This is an accepted version of this page The U.S. state of New York was the first to require its residents to register their motor vehicles, in 1901.

In 1956, the United States, Canada and Mexico came to an agreement with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the Automobile Manufacturers Association and the National Safety Council that standardized the size for license plates for vehicles (except those for motorcycles) at 6 inches (15 cm) in height by 12 inches (30 cm) in width, with standardized mounting holes.

In late 1979, the state introduced new narrower dies that were to be used on the upcoming seven-character passenger plates.

During 1990, the security marks changed, with "Liberty" replaced by the last two digits of the year in which the sheeting was manufactured (the plates may actually date from later).

In 1993, the marks changed again to feature 3M lot numbers, which were used until the end of Liberty plate manufacture in 2000.

This plate consists of dark blue numbers on a gold background, and retains the ABC-1234 serial format.

On August 19, 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the initiation of a statewide survey to select a new design for New York's license plates, which would be available in April 2020.

[9][10] Originally, starting in April 2020, plates older than ten years would have to be replaced upon the renewal of vehicle registration.

[11][12] However, as with the Empire Gold plates, there was controversy over the mandatory replacement scheme,[13] leading Cuomo's administration to consider reducing the new-plate fees.

[15][16] The first deliveries of the new plate design to state DMVs took place in April 2020, but ended up being returned without entering circulation.

These early manufactures, in the series KAA through KCH, were too reflective and thus impossible for toll and speed cameras to read.

[17] New York state therefore only started issuing Excelsior plates beginning with the KDA series.

In 1977, the NYSDMV began to allow vanity plates featuring up to six letters (e.g. ALBANY, WAYNE, METS-1).

In 1978, narrower dies were introduced that allowed for vanity plates featuring up to eight characters (e.g. BROOKLYN, AMERICA, GRADE-12).

Vanity plates began to be issued for some non-passenger types in 1982, including Commercial, Motorcycle, and Trailer.

Since the introduction of the Empire State base in 2001, all vanity plates have been manufactured with screened, rather than embossed, combinations.

[22] New York never placed the full name of the county of registration explicitly on its standard-issue plates.

Some states encode the county of issuance into the selection of serial number, with varying degrees of subtlety.