24% of UK Brits don’t understand how number plates work

Go.Compare car insurance has found that 24% of Brits don’t understand how number plates work, and this increases to 26% when it comes to those over the age of 55.*

UK number plates are updated twice a year, in March and September.  On September 1st this year, the new ‘75’ plates will be released – but it seems a huge percentage of motorists will not know the meaning behind the update, according to a survey from Go.Compare car insurance.

The comparison site asked over 2,000 Brits about their understanding of the UK number plate system overall – and whether they understand the significance of the letters and numbers. The results revealed that:

• 24% of Brits overall claim they don’t understand how number plates work
• 37% of respondents say they don’t know what the first two letters of a number plate mean
• A further 32% of those who took part didn’t understand the significance of the first two numbers
• Brits aged 25-34 are the most clued up when it comes to number plates, with just 19% saying they don’t understand how they work

Brits were also asked how often they thought new number plates are released and 47% either weren’t sure or gave an incorrect answer – including 19% who said they thought it was once a year, and others guessing three (4%) or even four times (2%) a year. Just over half (53%) of those who took part gave the correct answer of twice a year.

City breakdown

The survey also asked Brits in different cities about their understanding of number plates and found that those in Edinburgh were least likely to understand what they mean, with 34% admitting they do not know how number plates work. Respondents in Bristol were the savviest about number plates with just 18% saying they didn’t know what they meant, compared with the 24% overall average.

The current UK registration format is two letters and two numbers followed by three letters. The first two letters are known as a 'Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) memory tag' and identify where in the UK the vehicle was registered – for example, a number plate that starts with “CA” will have been registered in Cardiff. 

The two numbers are known as the 'age identifier'. The first number indicates whether the car was registered in March or September, and the second number identifies the year the car was made – so ‘25’ indicates March 2025, while ‘75’ is September 2025. 

The last three letters at the end are random. So for example, the number plate CA75 ABC is a vehicle registered in Cardiff, in September 2025.

Tom Banks, car insurance spokesperson for Go.Compare, said: “It’s understandable that many people would struggle to grasp the current number plate system as it hasn’t always worked like this. Prior to 2001, number plates were only updated once a year and the “age identifier” was a single letter.

“But being able to read a car’s number plate is one of the easiest ways to tell its age, which is vital when buying a second-hand vehicle. The fact that almost a quarter (24%) of people do not know how to identify this is concerning, particularly as the age of a vehicle is also one of the factors insurers consider when quoting for a policy.”

While it’s not a legal requirement for motorists to understand how a number plate works, there are a number of legal things to consider when it comes to your number plate, including the following:

• They must be made from a reflective material
• They should display black characters on a white background (front plate) and black characters on a yellow background (rear plate)
• They cannot have a background pattern
• Failure to show your number plate clearly can incur a £1,000 fine, and your vehicle will fail its MOT
• Motorbikes only need to display a number plate on the rear.

For more information about UK number plates, visit: https://www.gocompare.com/motoring/guides/number-plates/