to use a vehicle bought in Spain before registering it in their country. The trailer plates begin with the prefix R signifying remolque, the Spanish word for trailer, caravan or literally "on tow". The tourist plates begin with the prefix P signifying provisional, usually issued to vehicles for export or until the registration process has been completed. They are sometimes seen on manufacturer's prototypes. An additional series exists for historic vehicles with the prefix H followed by four numbers and four letters, making a nine digit plate which can be difficult to fit onto some historic vehicles. Mopeds and microcars with cylinders under 50 cc were not required to have a national plate and town and city administration tax them and issued their own yellow plates.

Code	Signified as	Color
C	Mopeds and microcars	Black on yellow
E	Special (agricultural, heavy machinery...)	Red on white
H	Historical	Black on white
P	Provisional	White on green
R	Trailers	Black on red
S	Temporary plates	White on red
T	Tourist plates	Black on white
V	Vehicle dealers	White on red
	Taxicabs	White on blue

Diplomatic codes^[6][7]

This is a table of country codes on Spanish diplomatic and consular car number plates, i.e. the first group of two or three numbers and mainly sorted by Spanish alphabetical order.

Code	Country or Organization	Code	Country or Organization	Code	Country or Organization	Code	Country or Organization
01	Vatican City (Holy See)	35	Equatorial Guinea	69	Sweden	144	Ukraine
02	Germany	36	Haiti	70	Switzerland	145	North Macedonia
03	Saudi Arabia	37	Honduras	71	Thailand	148	Estonia
04	Algeria	38	Hungary	72	Tunisia	150	International Olive Council
05	Argentina	39	India	73	Turkey	151	?
06	Australia	40	Indonesia	74	Russia	152	World Tourism Organization
07	Austria	41	Iraq	75	Uruguay	153	European Commission/European Parliament
08	Belgium	42	Iran	76	Venezuela	154	?
09	Bolivia	43	Ireland	77	Serbia	155	Arab League
10	Brazil	44	Italy	78	Democratic Republic of the Congo	156	?
11	Bulgaria	45	Japan	80	Slovakia	157	Ibero-American General Secretariat
12	Cameroon	46	Jordan	81	Qatar	159	International Labour Organization
13	Canada	47	Kuwait	82	Croatia	160	International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
14	Colombia	48	Lebanon	83	Israel	163	United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
15	South Korea	49	Libya	84	Malaysia	164	Ibero-American Youth Organization
16	Ivory Coast	50	Morocco	85	Angola	165	?
17	Costa Rica	51	Mauritania	86	Luxembourg	200	Palestine
18	Cuba	52	Mexico	88	Bangladesh	303	?
19	Czech Republic	53	Nicaragua	93	Gambia	304	NATO
20	Chile	54	Nigeria	96	Guinea	310	Fusion for Energy (ITER)
21	China	55	Norway	101	Malta	311	Conference of Ministers of Justice of Ibero-American Countries?
22	Denmark	56	Sovereign Military Order of Malta	104	New Zealand	400	Kenya
23	Ecuador	57	Netherlands	107	Senegal	405	Sudan
24	Egypt	58	Pakistan	118	Yemen	406	Afghanistan
25	El Salvador	59	Panama	122	Vietnam	410	Moldova
26	United Arab Emirates	60	Paraguay	124	Cape Verde	411	Mozambique
27	United States	61	Peru	128	Albania	414	Uzbekistan
28	Philippines	62	Poland	131	Lithuania	415	Armenia
29	Finland	63	Portugal	132	Latvia	419	Azerbaijan
30	France	64	Kazakhstan	133	Slovenia
31	Gabon	65	Dominican Republic	135	Georgia
32	United Kingdom	66	Romania	140	Andorra
33	Greece	67	Syria	142	Bosnia and Herzegovina
34	Guatemala	68	South Africa	143	Ghana

References

Bibliography

Castrillo, Carlos (2022). Matrículas de coches en España y en Europa (in Spanish). Grupo Editorial Círculo Rojo SL. p. 262. ISBN 9788411282055.

External links

• Media related to License plates of Spain at Wikimedia Commons
• Spanish webpage with information and photos of all provinces of Spain
• Photos of license plates of Spain