37 registration series, sourced from Міністерство внутрішніх справ України / Головний сервісний центр МВС (ГСЦ МВС).
Ukraine's plates read as two alphabets welded into one: every printed letter is Ukrainian Cyrillic, but the system restricts itself by statute to the twelve Cyrillic letters drawn identically to Latin ones (А=A, В=B, Е=E, Н=H, Р=P, С=C…), so a plate that looks entirely Latin to a foreign eye is, legally, entirely Cyrillic. The blue band with the flag and UA arrived in 2015; the serial grammar itself hasn't changed since 2004.
Type any Ukraine registration — valid plates render below, on their real designs.
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Everything on this page — formats, validity, colours, the renders themselves — is one request away.
GET /v1/plates/ua/match?plate=…
GET /v1/plates/ua/match?plate=AA%201234%20BB
{ "plate": "AA 1234 BB",
"valid": true, "exact": true,
"matches": [{ "id": "ua-standard-2015",
"render_url": "…svg?serial=AA%201234%20BB" }] }
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Ukraine doesn't pick series letters freely: the governing order's annex lists precisely the 12×12 cross product of the twelve Latin-lookalike letters — 144 pairs, nothing missing, nothing extra.
Додаток 5, МВС order (zakon.rada.gov.ua z0353-21)
Every Ukrainian plate is a rectangle except the tractor plate, which is a trapezoid — 225 mm across the top narrowing to 125 at the bottom. It's also the only ordinary plate with no region code at all.
Додаток 2, Таблиця 4
Since a 2022 amendment, vehicles registered through an online contract carry ЕД, DC, DI or PD where the region pair would go — a region field that deliberately encodes "there is no region".
zakon.rada.gov.ua z0353-21 (2022 amendment)
the default series issued to private road vehicles
Reads the same as today's plate: region pair on the left (AA is Kyiv), series pair on the right. The 2004 annex also carried one region-free pair — II, "nationwide" — that deliberately decoded to nowhere at all.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The everyday Ukrainian plate since 2015: region pair, four digits, series pair — white with the blue flag-and-UA band, characters in the twelve-letter dual alphabet.
The left pair names the region at registration — AA or KA is Kyiv, BC is Lviv — and the right pair is just a series. Unless the left reads ED, DC, DI or PD: since late 2022 those mark cars registered online, and encode no region at all.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The squarer plate for American- and Japanese-market cars reads exactly like the long one: region pair, four digits, series pair. Nothing in the serial says non-format — only the shape does.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
EV-distinct plates or suffixes (German E, CN green plates)
The green characters are backed up in the letters: electric cars draw their series pair from a reserved block — pairs led by Q, U, Y and Z — disjoint from every other, so the serial alone betrays a battery car.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Yellow field and green characters, and the series pair is its own tell: Ukraine's rarest ordinary plate draws pairs led by A, B and T that no other subtype may use.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The e-car letters again — series pairs led by Q, U, Y and Z — on the squarer plate: electric stays readable from the serial even when the geometry changes.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Ukraine gave electric mopeds 91 reserved series pairs and electric cars 93; the blocks never overlap, so the trailing pair alone says which one you are looking at. Electric is encoded in the letters, never as a suffix.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Series pairs led by R or S — 48 of them, the structural mirror of the petrol motorcycles' J/L block. One glance at the pair separates electric from petrol, and motorcycle from car.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
reduced-size series for motorcycles where format/design differs
The 2004 rule reads exactly like the car's: region letters on the left (AA is Kyiv), series letters on the right — just on the tall plate.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The trailing pair comes from the J/L block — 48 pairs reserved for motorcycles and shared with nothing else — so the last two letters alone prove you are reading a motorcycle. J and L are pure Latin: no Cyrillic letter looks like either.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
insurance/registration plates for mopeds (NL/DE small plates)
Region pair, four digits, and a series pair from the mopeds' own block — pairs led by D, G and O — the car plate's grammar at postcard size.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
farm vehicles/equipment where separately serialized
Five digits and a two-letter series, no region — the tractor plate carried no geography then, and still doesn't. The 2004 version was simply the bigger trapezoid.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The only non-rectangular plate in the system: a trapezoid for tractors and machinery, and the only ordinary series that encodes no region.
