Hawaii license plate: Temporary
Issued today Documented since 2026. Temporary plates for car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle, issued by The four county directors of finance (City and County of Honolulu; County of Hawaiʻi; County of Maui; County of Kauaʻi), acting under HRS chapter 249. One of 7 Hawaii license plates.
Format, years and the law
- Format
-
LLLLLLL, for exampleRTCPEPG(L is any letter)The format above is broad: a registration that fits it has the right shape, which does not show that this series issued it.
- Years issued
- Documented since 2026; the format is likely older than the first year documented. Still issued.
- Vehicle class
- Temporary: short-validity plates (transit, awaiting registration). Issued for car, van, truck, bus, and motorcycle.
- About this plate
- TEMPORARY PLATES. Included because temporary issuance is a core L2 class and because § 249-7.5 gives it a genuinely sourced LIFECYCLE even though it gives no format: thirty days to register, thirty days to receive metal, destroy the temporary on attachment.
- How long it is valid
- HRS § 249-7.5, verbatim: "Any person who has purchased a new motor vehicle which has attached a temporary number plate under section 286-53 shall register the new motor vehicle in accordance with this chapter within thirty days after taking possession of the motor vehicle." The county then furnishes the permanent plates "Within thirty days of the original registration", and "Upon attachment of the number plates, the temporary number plate provided under section 286-53 shall be destroyed." So the temporary plate has a hard THIRTY-DAY life and a statutory destruction duty, an unusually explicit end-of-life rule.
Legal basis and sources
- § 249-7.5 (L 1980, c 133; am L 1990, c 131; am L 1999, c 207): the § 286-53 temporary number plate, the thirty-day registration duty, the thirty-day plate delivery, and the destruction requirement https://web.archive.org/web/2024id_/https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol04_Ch0201-0257/HRS0249/HRS_0249-0007...
This plate in your app
The series id is us-hi-temporary. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of Hawaii's series:
curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/us-hi \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \ | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "us-hi-temporary")'
- Plate image (SVG, sample serial): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-hi/us-hi-temporary.svg
- Blank template, filled on your side: https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-hi/us-hi-temporary/template.svg
