United Kingdom number plate: Q

Format, years and the law

Format

Q999 LLL, for example Q845 YUY (L is any letter, 9 any digit)

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

Years issued

Documented since 2001; the format is likely older than the first year documented. Still issued.

Vehicle class

Standard: the default series issued to private road vehicles. Issued for car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle.

Colours

Characters #000000 Front plate #FFFFFF Rear plate #FFFF00

About this plate

THE Q MARK, the British answer to "we cannot establish what this vehicle is or when it was built": kit cars, rebuilt write-offs, imports without provenance.

Region code notes

a Q mark encodes neither region nor date, that is its entire semantic content

Legal basis and sources

1. 'DVLA issues Q registration numbers to vehicles whose age or identity is in doubt' and 'To get a Q registration number, your vehicle has to pass a type approval process' https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/q-registration-numbers
2. INF104 § 05: 'We will still issue existing Q marks'; 'We will not use I, Q or Z in local memory tags identifiers' https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6694e379fc8e12ac3edafc60/inf104-vehicle-registration-numbers-and-numbe...
3. Sch 3 Table A row 2 supplies the layout a Q mark is displayed in https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/561/schedule/3

Before and after

It replaced Prefix documented 1984 to 2001