States that allow you to keep registration number when plate design changes

[roadman]

Offshoot from the MA Inspection now checks license plates discussion in Northeast.

In a discussion on another Internet blog, a question came up.  How many states require holders of general issue plates (not vanity, special, or otherwise) give them a different registration when the plate design changes, and will not allow them to keep their existing number (even for a fee)?

Growing up, I remember my uncle in New Hampshire.  His general issue plate was first issued sometime in the 1950s, yet he kept the same number until he died in 1993, despite the state having gone through multiple plate design changes in the meanwhile.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

[signalman]

New Jersey allows a vehicle owner to retain their old plate number on new plates.  Heck, one doesn't even need to re-plate if a design change should happen.  Any plate from 1959 to current is valid so long as the registration never lapsed.

[SD Mapman]

SD restarted our numbering when the plate design switched; everyone had to get new numbers.

[roadman65]

Florida makes you get a new tag every five years.

NJ where I was from let you keep it forever.   I have seen the original yellow-white plates still around even in the 1990's long after NJ ditched them in the late 70's.   I even believe some had those when NJ ditched the blue plates in the early 90's too.

NY State I imagine they let you keep  them cause there are still some white plates with the blue state name part on the roads today.  NY State went back to orange some time ago, so the orange with dark blue lettering is the norm now.

[ilpt4u]

The last round of IL plate change back in the late 90s/early 2000s allowed you to get a new plate with the old number if you wanted. I am not sure what the current round is offering -- the state is in the first year of a multi-year changeover for typical passenger car plates

[KeithE4Phx]

New Jersey allows a vehicle owner to retain their old plate number on new plates.  Heck, one doesn't even need to re-plate if a design change should happen.  Any plate from 1959 to current is valid so long as the registration never lapsed.

I think California plates issued from that era are still good as well.  Arizona has maroon-with-white-letter plates that go back to the late '80s or early '90s that are still valid.

[Otto Yamamoto]

Florida makes you get a new tag every five years.

NJ where I was from let you keep it forever.   I have seen the original yellow-white plates still around even in the 1990's long after NJ ditched them in the late 70's.   I even believe some had those when NJ ditched the blue plates in the early 90's too.

NY State I imagine they let you keep  them cause there are still some white plates with the blue state name part on the roads today.  NY State went back to orange some time ago, so the orange with dark blue lettering is the norm now.

NYS will let you carry over over a plate number for a fee.

P00I

[mgk920]

New Jersey allows a vehicle owner to retain their old plate number on new plates.  Heck, one doesn't even need to re-plate if a design change should happen.  Any plate from 1959 to current is valid so long as the registration never lapsed.

I think California plates issued from that era are still good as well.  Arizona has maroon-with-white-letter plates that go back to the late '80s or early '90s that are still valid.

California plates stay with the car when its ownership changes and any existing plates from about 1964 to the present are still valid with proper annual stickers.

Here in Wisconsin, WisDOT just got done exchanging the previous red-letter/number plates ([LLL-NNN] number format) a few years ago for the current black letter/number ones ([NNN-LLL] and now [LLL-NNNN] format), the oldest of which were issued in 1999.  As of now, WisDOT has no plans for another plate exchange.

BTW, Delaware still has valid regular-issue plates from the 1940s on the road.

Mike

[1995hoo]

The last time Virginia invalidated a series of plates was in the early 1980s when they replaced the nonreflective plates with reflective ones. At that time, people got new plate numbers. Since then, you can have a plate number reissued on a different plate design (assuming your number fits), including just replacing old standard-issue plates with newer ones. The standard-issue design has changed slightly over the years, as has the number of characters. My mother has had the same plate number since 1980, but around 2008 she had her original 1980 plates replaced with new plain white plates because her old ones were getting kind of beat up. My father did the same thing a few years later, but he had only had his plate number since 1991.

My mom said some people have asked her what her plate "means." Because her number is so old, it uses the ABC-123 format, whereas Virginia plates issued since sometime around 1992 or 1993 use the ABC-1234 format. People see an ABC-123 format on a newer plate design and they apparently assume it must be a personalized plate.

[Takumi]

I still occasionally see Virginia bicentennial plates still in use.

[PurdueBill]

Ohio allows one to keep their prior standard plate number (AAA1111, AA11AA formats usually) on new metal for a fee.  The new plate is the current design with flat printed characters.  I have seen some around with plate numbers that were on the earliest gold/white fade plates ("The Heart of It All!" slogan) with A in the first position, and some with the 6-character crowded Bicentennial numbers (AB12CD) from 2002-04 on current design flat plates.  The numbers must mean something to the owner to be worth the extra fee.  Less than a personalized or reserve plate, but still more than keeping old plates or getting a new stock standard plate.

http://www.bmv.ohio.gov/vr-sp-retention.aspx

[jp the roadgeek]

CT does if it's a standard issue plate.  I've had my tags since 1997 and the old blue plates.  Anyone who has a plate with 2 letters followed by 4 numbers has had them since the 70's.  If you switch to a special issue plate, it's non transferable other than a vanity plate.

