VehiclesDB

South Dakota license plate: Tribal

Issued today Documented since 2025. Specialty plates for car, van, and truck, issued by South Dakota Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division (plates issued through the county treasurers). One of 5 South Dakota license plates.

Nine Sioux tribes participate; the plate substitutes for the regular plate, and eligibility runs to any resident, not just tribal members.

South Dakota (United States) license plate, Tribal (documented since 2025), sample GCT276
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Format, years and the law

Format
LLL999, for example GCT276 (L is any letter, 9 any digit)

The serial says nothing, the tribe's seal and name do the talking, one design for each of South Dakota's nine Sioux tribes, with no county number in sight. The plate fee is routed to that tribe for reservation roads and bridges.

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 2025; 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, and truck.
Colours
Characters #1D2849
About this plate
TRIBAL PLATES. Included as a core distinct class because South Dakota separately serialises and separately authorises it by statute, and because it is the most substantively distinctive plate program in group midwest-b. SDCL 32-5-123's own text was not read (gap).
Who can have one
ANY RESIDENT may obtain Indian tribal plates, on having registered the vehicle, paid the current year's county plate fees and supplied a copy of the current registration, note the agency states no tribal-membership requirement
Fee
$10.00 initial fee, no renewal fee, plus a $12.00 mailing fee; application on form MV-101

Legal basis and sources

  1. SD DOR: the nine participating tribes, the any-resident eligibility rule, the in-place-of-regular-plates display requirement, the $10 initial and no-renewal fee structure, the $12 mailing fee and form MV-101. Cites... https://dor.sd.gov/individuals/motor-vehicle/cars-trucks-vans/personalized-specialty-plates/

This plate in your app

The series id is us-sd-tribal. The API returns its format, validation, colours and designs with the rest of South Dakota's series:

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