# Switzerland license plate: Standard

> The Switzerland standard license plate: format LL 999999, for example ZH 738216, documented since 1977, car, van, truck, and bus.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/switzerland/standard · 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 [Switzerland license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/switzerland) (17 registration series).

![Switzerland license plate, Standard (documented since 1977)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/ch/ch-standard/switzerland-license-plate-standard.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `LL 999999` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | ~1977 → today (documented from 1977; the format is likely older) |
| Class | standard |
| Issued for | car, van, truck, bus |
| Plate size | 300 × 80 mm |
| Other sizes | 300 × 160 mm: REAR Hochformat (two-line); 500 × 110 mm: REAR Langformat (single-line) |
| Colours | background #FFFFFF; characters #000000 |
| Rear plate differs from the front | yes |
| Checking a registration | The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued. |
| Series id | `ch-standard` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/switzerland/standard) |

The Swiss keeper plate: canton letters and a number that follow their owner from car to car. The rear format adds federal and canton shields.

The two letters are the canton — ZH Zürich, BE Bern — and the number belongs to the keeper, not the car, moving with them from vehicle to vehicle. That is why low numbers sell: ZH 24 went for 299,000 francs at auction in 2024.

Sources:

- [VZV Art. 82 Abs. 1 lit. a (white ground, black script, for Motorwagen etc.); Art. 83 Abs. 1-3 (metal, 1.5 mm embossing, the four formats, 10 mm corner radius); Art. 84 Abs. 1-2 (the 26 canton codes; numbering per colour/marking/family from 1); Art. 85 Abs. 1-2 (front layout without arms, rear layouts with federal and cantonal arms); Art. 87 Abs. 1 and 5 (number reserved for the keeper; plates stay the authority's property); Art. 87a (cantonal discretion on retroreflective plates)](https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1976/2423_2423_2423/de)
- [VTS Art. 96 (front and rear on Motorwagen); Art. 45 Abs. 2 (placement geometry)](https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1995/4425_4425_4425/de)

## About this plate

What the consolidated ordinance does date is the surrounding regime: Art. 83 Abs. 1-2 and Art. 85 Abs. 2's long-format layout sentence take their present wording from the amendment of 15 April 1987, in force 1 May 1987 (AS 1987 628), and the same amendment INSERTED Art. 87a (cantons must make retroreflective plates available) and restated Art. 151 Abs. 5 ("Kontrollschilder früherer Formate sind zu ersetzen, wenn die zuständige Behörde den Fahrzeughalter dazu auffordert"). So 1 May 1987 is a real design boundary, before it there was no reflective-plate duty at all, but the pre-1987 TEXT was not retrievable (fedlex publishes no machine- readable consolidation before 2000 and the AS 1987 628 scan was unreachable), so no pre-1987 design is described here and no separate pre-1987 series is invented. FORMAT STABILITY, stated plainly: unlike NL sidecodes or the Spanish 2000 cutover, the Swiss STRING has not changed shape since at least 1977, so a Swiss plate carries no era signal at all.

## How the region is encoded

The two letters are the canton of the keeper's Standort, "der Ort, wo das Fahrzeug nach Gebrauch in der Regel für die Nacht abgestellt wird" (VZV Art. 77 Abs. 1), with the keeper's domicile deemed the Standort in the three cases of Art. 77 Abs. 2. Closed 26-row table, primary, in Art. 84 Abs. 1 itself. Because the plate binds to the keeper, the code decodes the KEEPER's canton and not the vehicle's location or origin.

## How numbers are issued

Art. 84 Abs. 2: numbering starts at 1 per canton, per background colour, per special marking, and separately for the motorcar/single-axle/trailer family. Consequence for era inference: a Swiss plate encodes NO date whatsoever, only the keeper's canton, and a low number means an early allocation only within one canton's one colour, never nationally.

## Separators

Printed as "ein Punkt auf halber Höhe" (Art. 85 Abs. 1) on the front and long-format plates, and as a LINE BREAK on the Hochformat rear plate. See structural fact 6.

## Other standard plates here

- [Exceptional brown](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/switzerland/exceptional-brown) (documented since 1977)
- [Work vehicle blue](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/switzerland/workvehicle-blue) (documented since 1977)

## Use it

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

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