A car license plate, in its usual understanding, should solve one simple task: its letters and numbers should be easily readable against a plain background. In the USA, things are noticeably more complex. A specific state's plate might feature oranges, mountain landscapes, palm trees, and other images, which sometimes make the combination itself difficult to decipher.
The main reason is that there is simply no single American car license plate. The system is structured differently: each state independently determines what the plate should look like and what rules govern its use.
Each state issues its own license plates
Federal authorities only handle diplomatic and government plates. Regular registration plates are issued by the 50 states themselves, and each has its own design, motto, and set of rules.
For example, Florida's license plate features oranges, with the inscription “Sunshine State” next to them. New Hampshire uses the phrase “Live Free or Die” — the official motto of that state.
The standard design is not the only option. There are numerous variations of backings dedicated to universities, football teams, turtles, and various branches of the military. For a car owner, this is a way to choose not just a registration plate, but a plate with a specific theme.
However, decorativeness sometimes hinders the primary function of the plate. In Florida, an orange is located directly between the letters and numbers. From a distance, the image can easily be mistaken for a digit — for example, a zero or an eight.
The consequences can be quite practical. In 2012, in Florida, about 3 million drivers ran red lights and did not receive a fine because cameras could not recognize their license plates.
License plate issuance is handled by the DMV — the state agency responsible for automotive matters. Moreover, the American system differs from conventional logic: a registration number is assigned not to a specific car, but to a person.
Therefore, when selling a car, the owner can remove the plates from the old car and install them on a new one. As a result, the same license plate can outlast five or six cars, or even more.
How much does your own word on a license plate cost?
Since the license plate is linked to the owner, it can be personalized. Non-standard thematic backings usually cost an additional $10–30 per year beyond standard registration. A portion of this money is transferred to organizations associated with the chosen design.
This creates an interesting system: a person who chooses a license plate with turtles effectively directs part of the fee to organizations that produce such a backing, meaning they are, in a sense, “feeding the turtles.”
A personal combination of characters costs more — on average from $20 to $50 per year, depending on the state. Usually, up to seven characters are allowed, although in some states the limit is eight. The main restriction is that the chosen combination must not be occupied by another owner in the same state.
But not every word can be put on a car. Theoretically, obscene and offensive combinations are prohibited, and each state has its own stop list, including tens of thousands of options.
When checking, not only direct reading is taken into account. A combination can be:
- read in reverse;
- interpreted with letters replaced by numbers;
- checked for possible meaning in other languages.
If an application seems suspicious, it is sent for review to a special committee of DMV employees. On average across the country, 2 to 5% of applications for personalized plates are rejected.
However, it is impossible to foresee absolutely everything, especially if the combination has meaning in a language that DMV employees do not speak. This is how the illustrative case with a Tesla came about, which had a license plate, let's say, XY TESLA.
Americans with Russian roots drew attention to the possible meaning of this combination. In 2019, the DMV recalled the plate because it could be perceived as a slang Russian term for a male sexual organ. As a result, the most effective filter sometimes turns out to be not DMV employees, but surrounding people who notice the hidden meaning of the combination.
The most expensive license plates consist of a single digit
There is also the opposite situation: some registration plates cost not tens of dollars a year, but huge sums of money.
In Delaware, license plates consist only of numbers and have been issued sequentially since 1910. Therefore, a short number effectively allows one to understand how long the owner's family has been in the state.
This is what made early combinations collectible. Short numbers are sold at auctions for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and some owners even include them in their wills.
The official record belongs to plate number 6 — it was sold for $675,000.
Why 22 states only require a rear license plate
The American system also differs in the number of plates. In 22 out of 50 states, a car receives only one plate, which is installed at the rear.
The history of this decision goes back to approximately the 1910s. At that time, states began issuing metal plates with the embossed year of registration, and motorists had to obtain a new plate annually.
When the number of cars began to be measured in hundreds of thousands, a very practical question arose: why issue two new metal plates for each car every year? Florida switched to a single plate as early as 1922.
Then another reason emerged. In 1942, metal was needed for the war effort, so states one after another began to reduce steel consumption. After the war, many returned to two plates, but some kept only one.
The choice fell on the rear of the car not by chance. In the dark, it is the rear plate that is illuminated, a police car usually follows a violator from behind, and a witness also more often sees a receding car from the back.
