# United Kingdom number plate: Q

> The United Kingdom Q number plate: format Q999 LLL, for example Q845 YUY, documented since 2001, car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/q · 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 [United Kingdom license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom) (10 registration series).

![United Kingdom license plate, Q (documented since 2001)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/gb/gb-q/united-kingdom-license-plate-q.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `Q999 LLL` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | ~2001 → today (documented from 2001; the format is likely older) |
| Class | standard |
| Issued for | car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle |
| 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 | `gb-q` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/q) |

Sources:

- ['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)
- [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-number-plates.pdf)
- [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)

## 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

## Before and after

| Relation | Series | Years |
|---|---|---|
| It replaced | [Prefix](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/prefix-1984) | documented 1984 to 2001 |

## Other standard plates here

- [Ni reversed](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/ni-reversed) (documented since 2001)
- [Ni standard](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/ni-standard) (documented since 2001)
- [Standard](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/standard-2001) (2001 to today)
- [Prefix](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-kingdom/prefix-1984) (documented 1984 to 2001)

## Use it

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

---

Open data, CC BY 4.0: reuse it with a visible credit to VehiclesDB and a link (https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/attribution). Plate images show sample serials and are not open data (https://vehiclesdb.com/legal/image-license). Dataset commit db0ec0a: https://github.com/vehiclesdb/vehiclesdb