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Vehicle registration plates of Poland indicate the region of registration of the vehicle given the number plate.
Law
According to Polish law, the registration plate is tied to the vehicle, not the owner. There is no possibility for the owner to keep the licence number for use on a different car, even if it's a cherished registration. The licence plates are issued by the powiat (county) of the vehicle owner's registered address of residence, in the case of a natural person. If it is owned by a legal person, the place of registration is determined by the person's address. Vehicles leased under operating leases and many de facto finance leases will be registered at the address of the lessor. When a vehicle changes hands, the new owner must apply for new vehicle registration document bearing their name and registered address. The new owner may obtain a new licence plate although it is not necessary. In such a situation the licence plates are usually carried over to the new owner, because the change carries an additional cost. Upon purchasing a vehicle from another person, if the vehicle has an EU plate, the new owner must replace it with a registration for their address and area, and give the EU plate to their powiat licensing authority to free up numbers in the future. If the car has a plate dated before May 1, 2006, the owner is free to do whatever they wish with it, as long as it is legal under Polish law. The plaque cannot be replaced if destroyed. The change of the whole set is required.
The change in system shown below in 2001 is related to the reduction in the previous year of the number of voivodeships in Poland from 49 to 16, based on the country's historic regions. The pre-2001 licence plates (white letters on black background) can be used indefinitely, but since they are obsolete they have to be replaced in case of change of vehicle's ownership.
In the pre-2001 model, there were not sufficient letters in the Polish alphabet for each of the old voivodeships to have a single letter. Only the standard latin alphabet was used (excluding Q), and the specific Polish characters with diacritics were excluded in order to make the plates fully internationally readable. Therefore, two letters had to be used to indicate the vehicle's origin (the middle administrative level of powiat was not introduced until 1999). Since the change, the first letter has always denoted the new voivodeship. One additional letter is used in cities with rights of powiat (this applies to 47 of 49 capitals of the old voivodeships, the exceptions being Ciechanów and Sieradz, and numerous major cities). Two additional letters are used in any other powiat.
It is not necessary for EU citizens to immediately re-register the vehicles they have brought with them if they are duly registered and taxed elsewhere in the EU, when living in Poland. This emerges from European law, although local regulations have to date not been changed to reflect the law, leading to officials locally sometimes giving incorrect advice on this point. When in doubt, motorists are recommended to refer to their respective embassies.
Format
Stickers and security measures
The licence plates are invalid without two adhesive stickers with holograms placed on the license plates, and, before 2022,[1] an adhesive plaque bearing the same number as the plates inside the windshield. If the vehicle uses only one licence plate then the second sticker must be attached to the registration documents.
Licence plate types and combinations
Each powiat uses a unique two or three letter code, with the first letter denoting the voivodeship. The number pools listed below are not used in any particular order, although one pool is usually depleted before the next one is used. A visible gap exists between the area code and series, but there is no possibility of confusion if the number is written down without it.
The following characters are used in licence plate examples:
- X – voivodeship code
- XY, XYZ – powiat code
- J, K, L – any allowed letter
- digits
The letters used in licence plates include all standard Latin alphabet letters outside of Q (not used at all in the Polish language). The letters B, D, I, O, and Z cannot be used in series area (on the right, after the gap), because they could be confused with similarly-looking digits. Custom plates are allowed to include these letters though. The leading 0 in numbers is part of the code and is never omitted.
Due to the pool of license plates combinations possibly running out in some areas,[2] in 2022 the Ministry of Infrastructure issued a directive under which extra leading characters were introduced for several of the voivodeships:[3]
- V for Lower Silesian (originally D)
- J for Lesser Poland (originally K)
- A for Masovian (originally W)
- Y for Subcarpathian (originally R)
- X for Pomeranian (originally G)
- I for Silesian (originally S)
- M for Greater Poland (originally P)
Reportedly, the Warsaw district of Mokotów was the first to start issuing AE registration plates following the new directive.[4]
Cars, trucks, and buses
Format:
- XY 12345
- XY 1234J
- XY 123JK
- XY 1J345
- XY 1JK45
- XYZ J234
- XYZ 12JK
- XYZ 1J34 (first digit cannot be 0)
- XYZ 12J4 (last digit cannot be 0)
- XYZ 1JK4 (neither digit can be 0)
- XYZ JK34
- XYZ 12345
- XYZ 1234J
- XYZ 123JK
The number of available unique numbers with these mentioned formats is 1,100,000 for each two-letter powiat code, and 872,400 for each three-letter powiat code. The combinations "XYZ 1234" and "XYZ 123J" are not used, because they would lead to creation of numbers identical to these in the old system. Also, the two-letter powiat codes must be followed by a leading digit, "XY 1...", to avoid confusion with the "XYZ ..." scheme, as the gap is not significant. Electric vehicles have green background on their license plates.
