Vehicle Registration Plates of Russia - Runout Problem

Runout Problem

As per GOST provision, only 1,726,272 combinations may be issued within one administration unit. In certain regions, the amount of vehicles exceeds that number, and the combination may not be reused after a vehicle was taken off the registration. All this creates an issue of running out of numbers.

A short-term solution was introducing more codes for those regions. Thus, some regions have 2 codes issued to them, Perm Krai and city of St. Petersburg have 3, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Moscow Oblast both have 4, and the city of Moscow has 6 codes. But this does not fully solve the problem, as the authorities may eventually run out of regional codes because any code containing three-numeral code with any first numeral except for 1 will not fit without changing the standardized layout of the plate.

Introduction of new style license plate is being considered as a future solution.