# California license plate: Commercial

> The California commercial license plate: format 99999L9, for example 12345R, documented since 2026, truck, van, and bus.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/commercial · 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 [California license plates](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california) (14 registration series).

![California (United States) license plate, Commercial (documented since 2026)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-ca/us-ca-commercial/california-license-plate-commercial.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `99999L9` (L is any letter, 9 any digit) |
| Years | ~2026 → today (documented from 2026; the format is likely older) |
| Class | standard |
| Issued for | truck, van, bus |
| Plate size | 12 × 6 in |
| Colours | background #FFFFFF; characters #003DA5 |
| Checking a registration | The format above follows the issuing rules: a registration that fits it is one this series could have issued. |
| Series id | `us-ca-commercial` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/commercial) |

You can tell a California truck from a car by arrangement alone: commercial serials run digit-heavy — 12345A1 — against the passenger 1ABC234. No character encodes anything; the shape of the serial is the code.

Sources:

- [VIRPM 21.180: '5 numbers; 1 letter' (12345R) and '5 numbers; 1 letter; 1 number' (11111A1), License Type Commercial](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/vehicle-industry-registration-procedures-manual-2/special-plates/personalized-configurations-mandatory-refusal/)
- [VIRPM Appendix 1E .0110: the commercial series history — 1963-1969 A00000-Z99999 or 00000A-99999Z on the black base; 1970-1980 00000A-99999Z on the blue base; 1975-1980 also 1A00001-3Z99999](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/vr-manual-appendix-1e/)

## About this plate

COMMERCIAL PLATES. The same caveat Florida records for its Wrecker plate. The value of this entry is that its format is AGENCY-SOURCED, a US commercial-plate format with a citation is unusual, and that it shows how VIRPM 21.180's negative list (what a vanity applicant may NOT ask for) is in fact a positive catalogue of California's live series.

## Before and after

| Relation | Series | Years |
|---|---|---|
| It replaced | [Standard 1ABC123](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/standard-1abc123) | 1980 to 2026 |

## Other standard plates here

- [Standard 123ABC1](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/standard-123abc1) (documented since 2026)
- [Standard 1ABC123](https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/standard-1abc123) (1980 to 2026)

## Use it

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

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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