Cyprus license plates

5 registration series, sourced from Έφορος Μηχανοκινήτων Οχημάτων / Τμήμα Οδικών Μεταφορών (Registrar of Motor Vehicles, Road Transport Department) — Ν. 86/1972 and Κ.Δ.Π. 291/2010.

The Republic of Cyprus plate is a small alphabet doing a lot of work: only twelve Latin letters are legal (A B E H K M N P T X Y Z), chosen because each has an identical capital in the Greek alphabet — and Cyprus then drops I and O from that shared set too, because they read as 1 and 0. The current three-letters-three- digits series began in June 2013; before that, Cypriot law never prescribed what a plate had to say, only that the Registrar could grant "letters and numbers" — so every earlier format is reconstructed administrative practice, not legislation.

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Type any Cyprus registration — valid plates render below, on their real designs.

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GET /v1/plates/cy/match?plate=MAK%20275

{ "plate": "MAK 275",
  "valid": true, "exact": true,
  "matches": [{ "id": "cy-standard-2013",
    "render_url": "…svg?serial=MAK%20275" }] }

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The alphabet, by law

C D F G I J L O Q R S U V W

Fourteen Latin capitals are never issued. Twelve of them (C D F G J L Q R S U V W) have no Greek capital twin; the remaining two, I and O, DO have twins (Ι U+0399, Ο U+039F) and are nonetheless excluded — which is the one place the Cypriot rule goes beyond the shared-alphabet principle and excludes for DIGIT CONFUSABILITY (1 and 0) as well. Greece, working from the same intersection, keeps I and O.

Worth knowing

Twelve letters, in Latin order, from a Greek-language law

Κ.Δ.Π. 291/2010 lists the permitted letters as "A B E H K M N P T X Y Z" — exactly Latin alphabetical order, in an instrument written in Greek. Read as Greek capitals the same twelve letters would be out of sequence: a Greek statute legislating in a Latin frame.

Κ.Δ.Π. 291/2010, Δεύτερο Παράρτημα, Μέρος Ι παρ. 1

Three years between the law and the plates

The instrument that created the current design is dated July 2010, but its plate paragraphs only took effect on 3 June 2013 — the Registrar needed a separate one-sentence commencement order, nearly three years later, to switch it on.

Κ.Δ.Π. 72/2013

White in front, yellow behind

Until the 2013 reform an ordinary Cypriot car carried two plate colours at once — white at the front, yellow at the rear. The reform repurposed colour to mark vehicle class instead: yellow for taxis and goods vehicles, red for self-drive rentals, the same at both ends.

Κ.Δ.Π. 66/1984, Δεύτερον Παράρτημα παρ. 3(γ)

standard plates 6

the default series issued to private road vehicles

Standard 1956

The two-letter era, running from before the Republic itself existed through to around 1990, on the same unprescribed white-front / yellow-rear basis as its three-letter successor.

The two letters spell nothing — they simply count upward, plate by plate. The same marks rolled on unchanged through independence in 1960: a registration series that outlived the colonial order that created it.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

1956–1990 issued for: car, van, truck, bus

Standard 1990

The three-letter format everyone recognises as "old Cypriot" — which no instrument ever defined. White in front, yellow behind, and still legally alive for any vehicle that never re-plated.

The letters just count — with two exceptions: until 9 July 2010 a leading T marked a public-use vehicle such as a taxi, and Z a self-drive hire car. The prefixes were then deleted, leaving the rental car's dark-red plate to do the talking alone.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

1990–2013 issued for: car, van, truck, bus

Standard 2013

The current series: three letters from the restricted twelve, a printed gap, three digits always padded to three. White for private cars, yellow for taxis and goods vehicles, red for self-drive rentals — one grammar, three colourways.

Sequential and geography-free: after MAA 999 comes MAB 001. Only twelve letters are permitted — A, B, E, H, K, M, N, P, T, X, Y, Z — every one a capital the Greek and Latin alphabets share, so the mark reads natively in both.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

2013 → today issued for: car, van, truck, bus

Standard 2013 340×200 mm

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

2013 → today issued for: car, van, truck, bus

Standard 2013 260×200 mm

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

2013 → today issued for: car, van, truck, bus

Standard 2013 260×110 mm

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

2013 → today issued for: car, van, truck, bus

historic plates 1

vintage/oldtimer regimes (German H, ES historico)

Historic black

Not a series but a colour permission: any vehicle first registered on or before 31 December 1974 may carry its existing number on a black plate with white or silver characters.

Nothing hides in the characters — they are the vehicle's ordinary mark. The black ground is the message: it may be worn by old vehicles and anything registered in the Republic by 31 December 1974, a fixed cutoff rather than the rolling "30 years" so often claimed.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

2013 → today issued for: car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle

diplomatic plates 1

diplomatic corps (embassy) issuance, usually its own decode

Diplomatic green

The green plate for diplomatic and foreign-mission vehicles, prescribed by name from 1973 — then simply not carried forward when the 2013 reform enumerated its colour classes.

The letters name the corps, not the car: CD for diplomats, CC for career consulates, AT for a mission's administrative and technical staff — later paired with a two-digit code for the sending country. The ambassador rides on the lowest serial.

CD: Corps Diplomatique — diplomatic corps
CC: Corps Consulaire — consular corps
AT: Administrative and Technical staff — embassy support staff

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.

1973–2013 issued for: car, van, motorcycle