Vehicle registration plates of Austria

Appearance

The license plates are made of metal; the imprinted text is in black letters and digits on a white background. Since November 1, 2002 the common design comprises a blue section on the left with the EU circle of stars and the country code ('A') like other vehicle registration plates of the European Union. On the top and bottom, there are red-white-red tribands, the national colors of Austria. Two plates have to be present on each car (front and rear). Dealer plates show white letters on a green background, temporary plates show white letters on a cyan background, and foreign trailers show white letters on a red background. For motorbikes and cars with smaller areas for plates, smaller license plates are available with two lines of text. Moped plates are in different appearance and shape, they show white letters on a red background.

Lettering system

The alphanumeric format for registration plates is "XX ∇=provincial emblem number&letter(s)" or "XX ∇=provincial emblem personalised letters&number";

There are several lettering schemes:

Personalised plates

In Austria, it is possible to obtain a customized registration plate by payment of 245 (=227+18) Euros. The alphanumeric format is XX ∇ ABC 1, which makes them easily distinguishable from standard plates (e.g. I ∇ TOMMY 1)

History

From 1906 until 1919, the plates always composed one letter followed by Roman numerals and three numbers (e.g. "BXV 639"). Temporary admission plates always followed by prefix. The prefixes are G= Bosnia and Herzegovina, U= Hungary, Z= All other countries.

From 1919 until 1930, the plates format is the same as before but became authority supplied.

From 1930 until 1939, the plates comprised one letters followed by five digits. (e.g. B 12345) The thousands of digits encoded the districts.

From 1939 until 1945, the plates comprised two letters followed by a hyphen and seven digits. (e.g. W-1234567) This was followed by the Nazi Germany system.

From 1945 until 1946, the plates comprised by a state coat of arms followed by maximum six numbers. They were only issued in the USSR-occupied zone.

From 1947 until 1989, the plates comprised one or two letters to indicate the state or federal code followed by up to six digits (e.g. W 123.456), the first number block was reserved for vehicles, the second one was the serial, when they run out of serials they began to issue XX 999.A99. The background is black with white characters for private vehicles (unknown for all other vehicles). One or two letters are the prefixes set by state and federals, they are: