| Slovak Licence Plates Since April 1st, 1997 |
General: Since 1st May of 2004, Slovakia is a member of the EU, new plates are now being issued. The european blue band on the left side is added and the Coat of Arms of Slovakia dropped, leaving only our international prefix SK in white colour. Colours are white for background and black for letters and numbers. Dimensions are the usual European, 520x110cm. Passenger cars and trucks: Larger Photo AB-123CD or this picture by Eugenio: ZA-321BP The first two letters (AB) is the code of the district. Half of these districts were created in 1997, added to the old system of districts. In two cities: Bratislava and Kosice, we have more than one district, for BA there are five and four for Kosice. However, both cities use only one city code on the plates. After the code, 3 serial numbers follow, from 001 to 999. Leading zeroes are always used. The licence plate ends with 2 serial letters from A to Z, including I, O; excluding Q and W (total of 24) A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, X, Y, Z District with the most population, Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) is now at the end of Kx serial letters. The smallest district, with population about 20 000 has only AD. For details about highest numbers see this page For details about lowest numbers seen see this page Personalized: Larger Photo List of seen You have this option, but it's not as popular as in Austria, for example. They are only giving these to new registrations, you have to pay an extra fee, I think 500Sk or 5000Sk per plate. (cca 40-42Sk =1Euro) The first two letters have to be the district code and five letters or numbers follow. No more, no less. Letters O and X and zero are not allowed on the first position. Numbers are only allowed on 4th and/or 5th position. Q and W are allowed on these plates, such as for CA-QUEEN. For some reason, plates such as BB-AAAAA or PK-EEEEE are somewhat popular. Motorcycles: Photo The same coding, colours and rules as for cars and trucks, only smaller size: 240x150cm. MCs had to replace their old plates by 31.12.1998, so you won't see any old MC plates now; they usually have AA or AB series within the district, up to AD or AE for Bratislava. They could be still issuing some unused numbers from the AA or AB series. Trailers: Photo AB-123YC Have the same coding as above, exception is only the letter Y as the first serial letter. For example, CA-787YB is a trailer. This was not a good choice of coding, because, Komarno has already KN-YF and max for passengers for KN is in Bx. Especially, in the south-western part of Slovakia such as KN, DS, NZ, the trailer series are far from the passenger plates. Special: AB-X123 or AB-XC123 Used for vehicles belonging to the Police, Slovak Railways, Slovak Post, Slovak Telecomunications and even private security companies. They can choose either this special licence plate or the normal civilian. Most of them use civilian plates, I think. The special format is: First two are letters of the district code, than X as "special character" follows, at the end, 3 serial numbers. If up to X-999 is used, second letter can be added: XA-123, XB-123.. The AB-X123 format could be seen anywhere, only Bratislava has so far reached the XA level. Most bigger districts go up to around X150 or so, the smaller ones below hundred or even ten. Cars for Export: AB-V123 or AB-VC123 Square size, yellow background with black letters. The first two are district codes, second is V, with possible second letter and 3 serial numbers. I have seen BA-VB 513 for Bratislava and few of them on the web for smaller disctricts with only one serial letter, the V. They are quite rare to spot.The highest so far is BA-VB846. Sport Cars: AB-S123 or AB-SC123 Same format as export cars, only in blue on white and with letter S instead of V. I have seen two, so far that were not on the internet, and that is ZH-S002 and BA-S006.I don't think they will reach more than the second letter, not even for BA. Dealers: Photo AB-M123 or AB-MC123 Red on white, coding same as above, with 2 letters for district, letter M with possible second letter and 3 serial numbers. These are used on cars new-bought before recieving the regular plate. Most likely issued to dealership, used by more cars (not at the same time) Issued only in one piece, used at the rear of the car. They are square sized.The highest number seen was BA-M913. Numbers start at 001, for smaller districts, highs are usually below 100. These are seen quite commonly. Diplomatic: Photo EE 12345 or ZZ 12345 Blue background, yellow characters except of the Coat of Arms, which is in full colours. We have two types of diplomatic plates. One type is for diplomatic staff of diplomatic missions in Slovakia, these people have special rights on the road and diplomatic imunity. Prefix EE is where the district code would be. It seems that the first two numbers out of the five is the country code. For not-diplomatic staff, we have the ZZ prefix and 5 numbers as well. Hyphen is not used. Diplomatic plates are seen usually in Bratislava and sometimes in other larger cities. (Except for one in KE and one in LM, all diplomatic missions are in the capital, Bratislava) Examples: EE 04036, EE 13500, ZZ 4408, ZZ 17003. Government: P-12345 This is for the VIPs or high officials, such as the Premier, the President and so on. I think that each of the Vice Premiers and each Ministry has at least one of these plates. When you have the prefix P with five numbers following, good for you. You have certains rights on the road and usually a police car making a way for you. Five numbers, the first two are always zeroes. The lower the number, the more VIP it is. The President has P-00001 and P-00002. The highest one seen so far is in the 180s. The leading zeroes are always used. It seems that old ones are being changed to europlates. BA-NR: Bratislava is in the Kx series now, but BA-001NR was seen already. What was it? The solution came from Viktor who saw Bela Bugar getting out of BA-003NR. Who is Mr.Bugar? He is currently the Vice-Chairman of Narodna Rada Slovenskej Republiky (the National Council of the Slovak Republic) so it seems that NRSR is stealing combinations from BA. :) 005 and 008 were also seen. Military: Army plates are similar to the normal type, but there are no letters, only numbers. Example is 50-78050. In place of SK on normal plates, there is ASR and the Coat of Arms of Slovak Republic. The old plates can also be seen. The numbers are arranged a little differently. It has 3 2 2 format. There is a big hyphen in the first space and shorter in the second place. More like a dot. I have seen only 2 of these new ones, they all begin with 5. Most of the old begins with 4. The coding seems to based on years. The first two numbers + 50 = the year. Therefore, 482 would be registered in 1998 and similarly, 363 in 1986, 51 in 2001, and so on.. The newest type, which is similar to 1997 plates, is 5x-xxxxx, the 4xx-xxxx type is similar to the old plates, ABC 12-34 type. And the 3xx-xxxx type is similar to ABC-12-34 type used in communist Czechoslovakia. Colours: for the 5 series, its always black on white. 4xx follow the pre-1997 plates rule, black on white is used for passanger cars and black on yellow for trucks or heavier vehicles. For 3xx, they are black on white; maybe black on yellow, I'm not sure. Some of the oldest look like hand-painted. Examples: 482-7852, 337-7356, 482-7850, 352-3733, 363-0196, 465-7376 I have seen also B 41875 and B 60186, black on white, but smaller. These are Civilian Defense. No more info about it. Without technical capability: Larger Photo I don't really understand what do they mean by this.These are green on white, square format. Starting with C, five numbers follows. Second letter could be added if needed in the future. Examples: C 04486, C 02225. There is supposed to be no coding.. Codes for Districts and Highest Seeings Old Licence Plates of Slovakia Last updated 11.10.2004 (dmy) |
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