[1995hoo]

I still occasionally see Virginia bicentennial plates still in use.

Yeah, it's weird that those were not invalidated despite being released during the nonreflective era. Maybe they're reflective (I've never really looked closely enough). I know some of those are still around, though I couldn't tell you when I last saw one.

....  The numbers must mean something to the owner to be worth the extra fee.  Less than a personalized or reserve plate, but still more than keeping old plates or getting a new stock standard plate.

....

I wouldn't be surprised if some people just don't want to memorize a new plate number. It's astonishing to see just how many people don't know their license plate numbers.

[Scott5114]

To be fair, how often do you need to know it? My current plate is extremely easy to remember, but the plate I had before that I mostly remembered as "something something LER", and on the car I drove before that it was "something something GBZ". Enough that if I had a courtesy page regarding my vehicle somewhere I would know it's mine (assuming they stated make, model, and color along with it, as is customary), but if I had to fill it out on a form or something I would have had to check.

As for the question in the thread title, if you pay an extra fee you can keep the same plate number when the design changes. Whenever someone takes advantage of this, it's pretty obvious, as Oklahoma swaps the position of the letters every design change (on the old Osage shield plates it was ABC123, then the Sacred Rain Arrow plates used 123ABC, and now with the Twitter plates it's ABC123 again).

I've never seen the point of this, however. Plate numbers mean little in Oklahoma, since the plates tend to stay with the vehicle–although brand new plates are usually issued when you buy a car from a dealership, for whatever reason.

[1995hoo]

To be fair, how often do you need to know it?

I guess it depends on where you are and where you go. At a lot of the parking garages in downtown DC, people paying the early bird rate have to pay on arrival and the attendant writes part of your plate number (usually the final three characters) on a ticket and puts the stub under your wiper. I guess this is to help them identify cars during the day since most of those garages don't collect the ticket stubs upon exit. Either way, though, because so many people do not know their own plate number, the attendant never asks–he invariably walks around, usually to the back because of one-plate cars, and writes it down himself. So in DC there's theoretically a reason to know your plate number, but because so many people don't, the attendants do it that way.

Some "pay-and-display" or similar parking meter systems use plate numbers as well. Two weeks ago we parked on the pier near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the machine there requires you to type in your plate number when you're paying. (That particular setup doesn't require you to display the ticket on the dashboard, although every car I saw had it displayed and I displayed ours as well.)

I guess I just have trouble conceiving of why anyone would not know his own plate number(s).

[NWI_Irish96]

Back when Indiana had the County Number/Single Letter/1-4 Digit Number design, everybody had to get a new plate every four years, and unless you paid for a reserved plate number or vanity plate, you received a new plate number every four years, and if you moved to a new county you got a new plate when you registered at your new address. 

Since Indiana ditched that design and went with the 000 AAA system for standard plates and ZZZ 999 system for In God We Trust Plates, you automatically keep the same number when receiving a new plate. 

[kalvado]

Florida makes you get a new tag every five years.

NJ where I was from let you keep it forever.   I have seen the original yellow-white plates still around even in the 1990's long after NJ ditched them in the late 70's.   I even believe some had those when NJ ditched the blue plates in the early 90's too.

NY State I imagine they let you keep  them cause there are still some white plates with the blue state name part on the roads today.  NY State went back to orange some time ago, so the orange with dark blue lettering is the norm now.

NYS will let you carry over over a plate number for a fee.

P00I

Elaborating a bit: there were 3 different plate designs over the past 20 years.
Design 1. Statue of liberty design. My plate was ER1 00Q*  Mandatory replacement over 2 year period with registration renewal in 2002 or so - and currently illegal**  to
Design 2. Blue Niagara Falls plate. You could keep an old number for some fee - less than fully custom plate. I saw 2 of such carryovers this morning as I was walking through the parking lot.
Design 3. Gold and dark blue. Was supposed to be a mandatory replacement during 2008 recession as a way to collect some extra cash. Only contributed to further drop of popularity of then-governor; and was issued as a non-mandatory replacement.
My current plate is EDQ-00000, of design 2 is in a very good shape - and at each renewal DMV gives me an option of keeping current plate; keeping current plate number on new background (+$25 to registration I believe) or a fully new general issue plate ($20, i think). I have seen some design 2 combinations on design 3 plates; but that is not really popular option.
I didn't see any Design1 combinations on Design3 metal. Not sure if it is offered.

*Q and 0 are placeholders for actual letters and numbers. Q is not used by NYS plates; as well as 0 in first position of 4-digit combination.
**could be legal with historical registration if plate year of issue matches the model year of the car. I saw 2 such plates on the road in the past 10 years - in one case driver was busy talking to a state trooper with car pulled over on a shoulder.

