# Ireland number plate: Trade

> The Ireland trade number plate: format 999-LL-99, for example 295-DA-95, documented since 1993, car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/ireland/trade-1993 · 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 [Ireland license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/ireland) (7 registration series).

![Ireland license plate, Trade (documented since 1993)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/ie/ie-trade-1993/ireland-license-plate-trade.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `999-LL-99` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | ~1993 → today (documented from 1993; the format is likely older) |
| Class | dealer |
| Issued for | car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle |
| 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 | `ie-trade-1993` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/ireland/trade-1993) |

Sources:

- [S.I. No. 409 of 1992, Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations, 1992: art. 2 'These Regulations shall come into operation on the 1st day of January, 1993'; arts. 6-9 the trade licence, its plate's contents, its display and the eight lawful uses.](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1992/si/409/made/en/print)
- [S.I. No. 328 of 2013: substitutes art. 6(3)(a) with the index-mark/placename table, deletes art. 6(3)(c), and applies 'to trade licences issued for 2014 and subsequent years'. Explanatory note: 'These Regulations provide for a single identifier for trade licences issued in Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford.'](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2013/si/328/made/en/print)
- [S.I. No. 243 of 2014: substitutes that table again for the merged authority names; 'shall apply to trade licences issued on or after 01 June 2014'.](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2014/si/243/made/en/print)
- [S.I. No. 311 of 1982: the definition the trade licence hangs on — 'trade licence' means a general licence issued under section 9 of the Roads Act, 1920, as amended by section 15 of the Finance Act, 1922 — and the 1982 Regulations' express carve-out of trade licences, which is why the trade plate was still governed by the 1958 regime until 1993.](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1982/si/311/made/en/print)

## About this plate

It is also the file's clearest example of an evidence ceiling: the statute is completely explicit about WHAT the plate must say and completely silent about what it must LOOK LIKE, because the look is delegated to two diagrams that exist only as artwork. The composition, the annual re-issue, the display rules and the lawful uses are all primary; the group order and the colours are not, and both are marked. WORTH KNOWING for a parse API: art. 7(2) means a trade plate NEVER replaces a registration on an already-registered vehicle, it sits in the window alongside the real plate, so a photograph can lawfully show two different marks on one car. And the trade table is the reason the Tipperary "T" exists in Irish law at all: it entered through trade licences in 2013, not through the registration regulations, which have never been amended to carry it.

## Use it

- Plate image (SVG): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/ie/ie-trade-1993.svg
- Make it with your own text: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plate-generator/ireland?series=ie-trade-1993
- API: `GET https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/ie` returns this series as the entry with `"id": "ie-trade-1993"` (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