Iowa license plate: Dealer
Issued today Documented since 2026. Dealer plates for car, van, truck, motorcycle, and trailer, 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
-
D9999, for exampleD2356(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
- Dealer: trade/garage plates bound to a business, not a vehicle. Issued for car, van, truck, motorcycle, and trailer.
- About this plate
- The interesting discipline point is the CONTRAST WITH THE DV RULE two subsections away: Iowa's legislature said 'shall PRECEDE the registration plate number' for DV and merely 'shall display the alphabetical character "D"' for dealers, and this file honours that difference by pinning one and not the other. It would have been easy, and wrong, to write both as prefixes.
Legal basis and sources
- Iowa Code § 321.166(3): the dealer 'D' at the same size as the registration plate characters https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/321.166.pdf
This plate in your app
The series id is us-ia-dealer. 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-dealer")'
- Plate image (SVG, sample serial): https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-ia/us-ia-dealer.svg
- Blank template, filled on your side: https://vehiclesdb.com/plates/us-ia/us-ia-dealer/template.svg
