ARCHIVED - New changes coming to Spanish licence plates in September
From next month, cars with plates beginning with ‘M’ with hit the roads in Spain
There are around 35 million vehicles circulating on Spanish roads today and the vast majority display the standard licence plates adopted in Europe: four digits, three consonant letters and the EU flag on the left.
Changes are coming on September 1 however, as newly manufactured vehicles will begin using the letter ‘M’, since the latest combination of ‘LZX’ has been exhausted.
It’s taken around three years to use up all the licence plate possibilities beginning with ‘L’, an unusually long period due to the low number of vehicles registered during the pandemic. Now, the DGT expects he first cars with ‘MBB’ licence plates to hit the roads next month.
Spanish cars changed the registration system in September 2000, ditching letters to denote where the vehicle was produced, such as ‘B’ for Barcelona or ‘M’ for Madrid. Many nationalist parties were against this move, but dealers and private sellers welcomed it, claiming that it is now easier to sell second-hand car between different communities.
Why are there no vowels on Spanish licence plates?
The number and letter combo on licence plates allows only consonants and doesn’t use any vowels, to avoid any offensive or rude combinations in Spanish like ‘PIS’ or ‘ANO’, and ones that would personalise a car with proper names, such as ‘EVA’ or ‘ANA’.
Vowels aren’t the only anomaly though: the letters ‘Ñ’ and ‘Q’ are avoided as they could be confused with ‘N’ and ‘O’, nor are ‘LL’ or ‘CH’ used.
How to tell the age of a car from its licence plate
As well as ensuring that vehicles are quickly identifiable in the case of an accident or traffic infraction, we can easily tell how old a car is by checking the licence plate number. Below are the combinations in use since the new system was adopted:
- BBB to BZZ registration: September 2000 – October 2002
- CBB to CZZ registration: October 2002 – September 2004
- DBB to DZZ registration: September 2004 – May 2006
- FBB to FZZ registration: May 2006 – February 2008
- GBB to GZZ registration: February 2008 – December 2010
- HBB to HZZ registration: December 2010 – November 2014
- JBB to JZZ registration: November 2014 – June 2017
- KBB to KZZ registration: June 2017 – September
- LBB to LZZ registration: September 2019 – September 2022
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Image: DGT
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