What This License Plate Generator Makes
Pick a country, and for the US, Canada or Australia a state or province, and the tool makes a random plate in that place's real layout: the right number of letters and digits, the letters that place leaves out, and the plate colours. Click Generate New for another one, or Copy Plate to paste it into your app.
The plate is a sample. The characters are random, so it was not issued to any vehicle and it is not a real registration. Use it for test data in an app, a form that checks plate input, a database, a film or game prop, or a design mock-up. Do not put one on a vehicle. In most countries, displaying a plate that was not issued by the registration authority is an offence, and a random plate may by chance match one that belongs to a real car. That is why every plate carries the line "Sample data only".
"License plate" is the American and Canadian name. "Number plate" is the name in the UK, Ireland, Australia, India and most of the Commonwealth. The tool does both, and the formal term is "registration plate".
US License Plates by State
The United States has no national plate format. Each state designs its own, so a Texas plate and a California plate look nothing alike. A few examples from the generator:
- California: the current format since 2026 runs digits, letters, digit, for example
123ABC4. Before that it was1ABC234. - New York: three letters, a hyphen and four digits, like
ABC-1234. The letters I, O and Q are not used. - Texas:
ABC-1234as well, but the Texas letters leave out A, E, I, O, Q and U. - Pennsylvania:
ABC-1234, with a stricter letter rule that also skips U.
The generator covers 40 states and Washington, DC. California, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania are confirmed from official sources. The others follow the best sources we found and show a "Format may differ" badge. States where the sources disagree, or that start the plate with a county number, are not included yet.
UK Number Plates
A current Great Britain plate has seven characters, such as AB26 CDE. The first two letters are the DVLA area code. The two digits are the age identifier. The last three letters are random. The age identifier changes twice a year: in March it is the last two digits of the year (26 means March to August 2026), and in September it is the year plus 50 (76 means September 2026 to February 2027). The DVLA publishes the rules in its leaflet INF104, and the generator follows them. It never uses age codes that have not been issued yet.
The tool shows the rear plate, which is yellow. The front plate is white. Northern Ireland uses a different format and is not included.
Canada, Australia and Ireland
Canada and Australia work like the US: every province, state or territory sets its own plate. Ontario uses four letters and three digits (ABCD 123) and does not use G, I, O, Q or U. British Columbia moved to A12 3BC in 2025. In Australia, New South Wales plates look like AB-12-CD on a yellow background, and Victoria uses 1AB 2CD. Irish plates, such as 262-D-1483, show the year, a 1 or 2 for the half of the year, a county code and a number.
Formats This Generator Supports
The examples below are made-up samples. Plates marked "Format confirmed" match an official or well documented source. Plates marked "Format may differ" follow the best sources we found, but those sources are partly secondary, so check the format if you need it to be exact.
| Country | Format | Sample | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Different in every state | KRT-4827 (New York) | 4 states confirmed, others may differ |
| United Kingdom | Area letters, age digits, three letters | LK75 RXF | Format confirmed |
| Canada | Different in every province | DKTR 418 (Ontario) | Ontario and British Columbia confirmed, others may differ |
| Australia | Different in every state | 1AX 4BQ (Victoria) | Format may differ |
| Ireland | Year, half of the year, county code, number | 252-D-14837 | Format confirmed |
| France | Two letters, three digits, two letters | GT-482-KV | Format confirmed |
| Germany | City code, letters, digits | B XR 4187 | Format may differ |
| Spain | Four digits, three consonants | 4827 NPX | Format confirmed |
| Portugal | Two letters, two digits, two letters | BK 47 RT | Format confirmed |
| Italy | Two letters, three digits, two letters | HC 482KT | Format confirmed |
| Sweden | Three letters, two digits, digit or letter | GKR 48T | Format confirmed |
| Brazil | Mercosur: three letters, digit, letter, two digits | QTX4K27 | Format confirmed |
| Argentina | Mercosur: two letters, three digits, two letters | AF 318 KD | Format confirmed |
| Mexico | Three letters, three digits, one letter | KRT-482-M | Format confirmed |
| Hong Kong | Two letters, one to four digits | KT 4821 | Format confirmed |
| New Zealand | Three letters, three digits | KRT482 | Format confirmed |
| Pakistan | Three letters, three or four digits (Punjab style) | AFR 2024 | Format may differ |
| India | State code, district, series, four digits | KA 05 MX 4821 | Format may differ |
Using Sample Plates for Testing
If you build a form or an API that takes plate numbers, sample plates help you test the cases that break real systems:
- Spaces and hyphens: a user may type
AB26 CDE,AB26CDEorab26 cde. Strip spaces and hyphens and change to capitals before you compare. - Letters a place leaves out: Spain uses no vowels, New Zealand skips I, O, V and X, and Italy skips I, O, Q and U. A strict validator should reject them, and a loose one should not.
- Length: a UK plate has seven characters, a Spanish plate seven, a Hong Kong plate three to six. Do not hard-code one length for every country.
- Many users: generate a batch by clicking Generate New. For vehicle IDs in the same tests, use the VIN Generator or the Bulk VIN Generator.
Why Some Places Are Missing
We would rather leave a place out than guess. Some US states have several plate designs in use at once or sources that disagree. Several countries publish no clear public rule for the letters and digits, so Tasmania, the Northern Territory and others are not here yet. Germany uses the codes of 30 large cities, because the full list of more than 700 district codes was not available to us. Each plate also shows a status badge so you know how sure we are.
Plates in some countries carry parts this tool does not draw: German state seals, French regional logos, inspection stickers and county names. Those are official marks, so we leave them out on purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these real license plates?
No. They are sample plates that follow the format of each state or country, made at random. They are for software testing, design mock-ups, films and games. They are not issued by any registration authority and must never be put on a real vehicle.
What is the difference between a license plate and a number plate?
Nothing, except the name. License plate is the US and Canadian term. Number plate is used in the UK, Ireland, Australia, India and most Commonwealth countries. Registration plate is the formal term.
Why does the tool pick my country on its own?
Your browser tells the page its language, for example en-GB. The page uses that to choose a starting country. Nothing is sent to a server, and you can change the country at any time.
Can I use a generated plate on a car?
No. In most countries, displaying a plate that was not issued by the registration authority is an offence. A random plate may also match one that belongs to a real car.
Why is my country or state missing?
We only add a format when we found a source that confirms it. Places where the sources disagree, or where we found no clear rules, are left out until we can check them.
Related Tools and Guides
A plate is not the same thing as a VIN. The VIN identifies the car for life, and the plate identifies the registration. Read VIN vs license plate vs registration for the difference. To make test VINs, use the VIN Generator or the generator by year, make and model. To check a VIN, try the VIN Validator or the VIN Decoder. For VIN codes by country, see WMI codes and what a VIN is called around the world.