Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia

All motorized vehicles including motorcycles in Indonesia are required to have registration plates. The plates need to be displayed in front and at the back of the vehicles.

Except for some special cases (see below), every vehicle license plate in Indonesia follows the following format: LL NNNN LL where "L" are letters of the Latin alphabet, and "N" numbers from "0" to "9" (note that the first number is never a "0"). The first single or double letters denote the area of registration. This is followed by numbers, which can range from one to four digits. This is then followed by one or two letters although they may be optional. For example: DK 1855 BS is a vehicle registered in Bali region, because it begins with DK. A smaller numbers being added to the bottom or the top of the plate (mainly at the bottom), indicates the month and year where the plate will expire, so the owner must repay the tax to get the new one every five years,(for example, "12-21" means "December 2021").

A new format was recently introduced which have three ending letters, due to the increase of motorized vehicle numbers. At first, this format is used for motorcycles since July 2008 until present, for cars in Jakarta, Tangerang, Bekasi and Depok. In the last three letters of this new format, the first letter divides the Jakarta area into sub areas. For example, The first letter of the whole number plate for Jakarta vehicles is "B". For example, "B 1886 CC" indicates it is from Jakarta. But under the new system, the B indicator is not enough. The new system is E.g. "B 1973 SBS". There are now three ending letters. The last two letters are random, but the first letter out of the three dictates the sub areas in Jakarta like: Z is Depok, T is East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur), B is West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat), S is Jakarta Selatan (Southern Jakrta), P is Jakarta Pusat (Central Jakarta), etc. Note that for vehicle plates in Tangerang, Depok, and Bekasi still begins with B from the first letter of the whole plate number which is still representing Jakarta although it is from a different province that Tangerang is in the province of Banten, and Depok and Bekasi is in the province of West Java. It is representing Jakarta, because the three cities are represented as sub areas of Jakarta, because the distance from Jakarta and those three cities are very near.

The lettering convention to denote area of registration is a legacy of the Dutch colonial era and do not reflect the current regional divisions of the country into provinces. Instead, they follow the old system of Dutch Karesidenan or residencies.

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