Germany license plate: Federal government
Issued today 1956 to today. Government plates for car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle, set by the Fahrzeug-Zulassungsverordnung (FZV). One of 13 Germany license plates.
Format, years and the law
- Format
-
BD-999999, for exampleBD-134514(9 any digit)Letters name the fleet, digits-only serials follow: BD is the Bundesdienst, parliament, ministries, THW the federal relief agency, BP the Bundespolizei (in 1956 the same BP meant the Bundespost). And one plate outranks them all: 1-1, the Bundestag President's car.
- BD
- Bundesdienst (federal service)
- THW
- Technisches Hilfswerk (federal agency for technical relief)
- BP
- Bundespolizei (federal police)
The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued.
- Years issued
- 1956 to today. Still issued.
- Vehicle class
- Government: civil government fleets with distinct series. Issued for car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle.
- Colours
-
Characters
#000000Background#FFFFFF - Size
- 520 × 110 mm · every country's size
- About this plate
- FEDERAL AND LAND OFFICIAL SERIES, 1956-original as a SYSTEM: Anlage IV of the 14.3.1956 instrument created the official-code table and the digits-only rule in the same breath (both verbatim in the source line). THE CODE LIST IS THE PART THAT MOVED, and a decode table must carry it by period: 1956 had BD/BG/BP/BW/DB/Y and TEN Land codes (RWL for Nordrhein-Westfalen, today NRW; no BBL/LSA/LSN/MVL/THL before reunification); BP meant DEUTSCHE BUNDESPOST in 1956 and means Bundespolizei today, the same two letters changed meaning, which is a trap for any historical decode; DB (Deutsche Bundesbahn) left with privatisation (the 32. ÄndVStVR still repeals a Bundespost-successor transitional in 2000); THW was added in 1997 (pinned); the digit cap rose from five (six for the Streitkräfte) to six for all (§ 9 Abs. 1 Satz 7 FZV 2023). The exact instruments for the post-1990 Land codes and the NRW/RWL switch were not located, recorded gaps for the decode table, not for this series' start. And the CONSULAR case has no code of its own: career consular posts carry "das Unterscheidungszeichen des Verwaltungsbezirkes am Sitz des Konsulats", i.e. an ordinary district prefix, so German consular vehicles are NOT identifiable from the plate string. Also here: 1-1 for the Bundestag President's official car (Anlage 2 Nr. 4), the only German plate whose prefix is a digit.
Legal basis and sources
- Anlage 2 Nr. 1 (Bund: BD, BG, BP, BW, THW, Y, X with their registering authorities) and Nr. 2 (the 16 Land codes and which organs they cover) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/fzv_2023/anlage_2.html
- § 9 Abs. 1 Satz 6-7: which bodies may receive Anlage 2 plates, and the digits-only, max-six-digit Erkennungsnummer rule https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/fzv_2023/__9.html
- V. vom 14.3.1956, BGBl. I S. 199, Anlage IV (zu § 23 Abs. 2): 'A. Bund: BD Dienstfahrzeuge des Bundestages, des Bundesrates und der Bundesregierung; BG Dienstfahrzeuge des Bundesgrenzschutzes; BP Deutsche Bundespost;... https://media.offenegesetze.de/bgbl1/1956/bgbl1_1956_15.pdf
- 25. ÄndVstVR vom 22.7.1997, Nr. 8 inserts 'der Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk,' into the Anlage IV heading: THW joins the table in 1997. https://media.offenegesetze.de/bgbl1/1997/bgbl1_1997_52.pdf
- FZV vom 25.4.2006, Anlage 3 already carries THW, X and the five new-Land codes (BBL etc.), in force 1.3.2007. https://media.offenegesetze.de/bgbl1/2006/bgbl1_2006_21.pdf
This plate in your app
The series id is de-federal-government. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of Germany's series:
curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/de \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \ | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "de-federal-government")'
- Plate image (SVG, sample serial): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/de/de-federal-government.svg
- Blank template, filled on your side: https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/de/de-federal-government/template.svg