Both letters are pure series: the order pointedly leaves tractors off the list of plates that carry a region code, making this the only ordinary Ukrainian plate that says nothing about where it was issued.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
for-hire vehicles where separately serialized or colored
Yellow was attached to the vehicle kind itself — bus, minibus, taxi — in the 2004 standard. The characters read exactly as a private car's: region pair left, series pair right.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Region pair up front like any car; the giveaway is at the back — taxi and bus plates draw series pairs led by A, B or T from their own closed block. Since 2021 yellow follows the operator's registry entry, not the vehicle type.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
trailers and semi-trailers where separately serialized
Identical to a car plate until the last two letters: trailers draw their series pair from a closed 31-pair block — pairs led by C, F and X — shared with nothing else, so the pair alone says trailer.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
owner-chosen serials inside an official frame
Only the two small digits mean anything: the numeric region code (11 is Kyiv). Everything else is bought — the owner composes it, within bans on state symbols, obscenity, totalitarian emblems and, since 2023, symbols of the Russian invasion.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
As on the vanity car plate: the two small digits are the real code — the numeric region table — and every character after them is the owner's own choice.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
short-validity plates (transit, awaiting registration)
The 2004 red plate already read code, series, number: a numeric region code where every ordinary plate wears letters, then the series pair and the running number.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The two leading digits are the region as a number — 11 is Kyiv, 01 Crimea, 27 Sevastopol — a separate table the letter-pair plates never use. The six counted digits include those two, so the actual running number is only four.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The transit family always spends two digits on geography: numeric region code, series pair, four-digit number — six digits where the ordinary moped plate carries four.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Numeric region code, then the number, then the series — the only place in the Ukrainian system where two subtypes of one type print the same elements in different orders.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Same red grammar as the car transit plate: numeric region code, then the series pair, then the number — the small subtype keeps the standard order.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The leading Т is a flag, not a series: the standard's own drawing glosses it as the letter showing the plate is transit. A region pair and five digits follow.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
civil government fleets with distinct series
Е designates the Державна служба України з надзвичайних ситуацій (ДСНС) — the State Emergency Service's fire-and-rescue fleet. A region pair and three digits follow, so even a fire engine tells you its oblast.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The leading В designates the Державна прикордонна служба України (ДПСУ) — the State Border Guard Service — followed by a region pair and three digits. The letter is Cyrillic В, which reads B and never V: the likeliest transliteration mistake in the whole system.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
G designates the Національна гвардія України — the National Guard. G has no Cyrillic twin, so this is the one service letter that could never be a transliteration: proof the plate alphabet genuinely runs two scripts.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
С — the Cyrillic initial of Служба безпеки України — designates the SBU, the Security Service. Its military counter-intelligence arm doesn't wear it: those vehicles carry the black armed-forces plates instead.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
S designates the Управління державної охорони (УДО) — the State Guard Department, protectors of the President. It shares its letter with the diplomatic staff plate; here S is followed by a region pair, there by six digits.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
police fleets where distinct from government
The only Ukrainian plate with no letters. The big four digits are just the vehicle's number; the decode hides in the small figure under the state arms — the two-digit numeric region code, 11 or 31 for Kyiv.
In the sample, 9 for any digit.
In the sample, 9 for any digit.
armed-forces registration systems
Deliberately opaque: the armed forces determine the serial's information content themselves, no region is encoded, and the letter may come from anywhere in the Ukrainian alphabet — the black plate is the one Ukrainian serial with no public decode.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
Type 9's rule on the small plate: the armed forces set the serial's content themselves, and no public table decodes it.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
The lone letter is D, С or О, marking the Державна спеціальна служба транспорту (special transport service) or Держспецзв'язок (special communications). The order assigns three letters to the two services and never says which is whose.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
In the sample, L stands for any letter and 9 for any digit.
diplomatic corps (embassy) issuance, usually its own decode
CDP marked diplomatic vehicles until the 2025 redesign — white plate, black characters, and only a three-digit country code after the letters. The order assigns the letters without ever expanding them.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
CD — corps diplomatique — on the olive field since December 2025. The first three digits (001–499) are the country or organisation code, allocated by the protocol directorate rather than the traffic ministry; the last three are the vehicle's.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
A single S marks the administrative and technical staff of diplomatic missions — the only Ukrainian plate whose letters are one letter. The State Guard's plates open with S too; shape and colour keep them apart (S plus six digits on olive, versus S, region pair, three digits on white).
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
consular corps where distinct from diplomatic
CC — the international corps consulaire code — here specifically for honorary consulates and consuls. The first three digits are the sending state's code, the last three the vehicle's. The order's own text types the letters as Cyrillic С twice, an inconsistency it never acknowledges.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.
In the sample, 9 for any digit; the other characters are fixed.