[J N Winkler]

In Kansas the default is to change the number with the plate design.  When it changes, you are simply sent a new-design plate with a new number when you renew the registration and the file shows the existing standard plate is getting too old.  I do not know what is done with specialty plates, which are also subject to the same problem of aging sheeting.

[1995hoo]

In Kansas the default is to change the number with the plate design.  When it changes, you are simply sent a new-design plate with a new number when you renew the registration and the file shows the existing standard plate is getting too old.  I do not know what is done with specialty plates, which are also subject to the same problem of aging sheeting.

In Virginia, recently when it's come time every other year to renew the registration on my 2004 Acura, whose plate I've had since 2003 (no-longer-available specialty design transferred it from my prior car in 2004), the form the DMV sends me contains an admonition that I should "consider" getting new plates because mine are more than ten years old and thus "may" be in bad condition. I always ignore it because my plates are in fine shape, and I have no idea what sort of rules they might claim to have about what constitutes unacceptably bad condition, though I'm pretty sure reflectivity is part of it (I assume this would be enforced by a cop reporting you to the DMV). I would not be surprised at all for them to decide at some point in the future that plates older than a certain number of years are to be deemed inadequately reflective or in poor condition.

[vdeane]

To be fair, how often do you need to know it?

I've been asked my plate number nearly every time I've checked in to a hotel.

[bzakharin]

Partially off-topic, but was the last NJ sort of redesign (2014 when the plate became painted instead of embossed with a watermark in the middle) coincide with a numbering change? I ask because I notice that most of the time the new plates have two numeric digits to the left of the state outline instead of to the right and the handicapped plates have two letters to the right of the number instead of to the left. But I've seen exceptions.

[jeffandnicole]

Partially off-topic, but was the last NJ sort of redesign (2014 when the plate became painted instead of embossed with a watermark in the middle) coincide with a numbering change? I ask because I notice that most of the time the new plates have two numeric digits to the left of the state outline instead of to the right and the handicapped plates have two letters to the right of the number instead of to the left. But I've seen exceptions.

No...the two were separate.  The order they go in is indicated by the first letter to the right of the silhouette; I believe the were in the E range when they went to the smooth, painted plates.

[briantroutman]

Pennsylvania is one of the states that allows you to keep a plate through subsequent vehicles, although with the exception of some odd circumstances (see below), there are only two fairly similar plate variations in current circulation.

Throughout the '90s, there were a few different designs and numbering combinations floating around dating back to 1977: Some were blue on yellow, others yellow on blue, some had PENNSYLVANIA above the number and KEYSTONE STATE below (others were reversed), and a few had the "You've Got a Friend in..."  slogan on them. Number patterns varied from seemingly random intermixed letters and numbers (like 4R5-304 or 613-25Z) on the late '70s plates to the regular three-letter, three-number and three-letter, four number combinations of the later plates.

This all came to an end around 2000 when PennDOT released an entirely new design with a white background, a blue gradient band and PENNSYLVANIA at the top of the plate–and yellow at the bottom with the state government's then-current website address: WWW.STATE.PA.US. At that time, the variety of '70s, '80s, and '90s plates were recalled when the registrations came up for renewal, and new-series plates were issued. Within a couple of years, the old plates had disappeared from the streets.

A few years later, the design was changed mildly: The color bands were made solid and bolder, the typeface used for the state name and web address was changed, and the web address replaced with the tourism-oriented visitPA.com. So with the exception of specialty plates and a few odd circumstances, the white-background plates are the only ones you'll find in current use.

* As to the odd circumstances: Apparently, there is some procedure for renewing registrations of old plates. Notice the first photo below–this is a roughly '77-vintage plate that somehow has been renewed with a 2017 sticker. Additionally, there's also a way to get an old plate number reissued on a newer base. Note the second plate below–this letter combination would have originally been issued in the late '70s on a yellow plate such as the one before it, but it's been reissued on a 2001-era plate base. That said I've never seen either of these circumstances (a pre-2000 plate with a current registration–or an old plate number on a newer plate design) in the wild. They must be quite rare.

[kalvado]

To be fair, how often do you need to know it?

I've been asked my plate number nearly every time I've checked in to a hotel.

and for me 3 out of 4 answers is "lets see, rental company should have it written on a keychain..."

[SP Cook]

Leaving out minor knitpick changes, WV has only changed plates twice in modern times.  Until 1970, there was a new plate every year and the numbers were different every year.  First set ran from 70-76 were plain yellow with blue numbers.  For 76 everybody was issued what was supposed to be a "bicentennial" plate which was white with blue and a yellow state map watermark.  Everyone automatically got the same number they already had from the 70 series.  They forgot these were for the "bicentennial" and kept the same plates for 20 years. 

These cancelled out in 95 and everybody got a new plate, which is still in use.  That time they just started over with the numbering series and everybody got a new number.  The (quite wasteful of number posibilities) series is nearing exhaustion and they say the will be issuing a new series within the next few years with a more standard number pattern, which will cancel out the current ones.  No certain dates yet.  The state police always want the plates started over more often because it kills off all the stolen plates.