# New Zealand number plate: Standard 2001

> The New Zealand standard 2001 number plate: format LLL999, for example VIM512, 2001 to today, car, van, truck, and bus.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/new-zealand/standard-2001 · 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 [New Zealand license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/new-zealand) (18 registration series).

![New Zealand license plate, Standard 2001 (2001 to today)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/nz/nz-standard-2001/new-zealand-license-plate-standard-2001.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `LLL999` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | 2001 → today |
| Class | standard |
| Issued for | car, van, truck, bus |
| Colours | background #FFFFFF; characters #000000 |
| Rear plate differs from the front | no |
| Checking a registration | The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued. |
| Series id | `nz-standard-2001` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/new-zealand/standard-2001) |

Sources:

- [milestone 2001, verbatim: 'In April, the last registration in the two letter series is issued in Wellington. The first of the three-letter series available starts at AAA104. AAA100 to 103 are purchased for personalised plates.'; and 'The new series of three letters and three numbers – from AAA104 ongoing to ZZZ999 – offers about 17.6 million possible combinations.'](https://www.nzta.govt.nz/roads-and-rail/research-and-data/fascinating-facts/number-plates)
- [cl 2(3)(c)(ii) 'any combination of 3 letters, followed by any of the numbers from 1 to 999 (inclusive)', substituted on 22 July 1999 by cl 2 of the Transport (Vehicle Registration and Licensing) Amendment Notice 1999 (SR 1999/204) — the enabling instrument, two years before first issue](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/1995/0136/latest/whole.html)
- [reg 33(1)(b) six-character cap; reg 33(4)(b) black on white retro-reflective; reg 33(5) aluminium; reg 39(3) front and rear](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2011/0079/latest/whole.html)
- ['Ordinary plates are made from aluminium, with black embossed characters on a white retro-reflective background.'](https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/licensing-rego/number-plates)

## What each position encodes

- characters 1-3: three letters, advancing as the sequence is consumed
- characters 4-6: the numeral block, 1 to 999

## About this plate

ONE INTERNAL DISAGREEMENT IN THE AGENCY'S OWN PAGE, recorded rather than resolved: its milestone table says the last two-letter registration was issued in April 2001, while its plate description says "The last plate in the series was issued in March 2001". Both are on one page; neither is footnoted; the year is unaffected.

## Region code notes

A New Zealand plate encodes NOTHING but its position in a national sequence, no region, no district, no date, no vehicle class. The one historical exception is not a decode: NZTA records that the 1964 rollout was distributed geographically, and that later blocks were occasionally steered to a region, but no allocation table was ever published and none is authored here.

## How numbers are issued

NZTA, verbatim: "The new series of three letters and three numbers, from AAA104 ongoing to ZZZ999, offers about 17.6 million possible combinations." The agency publishes no allocation calendar, so a serial gives an approximate era and nothing better. Two published landmarks anchor the low end: the series opens at AAA104 in April 2001 because AAA100-AAA103 were sold as personalised plates first.

## Before and after

| Relation | Series | Years |
|---|---|---|
| It replaced | [Standard 1986](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/new-zealand/standard-1986) | 1986 to 2001 |

## Other standard plates here

- [Standard 1986](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/new-zealand/standard-1986) (1986 to 2001)
- [Standard 1964](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/new-zealand/standard-1964) (1964 to 1986)

## Use it

- Plate image (SVG): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/nz/nz-standard-2001.svg
- Make it with your own text: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plate-generator/new-zealand?series=nz-standard-2001
- API: `GET https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/nz` returns this series as the entry with `"id": "nz-standard-2001"` (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