Switzerland license plate: Provisional

Format, years and the law

Format

LL 999999 (L is any letter, 9 any digit)

An ordinary canton plate wearing a date: the red bar after the number has the year pressed into the metal and a month sticker on top, an expiry no string parser can see. For vehicles whose Swiss stay is temporary, inbound or outbound.

The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued.

Years issued

Documented since 1977; the format is likely older than the first year documented. Still issued.

Vehicle class

Temporary: short-validity plates (transit, awaiting registration). Issued for car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, and trailer.

Colours

Characters #000000 Background #FFFFFF

Size

300 × 80 mm · every country's size

• 

  Provisional 500×110 mm

  temporary · 500 × 110 mm

• 

  Provisional 300×160 mm

  temporary · 300 × 160 mm

• 

  Provisional 180×140 mm

  temporary · 180 × 140 mm

About this plate

PROVISORISCHE IMMATRIKULATION. Switzerland's answer to the export and transit plate, and it is deliberately NOT either: the criterion is that the vehicle's Standort is in Switzerland only temporarily (VVV Art. 16 Abs. 1), whether it is arriving or leaving. The plate is an ordinary cantonal plate with a raised vertical RED BAR after the number, a year impressed into the bar and a month/year sticker on top of it, so a Swiss provisional plate carries a date that no string parser can see.

How long it is valid

max months: 12. note: VVV Art. 17 Abs. 1-2: the Fahrzeugausweis for a provisionally registered vehicle is time-limited so that it expires at latest on the day given in the insurance proof and ALWAYS at the end of a month; validity must end at latest in the twelfth month following issue, except that certificates issued in October or November may run to the end of the FOLLOWING year. The plates lose validity with the certificate (Art. 18 Abs. 1) and, uniquely, need not be handed back, VZV Art. 87 Abs. 5 excludes exactly these plates from the rule that plates stay the authority's property.

Legal basis and sources

1. VVV Art. 16 (a vehicle is provisionally registered when its Standort is in Switzerland only, or only still, for a limited time; uncleared vehicles only provisionally and only with customs consent); Art. 17 Abs. 1-5... https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1959/1271_1321_1317/de
2. VZV Art. 82 Abs. 2 lit. a (plates for provisional registration are specially marked); Art. 87 Abs. 5 (provisional plates are the exception to authority ownership); Art. 79 Abs. 2-3 (validity governed by the VVV) https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1976/2423_2423_2423/de