Iowa license plate: Blackout
Issued today Documented since 2026. Specialty plates for car, van, truck, and motorcycle, issued by Iowa Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division (plates issued through the county treasurers). One of 6 Iowa license plates.
Format, years and the law
- Format
-
LLL999, for exampleVUK744(L is any letter, 9 any digit)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
- Specialty: optional-design programs on standard serials (US state programs). Issued for car, van, truck, and motorcycle.
- About this plate
- BLACKOUT PLATES. Broken out as its own series because § 321.166(9) expressly frees it from the design and colour of the regular plate, which is a design difference in the §2.3 sense even though the Code never says what the design IS. Iowa and North Dakota both run statutory blackout plates, a small Midwestern convergence worth recording for the encyclopedia, and comparing the two is instructive about sourcing: one state wrote the colours into law and the other wrote only a permission.
Legal basis and sources
- Iowa Code § 321.34(11C): 'Blackout plates' as an authorised special registration plate subsection https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/321.34.pdf
- Iowa Code § 321.166(9): blackout plates among those exempt from the design-and-colour-consistency requirement, i.e. the statutory licence for the design to differ https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/321.166.pdf
This plate in your app
The series id is us-ia-blackout. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of Iowa's series:
curl -s https://vehiclesdb.com/api/v1/plates/us-ia \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VEHICLESDB_API_KEY" \ | jq '.series[] | select(.id == "us-ia-blackout")'
- Plate image (SVG, sample serial): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-ia/us-ia-blackout.svg
- Blank template, filled on your side: https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-ia/us-ia-blackout/template.svg
