VehiclesDB

Switzerland license plate: Provisional Z

Issued today Documented since 1987. Temporary plates for car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle, issued by Bundesamt für Strassen (ASTRA) / kantonale Strassenverkehrsämter. One of 17 Switzerland license plates.

Switzerland license plate, Provisional Z (documented since 1987), sample BS 829065Z
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Format, years and the law

Format
LL 999999Z, for example BS 829065Z (L is any letter, 9 any digit)

The trailing Z makes it a Zollschild: the vehicle has not cleared Swiss customs yet. The ordinance prescribes the letter but never says where it goes, the trailing position every spotter knows is practice, not law.

Z
Zoll (customs, vehicle not yet cleared)

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

Years issued
Documented since 1987; 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, and motorcycle.
Colours
Characters #000000 Background #FFFFFF
Size
300 × 80 mm · every country's size
  • Switzerland license plate, Provisional Z 500×110 mm (documented since 1987)

    Provisional Z 500×110 mm

    temporary · 500 × 110 mm

  • Switzerland license plate, Provisional Z 300×160 mm (documented since 1987)

    Provisional Z 300×160 mm

    temporary · 300 × 160 mm

  • Switzerland license plate, Provisional Z 180×140 mm (documented since 1987)

    Provisional Z 180×140 mm

    temporary · 180 × 140 mm

About this plate
THE "Z" PLATE, provisional registration of an UNCLEARED (unverzollt) vehicle, the Swiss plate every plate-spotter asks about.

Legal basis and sources

  1. VVV Anhang 2 A Ziff. 3 (the red bar, its dimensions, and 'Schilder unverzollter Fahrzeuge tragen zusätzlich den Buchstaben «Z»', footnoted AS 1987 1350); Art. 16 Abs. 2 (uncleared vehicles may be registered only... https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1959/1271_1321_1317/de
  2. VZV Art. 79 Abs. 3 (a provisional certificate for an uncleared vehicle may exceed the customs authorisation only where the authorisation expressly says so) https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1976/2423_2423_2423/de

This plate in your app

The series id is ch-provisional-z. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of Switzerland's series:

curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/ch \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \
  | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "ch-provisional-z")'
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