The abandonment of the front license plate continues to this day, but metal savings are no longer a factor. Car owners have been appealing to legislators for years with complaints about the need to drill holes in new bumpers for a plate that, in their opinion, spoils the car's appearance. Dealers support the same position.
At the same time, the police oppose the abolition of the front license plate, but in such disputes, their position is not always decisive. Ohio abolished the front plate in 2020, Alaska in 2022, and Utah in 2025.
In the remaining 28 states, the front license plate is still retained, partly due to cameras. The rear plate is relatively easy to cover with cargo or dirt, whereas the presence of a front plate increases the likelihood of it being recorded.
Driving without a mandatory front license plate incurs a fine of $25 to $200. The law of the state where the car is registered applies. Therefore, a car from a state where a front plate is not required can legally drive in a state where local cars are required to have two plates.
How drivers conceal license plates
Sometimes, concealing the rear license plate can happen almost accidentally. American motorists often install bicycle racks or cargo boxes on their hitches. As a result, the equipment completely covers the rear plate.
Formally, this is a violation, but police officers often treat such situations with considerable leniency.
A separate problem is related to temporary license plates. A metal plate does not appear on a new car immediately, so the dealer usually issues a paper temporary plate valid for 30 or 60 days.
In California, until 2019, temporary plates were not issued at all. Therefore, a new car could drive with an empty frame instead of a registration plate for the first six months.
Steve Jobs took advantage of this loophole. Every six months, he would return his Mercedes to the dealer, get a new car of the exact same model, and continue to drive without plates, remaining within the existing rules.
Later, this loophole was closed. Dealers were required to issue paper temporary plates because cars without registration plates could use toll roads for free. Because of this, the state was losing approximately $15 million annually.
In Texas, temporary plates became the basis of a separate shadow business. Scammers created fictitious dealerships or gained access to accounts of real dealers and sold temporary plates online for $50–200.
Such plates effectively led nowhere, so fines issued to the car did not reach the real owner.
In 2021, Texas authorities counted 1,800,000 cars with such plates across the state. In 2025, paper temporary plates were completely abolished in the state: now the dealer immediately issues a permanent metal plate to the buyer.
Where did “ghost cars” come from?
The problem became particularly widespread in New York. Money is involved here again.
Crossing a bridge or tunnel between New Jersey and New York costs almost $17 with a transponder — an electronic tag for automatic payment. Without it, the cost is $23.
Therefore, some motorists deliberately make their license plates unreadable. Such cars have been dubbed “ghost cars.”
Various methods are used: the plate is bent, covered with dirt, or a transparent overlay is installed that creates glare. As a result, the camera cannot properly recognize the characters.
New York loses about $50 million a year due to such cars. To combat them, an interagency task force has been operating since 2024. In over 100 raids, it has impounded more than 5,000 ghost cars.
The license plate has become a key to the database
The modern American license plate no longer only serves the function of visual identification of a car. It is a key to the DMV database, which stores information about the owner, insurance, registration, and fines.
A camera at a traffic light or on a toll road reads the combination of characters, after which the corresponding bill or fine is sent to the owner.
At the same time, the registration plate is gradually transforming into an electronic device. The company Reviver produces license plates with electronic ink. Currently, such devices are only allowed in California and Arizona.
A driver can see information about the car's condition on such a plate, and in case of theft, the plate can independently display a message that the car is wanted.
In late 2022, a group of researchers discovered a vulnerability in the system. They gained the ability to change the text on any plate and see the location of the corresponding car. The problem was fixed within 24 hours, but the principle itself remained: an electronic registration plate is a connected device that knows where the car is.
The usual accidental loss of readability of a license plate usually ends much simpler. If the plate is covered by a bicycle or simply covered in dirt, the owner may be told to remove the equipment or wash the car.
Intentional concealment is perceived differently. If the plate is deliberately covered with a glare-producing film, bent, hidden under a fake paper, or otherwise made unreadable, it may result in police intervention or car impoundment. However, even such an identification system is no longer the limit of car surveillance capabilities.
Flock Safety uses cameras that don't even need to read the license plate. They create a kind of “snapshot” of the car: recording the make, color, body damage, stickers, and other features of the car.
There are already 130,000 such cameras across the US, and every day they record vehicles passing through their field of view. This means that a car can be identified even when its registration plate itself is unreadable.