Registration Plates Explained - Any Car Online

With the new 2020 "20" registration number plate coming out, we thought it might be a good idea to clear up any confusion about how number plates work in the UK.

In this Car Registration Plate Guide, we look at the updates to the modern system. With this you can work out the age of any new vehicle!

The Modern Registration Plate System

Twice a year since 2001, number plates are updated with a new code to signify the year and the month of registration, either March or September.

Using this system, you can identify the time of registration, and generally the age, of most vehicles.

To match this timeline, car manufactures often release new updates to their lease cars around this time.

In the above example you can see three sections to a UK Number plate. These are the DVLA memory tag, age identifier and random spacer letters.

The most important of these is the Age ID

The two numbers in a registration plate correspond to the age of the vehicle, where the first number indicates the month of registration and the second indicates the year.

Below is a handy list of the years.

2001
   March = ×/Y   
September = 51

2002
   March = 02
   September = 52

2003
   March = 03
   September = 53

2004
   March = 04
   September = 54

2005
   March = 05
   September = 55

2006
   March = 06
   September = 56

2007
   March = 07
   September = 57

2008
   March = 08
   September = 58

2009
   March = 09
   September = 59

2010
   March = 10
   September = 60

2011
   March = 11
   September = 61

2012
   March = 12
   September = 62

2013
   March = 13
   September = 63

2014
   March = 14
   September = 64

2015
   March = 15
   September = 65

2016
   March = 16
   September = 66

2017
   March = 17
   September = 67

2018
   March = 18
   September = 68

2019
   March = 19
   September = 69

2020
   March = 20
   September = 70

2021
   March = 21
   September = 71