China license plate: Temporary entry car

Issued today 1992 to today. Temporary plates for car, van, truck, and bus, issued by 公安部交通管理局 (Traffic Management Bureau, Ministry of Public Security). One of 22 China license plates.

China license plate, Temporary entry car (1992 to today), sample O93445

Format, years and the law

Format
L99999, for example O93445 (L is any letter, 9 any digit)

A laminated card whose decode is in the tint: one ground colour marks a foreign vehicle confined to a single area, the other one crossing between areas. The province-and-office characters record the issuer, and the permitted route is printed on the card itself.

The format above is broad: a registration that fits it has the right shape, which does not show that this series issued it.

Years issued
1992 to today. Still issued.
Vehicle class
Temporary: short-validity plates (transit, awaiting registration). Issued for car, van, truck, and bus.
Colours
Characters #000000 Background #CFE4F5
Size
220 × 140 mm · every country's size
About this plate
The temporary-entry plate for a foreign-registered car. It is a laminated watermarked card whose REVERSE is the vehicle licence, it states the area or route the vehicle may use, and it never lasts more than three months. Two ground tints, distinguished by whether the vehicle stays inside one area or crosses between areas, the same blue/brown-yellow logic as the domestic temporary plate, and sourced to the same clause of GA 36-2007. Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan vehicles on organised trips are handled by reference to this rule (公安部令第90号 第二十一条), which is a different regime from the 粤Z 港/澳 cross-boundary plates above.
How long it is valid
note: 《临时入境机动车和驾驶人管理规定》(公安部令第90号) 第五条, verbatim: "临时入境机动车号牌为纸质号牌,载明允许行驶的区域、线路和有效期。临时入境 机动车号牌背面为临时入境机动车行驶证,签注车辆类型、号牌号码、厂牌型号、行驶 区域或者线路、有效期等信息。", the plate IS the vehicle licence, printed on its back. 第六条: validity matches the entry approval and never exceeds three months, and may not be extended. 第七条: the car plate goes inside the windscreen on the right; the motorcycle plate is carried with the vehicle. 第二十二条: printed centrally by the Ministry.

Legal basis and sources

  1. web.archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20150701102419/http://www.hngy.gov.cn/sitepublish/site1/wsbs/lyfwzl/jtfw/jdc/jdcfw/conten...
  2. gov.cn http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2007/content_772748.htm

This plate in your app

The series id is cn-temporary-entry-car-1992. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of China's series:

curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/cn \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \
  | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "cn-temporary-entry-car-1992")'