VehiclesDB

California license plate: Personalized

Issued today Documented since 2026. Personalized plates for car, van, truck, motorcycle, and trailer, issued by California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). One of 14 California license plates.

California (United States) license plate, Personalized (documented since 2026), sample VDBFAN1
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Format, years and the law

Format
LLLLLLL, for example VDBFAN1 (L is any letter)

The letters mean whatever the owner paid them to mean. The delight is statutory: California calls these Environmental License Plates because the fees fund environmental programmes, search the Vehicle Code for "vanity" and you find nothing.

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

Years issued
Documented since 2026; the format is likely older than the first year documented. Still issued.
Vehicle class
Personalized: owner-chosen serials inside an official frame. Issued for car, van, truck, motorcycle, and trailer.
Colours
Characters #17195E Background #FFFFFF
Size
12 × 6 in (305 × 152 mm) · every country's size
About this plate
CALIFORNIA'S PERSONALIZED PLATE IS STATUTORILY CALLED AN ENVIRONMENTAL LICENSE PLATE because its fees fund environmental programmes, which is why a reader chasing "vanity plate" through the Vehicle Code finds nothing.

Legal basis and sources

  1. VIRPM 21.100: ELPs 'only available personalized with two to seven characters'; eligible vehicle types; plate-with-owner https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/vehicle-industry-registration-procedures-manual-2/special-plates/environmental...
  2. VIRPM 21.180: the refusal criteria, the 1/I and 0/O/Q substitution rule, the similar-configuration rule, the 144 restricted strings, the conflicting-configuration table https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/vehicle-industry-registration-procedures-manual-2/special-plates/personalized-...
  3. § 5101: who may apply for environmental licence plates https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=5101
  4. § 5105: departmental refusal and cancellation of offensive or misleading configurations https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=5105

This plate in your app

The series id is us-ca-personalized. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of California's series:

curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/us-ca \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \
  | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "us-ca-personalized")'
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