Vehicle Registration Plates of Germany - Format

Format

The present German number plate format has been in use since 1994. As with many plates for countries within the European Union, a blue strip on the left shows a shortened country code in white text (D for Deutschland = Germany) and the Flag of Europe (12 golden stars forming a circle on a blue background).

The rest of the license plate uses black print on a white background. Just after the country code strip is a one, two or three letter abbreviation, which represents the city or region where the car was registered, such as B for Berlin. These letters usually coincide with the German districts (complete list); in some cases an urban district and the surrounding non-urban district share the same letter code. Where this happens, the number of the following letters and digits is usually different. For example, the urban district of Straubing (SR) has one letter after the code (SR - A 123). The surrounding district Straubing-Bogen has two letters (SR - AB 123) after the code. However, these different systems are being used in fewer cases, as many cities that share their code with the surrounding rural districts have started using all codes for both districts without any distinction; the city of Regensburg, for example, and the surrounding rural district Regensburg used different systems only until 2007.

The number of letters in the city/region prefix code mostly reflects the size of the district. The basic idea was to even out the number of digits on all license plates, because the largest districts would have more digits after the prefix for more cars. The largest German cities generally only have one letter codes (B=Berlin, M=Munich, K=Cologne (Köln), F=Frankfurt, L=Leipzig, S=Stuttgart), most other districts in Germany have two or three letter codes. Therefore, cities or districts with fewer letters are generally assumed to be bigger and more important. Reflecting that, most districts tried to get a combination with fewer letters for their prefix code.

Districts in eastern Germany usually have more letters, for two reasons:

• Fewer people live in eastern German districts, so the number of cars registered is smaller and hence the use of three letter codes.
• With the introduction of the current system on 1 July 1956 in then West Germany including Berlin (West), letters had been reserved for all east German districts of that time. However, a lot of those districts were changed over the years, and in 1990 after German reunification, many of the possible shorter combinations had already been used up in western Germany.

There are a number of exceptions e.g. Germany's second largest city Hamburg (HH, Hansestadt Hamburg, because of its historical membership in the Hanseatic League, reflected already in its prefix used between 1906 and 1945). Similar is the case of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven, forming the State of Bremen, sharing the common prefix HB (1906–1947, and again since 1956), differentiated by the number of letters and digits added.

In 1956 also Lübeck received its former prefix HL, already used between 1906 and 1937, when its statehood was abolished. In analogy to these three northwestern cities, but without historical examples of formerly issued prefixes, four northeastern Hanseatic cities, Greifswald, Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar, chose the prefixes HGW, HRO, HST and HWI, since the shorter HG (Hochtaunuskreis, capital: Bad Homburg vor der Höhe), HR (Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, capital: Homberg (Efze)), HS (Kreis Heinsberg) and HW (Kreis Halle in Westphalia) were already taken by west German districts.

More west German districts have prefixes derived from the names of their capitals: Ammerland (WST, after Westerstede), Dithmarschen (HEI, after Heide in Dithmarschen), Harburg (WL, after Winsen upon Luhe), Herzogtum Lauenburg (RZ, after Ratzeburg) etc.

The letter "G" was reserved for the east German city of Gera, although it is much smaller than the west German Gelsenkirchen ("GE"). The letter "L" had been reserved for Leipzig, but in 1977 it was assigned to the newly formed rural district Lahn-Dill-Kreis. This casts some light on how unlikely a reunification was regarded at that time. In 1990, Leipzig claimed back the letter "L", and it was reassigned, and Lahn-Dill-Kreis had to change to LDK.

The reason for this scheme is however not to display size or location, but simply to have enough combinations available within the maximum length of eight characters per plate.

After the location name there are the emission test and vehicle safety test stickers (see below), followed by one or two usually random letters and one to four usually random numbers. The total quantity of letters and numbers on the plate is never higher than eight. One letter with low numbers are normally reserved for motorcycle use since the plate space of these vehicles is smaller.

A problem with this scheme is that the space is a significant character and must be thought of when writing down a number. For example B MW 555 is not the same number as BM W 555. The confusion can be avoided by writing a hyphen after the city code, as in the old number plates, like B-MW 555. For this reason, the police will always radio the location name and spell out the next letters using the German telephone alphabet, which varies somewhat from the English one. Thus, B MW 555 would be radioed as "Berlin, Martha, Wilhelm, fünf-fünf-fünf" and BM W 555 as "Bergheim, Wilhelm, fünf-fünf-fünf".

For an extra charge of 10.20 Euro car owners can also buy personalized plates. Car owners can simply choose the numbers or letters instead of the random ones at the end, provided of course they are unique and not a prohibited combination. For example, people living in the town of Pirna might choose PIR-AT 77, "Pirat" being the German for "pirate". Kiel is one of few places (others are Brake (capital of the district of Wesermarsch), Cham, Daun, Emden, Halle, Hamm, Heide, Herne, Hof, Kleve, Kusel, Lauf, Pirna, Plön, Regen, Ulm, Unna and Wesel) where the number plate can be the city name: 'KI-EL'.

Germany includes diacritical marks in the letters of some codes, that is the letters Ä, Ö and Ü. Such a thing is rarely done in other European countries, but also appears on Swedish (letters Å, Ä and Ö), Croatian and Serbian (letters Č, Š and Ž) Danish personal registration plates (letters Å, Æ and Ø) and Åland registration plates (letter Å). However, there are no two codes where the only difference is that one letter is A and Ä, O and Ö or U and Ü. The same holds for the letters O and Q, while the only pair of codes with the letters I and J is IL for Landkreis Ilmenau and JL for Landkreis Jerichower Land.