Vehicle registration plates of Sweden

Vehicle registration plates of Sweden are used for most types of vehicles in Sweden. They have three letters first, a space and three digits after, when read from left to right. The combination is simply a serial number and has no connection with a geographic location. The last digit is used to show what month the car has to undergo vehicle inspection. Vehicles like police cars, fire trucks, public buses and trolley buses use the same type of plate as normal private cars and cannot be directly distinguished by the plate alone. Military vehicles have special plates.

Ordinary plates have black text on a white background. They consist of three letters first, a space and three digits after. This space was formerly used for a taxation sticker. Above it the vehicle identification number is printed and above the last digit the date of plate manufacture is printed. All vehicles must legally carry both a front and a rear plate except for motorcycles, trailers (rear only), tractors and other off-road machinery (front only). The registration number is tied to the vehicles VIN and remains unchanged, even after change of ownership, until the vehicle is scrapped or exported. So it is possible to decommission a registered vehicle for any length of time. A decommissioned registered vehicle does not require road tax or a valid insurance. The registration plate remains on the vehicle while decommissioned. Registration numbers of scrapped, exported and de-registered vehicles are put in quarantine before they are re-used with new registered vehicles.

The only possible coding to be seen by looking at the plate alone is when the vehicle must undergo inspection. The last digit of the plate denote this. Note that the months May and June are missing. This is to reduce the number of inspections for the summer months. Vehicles that don't undergo inspection within their period get an automated failure and may not be driven on public roads.

All letters in the Swedish alphabet are used, except the letters I, Q, V, Å, Ä and Ö. 91 letter combinations are not used, since they may be offensive, political or otherwise unsuitable. Examples: APA (monkey), DUM (stupid), FAN (devil, damn), FEG (cowardly), FEL (error, wrong), FUL (ugly), GAY, HOT (threat), LAT (lazy), NRP (Nordiska Rikspartiet), OND (evil), SEX, SUP (snaps), TOA (toilet), UFO, USA, XXL (extra extra large) and many others. Also "WTC 911" was disallowed due to the disaster in World Trade Center (WTC) on 9/11 2001 (911) as well as "WTC 119", because dates are read as day/month in Swedish. The road authority has made the list, which is larger than those in most other countries, to avoid requests to replace issued plate numbers once they are deemed unacceptable, which would cause administrative problems.

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