Motorcycles, mopeds, and agricultural vehicles
Format:
- XY 1234
- XY 123J
- XY 1J34 (first digit cannot be 0)
- XY 12J4 (last digit cannot be 0)
- XY 12JK
- XY JK12
- XYZ J234
- XYZ 12JK
- XYZ 1J34 (first digit cannot be 0)
- XYZ 12J4 (last digit cannot be 0)
- XYZ 1JK4 (neither digit can be 0)
- XYZ JK34
- XYZ J23K
- XYZ J2KL (a digit cannot be 0)
Cars – reduced size
Format:
- X 123
- X 12J
- X 1J2
- X J12
- X 1JK
- X JK1
- X J1K
The plates are designed for cars imported from USA and Japan. Reduced size plates are the same width as US plates.
Classic cars
Format:
- XY 12J
- XY 123
- XYZ 1J
- XYZ 12
- XYZ J1
These plates use black text on yellow background with an additional picture of a vintage car on the right side. Vehicles are required to meet three criteria:[5]
- manufactured at least 30 years ago
- the particular model must be out of production for at least 15 years
- consist of at least 75% of original parts
These criteria, however, can be waived for special cases, such as prototype vehicles that were never mass-produced, cars of considerable historical value, or models representing technological breakthroughts. As such, issuing of these plates is always handled on a case-by-case basis by the conservation officer. Registered classic cars are not required to undergo yearly technical checkup unless used for transportation services, such as taxi.
Temporary and export plates
Format:
- X1 2345
- X1 234J
These plates use red text on a white background. The plates wear a seal with month and year of validation. The windshield plaque is not issued with it.
Electric car plates
Introduced on 1 January 2020, they are issued to battery-electric and hydrogen vehicles. They are similar to regular plates but the background colour is light green instead of white. Such vehicles are allowed to drive on bus lanes, therefore visibly different registration plates allow the police to establish whether a vehicle is doing so legally. Electric plates are also used in "American" plates with reduced space.[6]
Competition car plates
They will be introduced on 1 June 2024 and will be issued as temporary plates to competition purposed cars (prepared e.g. for rally). These plates will use red text on a yellow background with the same format as regular plates. Vehicles equipped with those plates will not be street legal.
Testing vehicles
Format:
- X1 234 B
These plates use red text on a white background. The last character is always the letter B (which stands for badawcza, or "research type"). Only car manufacturers and automobile R&D centres are issued these plates.
Custom plates
Format:
- X1 JKLMN
These plates use standard black letters on a white background. Each custom number starts with the letter denoting voivodeship and a single digit, followed by the gap. This digit and next characters can be picked by the owner. Outside the availability the following constrains are used:
- after the gap between 3 and 5 characters can be used
- the first character must be a letter
- no more than 2 last characters can be digits
- all letters come before digits (i.e. they cannot be intermixed)
- any standard Latin letter outside Q can be used (unlike common licence plates)
- resulting plate must not contain or resemble offensive contents
Professional plates
Format:
- X12 34P56 (second letter is always "P")
Since July 2019 dealers of new cars can apply for special number plates with green letters on white background specifically for doing test drives. Those plates are issued exclusively for the company itself and not for a specific vehicle. This means they can be applied to multiple vehicles when needed. Only car retailers can obtain these and such cars can be driven only by the car dealer, owner of the company, their employees or customers, but only when accompanied by an employee.
Diplomatic plates
Format:
- X 123456
White symbols on dark blue background. The leading character is reserved for voivodeship, but in practice all vehicles are issued W and registered by the Masovian voivode no matter the physical location of the mission.[7] The first three digits indicate a country or organization as listed in the table below.
