16 registration series, sourced from Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India — registering authorities (RTOs) of the States and Union Territories.
India's registration mark — state code, RTO district, series letters, four digits, "MH 12 AB 1234" — has never been defined by its own rule; it is reconstructed from four rules that describe OTHER marks by reference to it. Since 2019 every new plate is a High Security Registration Plate: aluminium, hologram-sealed, laser-coded, with a blue IND legend. Colour tracks USE, not vehicle: white private, yellow transport, green for battery vehicles.
Type any India registration — valid plates render below, on their real designs.
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Everything on this page — formats, validity, colours, the renders themselves — is one request away.
GET /v1/plates/in/match?plate=…
GET /v1/plates/in/match?plate=MH%2012%20AB%201234
{ "plate": "MH 12 AB 1234",
"valid": true, "exact": true,
"matches": [{ "id": "in-standard-hsrp-2004",
"render_url": "…svg?serial=MH%2012%20AB%201234" }] }
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Since 2021 an owner whose employer has offices in four states or more may opt into the Bharat series — the one Indian mark with no geography at all. "22 BH 1234 AB" encodes only the year of registration; the point is to end the re-registration scramble after every inter-state move.
G.S.R. (2021), egazette.gov.in 229283
A vintage vehicle — over fifty years old and unmodified — can take a VA-series plate, and the rule exempts it from HSRP entirely: no hologram, no laser code, no IND legend. The only current Indian plate lawfully without all three.
rule 81B(4)
The consular plate was yellow-on-black for twenty-eight years. A single 2017 amendment repainted it deep blue with yellow characters — against the diplomatic plate's identical blue with white — so the whole CD/CC distinction now comes down to one colour.
G.S.R. 633(E), 23-6-2017
the default series issued to private road vehicles
Left to right: two letters for the State or territory (MH is Maharashtra, DL is Delhi), one or two digits for the registering office within it, then a series and a four-digit number. The office codes are each State's own invention — over a thousand, never centrally listed.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The letters read exactly as on the white plate — State, office, series, number. The yellow is the code here: it marks a transport vehicle, a category of use, so the same car goes yellow the day it becomes a taxi.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The mark decodes exactly as its 1989 ancestor — State, office, series, number. HSRP changed the plate, never the mark: the hologram, laser code and IND legend authenticate; they add no meaning to the characters.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Same decode as every Indian plate: State code, office, series, number. Yellow still means a transport vehicle — the HSRP specification itself is colour-blind.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The rule requires the BH mark to be "generated randomly through the portal" — the one Indian series its owner cannot choose.
The first two digits are the year of first registration — the only Indian plate that wears its age — then BH for Bharat: valid nationwide, no State, no district. The tail is generated randomly; the owner cannot choose it.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
EV-distinct plates or suffixes (German E, CN green plates)
Nothing in the characters — same State, office, series and number as any plate. The green ground is the entire signal, and a dating one: before 7 August 2018 no Indian plate was green.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
vintage/oldtimer regimes (German H, ES historico)
A pre-2021 vintage registration keeps its original plate for life if the owner never applies for the VA mark — its absence proves nothing about a car's age.
For once the rule is explicit: "VA stands for Vintage". State code, VA, a two-letter series, a number — and the mark is optional: an already-registered fifty-year-old car may keep its original number forever.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
trade/garage plates bound to a business, not a vehicle
State code, office code, then two letters and up to three digits per vehicle on the dealer's trade certificate. The famous "TC" was only the rule's worked example — the two letters were never actually fixed.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Indian law's most fully specified mark, worked example and all: AB 12 A 1234 TC 0001 — State, office, a class letter A to J (A motorcycle, C light motor vehicle, I e-cart), a serial, TC for trade certificate, and the mark's number under that certificate.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
short-validity plates (transit, awaiting registration)
Self-dating: after the T for temporary certificate come four digits that are the month and year of issue, then the State code, a serial, and two letters that skip O and I. Expiry pressure, readable straight off the plate.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
diplomatic corps (embassy) issuance, usually its own decode
CD is the international corps diplomatique code; the leading number is the mission's, allotted by the Ministry of External Affairs, the trailing one the vehicle's. The ladder decodes further: 1 is the ambassador's official car, 1A and 1B the ambassador's personal ones.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
Created by textual substitution: the rule says that wherever the diplomatic provisions read CD, read UN instead — United Nations bodies take the same mission-number grammar under their own two letters.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
CDP marks home-based non-diplomatic staff of a Delhi mission — support staff, not diplomats — and the rules never expand the letters. Light green with white characters; the mission's number leads, the vehicle's follows.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
consular corps where distinct from diplomatic
CC is the international corps consulaire code. The number ahead of it names the consular post, allotted by the Ministry of External Affairs; the number after it names the vehicle. Yellow ground until 2017 — easy to misread as a taxi.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
CCP marks home-based non-diplomatic staff of consular posts outside Delhi — the rule assigns the letters without ever expanding them. Post number ahead, vehicle number behind, on light green.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
Still corps consulaire; 2017 changed only the paint. Consular plates went deep blue with yellow characters against the diplomats' white — one word of colour is now the entire CC/CD distinction at a glance.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.