# France license plate: FNI

> The France FNI license plate: format 999 LL 99, for example 242 DE 99, documented 1984 to 2009, cited to Ministère de l'intérieur.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/france/fni-1984 · Markdown version of the HTML page, which is canonical. Site map: https://vehiclesdb.com/llms.txt · Terms of use: https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/terms

Part of [France license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/france) (17 registration series).

![France license plate, FNI (documented 1984 to 2009)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/fr/fr-fni-1984/france-license-plate-fni.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `999 LL 99` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | ~1984–2009 (documented from 1984; the format is likely older) |
| Class | standard |
| Issued for | car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, moped, trailer, semitrailer, tractor, machine |
| Colours | background #FFFFFF; characters #000000 |
| Checking a registration | The format above is broad: a registration that fits it has the right shape, which does not show that this series issued it. |
| Series id | `fr-fni-1984` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/france/fni-1984) |

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.

Sources:

- [arrêté du 5 novembre 1984 relatif à l'immatriculation des véhicules; art. 1 (the series: normales, TT and IT, diplomatic CMD/CD/C/K, W, WW including the export series WAL à WZL and WAE à WZE, FFECSA and DF; composition delegated to annexe I); art. 2 (préfecture du département du domicile); abrogated 31 December 2009](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/LEGITEXT000006075077)
- [This citation evidences the GAP, not the format.](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI000006889019)
- [arrêté (1) art. 19 II-III: the 1984 arrêté continues to apply to vehicles without a definitive number until 31 December 2009 at the latest, and such vehicles may keep circulating under their old number until a formality produces a new certificate](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI000042128428)
- [arrêté du 23 mars 2009: SIV from 15 April 2009; the former rules run on for already-registered vehicles until 14 October 2009](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000020446205)
- [the French administration's own plate page, giving the old FNI format as '123 AB 45' and the SIV as 'AB-123-CD'](https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F20319)

## About this plate

THE FNI, France's plate for two human generations, and the one that actually decodes. None of them is modelled, deliberately.

## How the region is encoded

GENUINELY GEOGRAPHIC, and the reason this series matters. Under the 1984 arrêté the certificat was issued "soit par la préfecture du département du domicile du propriétaire" (art. 2) and a change of département was a mutation requiring a new certificate (art. 10 A/B), so the trailing département group told you where the vehicle was kept, and it CHANGED when the owner moved.

## Before and after

| Relation | Series | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Replaced by | [SIV standard](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/france/siv-standard) | 2009 to today |

## Other standard plates here

- [SIV standard](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/france/siv-standard) (2009 to today)

## Use it

- Plate image (SVG): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/fr/fr-fni-1984.svg
- Make it with your own text: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plate-generator/france?series=fr-fni-1984
- API: `GET https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/fr` returns this series as the entry with `"id": "fr-fni-1984"` (https://vehiclesdb.com/api)

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Open data, CC BY 4.0: reuse it with a visible credit to VehiclesDB and a link (https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/attribution). Plate images show sample serials and are not open data (https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/image-license). Dataset commit db0ec0a: https://github.com/vehiclesdb/vehiclesdb