Vehicle licence

A vehicle licence (also called a vehicle registration certificate in some jurisdictions) is issued by a motor registration authority in a jurisdiction in respect of a particular motor vehicle. A current licence is required for a motor vehicle to be legally permitted to be used or kept on a public road in the jurisdiction. Usually a licence is valid for one year and an annual licence fee is payable before a new one is issued.

A vehicle licence may be a paper document to be kept in the vehicle at all times or in the form of an adhesive sticker to be affixed or displayed on the windshield of the vehicle or on the registration plate. The rules of vehicle licensing are in addition to those of vehicle registration, roadworthiness certification and insurance and other requirements.

Many jurisdictions have ceased issuing or requiring display of registration certificates and have instead adopted number plate recognition systems.

In some countries, such as Norway, the owner annually used to get a sticker to place on the registration plate, if the vehicle is permitted for driving.

In the United States and Canada, an annual or biennial sticker is usually applied to the plate, with a few exceptions. For example, the District of Columbia and a few U.S. states use windscreen stickers, and some U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions issue permanent fleet licence plates. Also, some U.S. states, such as Virginia, require that a motorist obtain a vehicle licence from the city, county, or town government in addition to registering the vehicle with the appropriate agency of the state government, or, in some cases, the federal government.

Some of these jurisdictions have done away with the sticker, leaving registration status available only from a centralized database which authorities reference (by hand, or via automated number plate recognition).

...
Wikipedia