United States license plate designs and serial formats

In the United States, the appearance of license plates is frequently chosen to contain staples, cultures, or slogans associated with the issuing jurisdiction, which are the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, each of which independently registers motor vehicles.

Formats for license plate numbers may be consistent within the state. For example, Delaware and Rhode Island were formerly able to use six-digit all-numeric serials due to their low respective populations. Several populous states use seven-character formats of three letters and four numbers, including 1ABC234 in California and ABC1234, ABC 1234, or ABC-1234 in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. Other formats include Florida, which uses ABC-D12; Connecticut and Illinois, which use AB-12345; Illinois, which uses A12 3456; and Maryland, which uses 1AB2345. However, many states, such as Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, use a 3-letter, 3-number format in the format ABC-123, 123-ABC, or some variant thereof.