Vehicle Registration Plates of Canada - Showing Current Registration On Plates

Showing Current Registration On Plates

Historically, many Canadian plates were replaced every year, although the most common practice in modern times is to send new validation stickers to vehicle owners every year or two, to indicate that the vehicle registration is still valid.

Plates that are not up to date quickly attract the attention of law enforcement, because registration "renewal" is a transaction that can usually be undertaken only by the car's registered owner, once certain requirements have been met, and because registration fees are a source of government revenue. A delinquent registration sticker is often an indicator that the vehicle may be stolen, that the vehicle's owner has failed to comply with the applicable law regarding emission inspection or insurance, or that the vehicle's owner has unpaid traffic or parking tickets. Even with the stickers, most provinces previously required that all licence plates be replaced every few years; that practice is being abandoned by many provinces because of the expense of continually producing large numbers of plates.

The sticker is usually placed on one corner of the plate, while the month of the year in which the plate would expire is printed in an opposing corner. Some jurisdictions combine the year and month on one sticker. In others, the plate's validation is a decal displayed from the inside of the windshield. The colour of plate stickers and windshield decals often change annually, to allow for easier detection by police. Quebec no longer issues plate stickers and has not done so since 1992. Saskatchewan stopped issuing the stickers on November 1, 2012, as a cost saving measure.

Most validation stickers are either serialized (with the serial number recorded on the registration), or are printed by a special printer at the time of registration or renewal with the vehicle's licence plate number on them to discourage fraudulent sticker use, as the sticker will be valid only for the plate for which it was intended.

Currently, Quebec and Saskatchewan are the only provinces in which decals are not used. Instead, the police rely on the use of cameras and computers that automatically report any plates for which the registration is expired (making the use of fake stickers obsolete), the car has been reported as stolen and/or similar reasons. That said, the Registration Certificate is the only way for the owner to prove that a vehicle has valid registration.