France license plates

FNI

Read it from the right: the last two digits are the département where the car was registered — 75 was Paris — and moving house meant a new number. Everything before is that département's own counter, digits climbing to 999 before the letters tick over.

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

SIV standard

The SIV plate every French car has worn since 2009: a national lifetime number in AA-123-AA form, Euro-band left, chosen région band right.

Nothing in AB-123-CD means anything, by design: it is one national counter, issued once for the vehicle's whole life. The only geography on the plate — the département number in the right-hand blue band — is whichever one the owner fancied; a 75 proves nothing about Paris.

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

SIV standard 275×200 mm

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

SIV standard 300×210 mm

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

SIV motorcycle

Deliberately undecodable: a motorcycle draws its AA-123-AA from the same national counter as every car, so nothing in the string betrays two wheels — the opposite of the Dutch system, where the first letter announces the category. Only the plate's size gives it away.

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

SIV cyclomoteur

The shape is the decode: one letter, two digits, one letter — as short as "A 11 A" — could only ever be a moped, and only one registered before July 2015. The characters count for nothing; the format itself is the badge, kept for life.

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

SIV moped

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

Collection

For vehicles over 30 years old with collector status: black like the pre-1993 plates, and the only French series bare of both blue bands.

No special series hides here: a collection car keeps an ordinary AA-123-AA drawn from the same national counter — the black plate changes the costume, never the number.

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

W garage 2009

W is the trade letter: the number belongs to a garage, not a vehicle, and hops between the cars a professional is road-testing, delivering or demonstrating. When a W plate goes on, the vehicle's own number must come off — the swap is total.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

W garage 2026

Same trade W, same grammar — the decode moved into the colour. Black on pink exists only from 1 January 2026, so a pink W plate dates itself: no French plate wore pink before.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

WW 2009

Doubling the trade W makes the provisional series: a WW number is a four-month bridge while a definitive registration is arranged — and, quietly, France's export plate, because exported vehicles were folded into WW rather than given letters of their own.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Transit red

The red transit plate for vehicles temporarily in France under customs cover — bought tax-free by a tourist, or passing through to export. The white figures at the right end date its validity.

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

WW 2026

The pink WW adds a decode the white one never had: its right-hand field prints the expiry month and year, so the plate announces its own deadline. Pink plus WW can only mean a provisional issued from 2026 on.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Diplomatic CD

The opening number is the sending state — 5 is Germany, 45 the United Kingdom — then rank: CD for the diplomatic corps, CMD for the head of mission. A final Z means the car rides tax-free; the rarer X says duties were paid.

CMD

Chef de mission diplomatique — head of diplomatic mission

CD

Corps diplomatique — diplomatic corps

In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Diplomatic CD delegation

A bare organisation letter, then the sending state's number, then CD: "U 300 CD 20" is a state's diplomats accredited to UNESCO, not to France. That leading letter is unique in the French system — no embassy plate opens with one.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Diplomatic K

K is the green plate's working class: administrative and technical staff and international civil servants, not accredited diplomats. The first number gives the employer away — 600 belongs to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, 700 to the cancer-research agency in Lyon.

In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Diplomatic K delegation

The opening letter names the organisation the delegation sits at — U is UNESCO — and K marks its administrative and technical staff rather than its diplomats. France gives even the back office of a delegation its own green plate.

In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Consular C

C is the career consular corps, and this is the modern French registration that still contains real geography: the trailing two digits are the département of the consular post — one in Marseille closes with 13 — while the first group names the sending country.

C

Corps consulaire — consular corps

In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.

Consular K

K on a consulate's plate marks its administrative and technical staff — the workers, not the consuls. Four groups instead of the embassy's three, and the final pair of digits genuinely names the consulate's département, something no ordinary French plate can claim.

In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.