# California license plate: Personalized

> The California personalized license plate: format LLLLLLL, for example VDBFAN1, documented since 2026, car, van, truck, motorcycle, and trailer.

Page: https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/personalized · 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, Personalized (documented since 2026)](https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-ca/us-ca-personalized/california-license-plate-personalized.svg)

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | `LLLLLLL` (L is any letter) |
| Years | ~2026 → today (documented from 2026; the format is likely older) |
| Class | personalized |
| Issued for | car, van, truck, motorcycle, trailer |
| 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-personalized` (https://vehiclesdb.com/license-plates/united-states--california/personalized) |

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.

Sources:

- [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-license-plates/)
- [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-configurations-mandatory-refusal/)
- [§ 5101: who may apply for environmental licence plates](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=5101)
- [§ 5105: departmental refusal and cancellation of offensive or misleading configurations](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=5105)

## 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.

## Use it

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