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.
Contents
Current system
They currently use the format L nnnn LLL where:
This format, introduced on 18 September 2000, 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.
As of August 2015 the "counter" combinations are at the J series, which began in late 2014 with JBB. 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 1971
The first system, introduced in 1900, consisted of a letter code denoting the province the vehicle was registered in (the full list of codes appears below), 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.
1971 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). 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 September 2000, by which time Madrid was again running out of registrations, its "counter" reaching series ZX. Barcelona reached series XG, while the next province by registration volume, Valencia, was far behind at series HJ. The allowed combinations ZY and ZZ were therefore 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 motorists travelling out of their provinces or trying to sell their vehicles second-hand. The second system also suffered 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 Catalan name was official — so it was replaced with the GI code (even though it could have been replaced simply by G, which would have fitted both the Catalan and Spanish versions of the province name, but the Catalan nationalists' goal was to state clearly that the name was officially in Catalan and not in Spanish). Similarly, the OR code for Orense was replaced with the OU code for Ourense (Galician official name for the province). There were also unsuccessful movements to have other province codes changed, such as replacing the Asturias code O (from 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". Unfortunately, the La Rioja code LO (from its capital Logroño) was finally slated for replacement with LR on the same day that the current system entered use.
State codes
These keep the old system of letter code plus numbers.
Diplomatic plates
Diplomatic plates are either red, yellow or blue and start with the letters "CD" (red), "CC" (green), "TA" (yellow) or "OI" (blue). 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 "touristic 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.
Diplomatic codes
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.