Vehicle registration plates of New Zealand
To be operated on (or parked on) any public road, most types of motor vehicles and trailers must be registered and display the corresponding registration plate(s).
Private cars, taxis, and heavier road vehicles in New Zealand have number plates with up to six characters.
[2] This system changed when steel supplies became limited during World War II: from 1941 plates remained valid for five years.
In November 1986, the plate design officially changed to black serials on a reflectorised white background, following a trial run some weeks earlier.
The authorities introduced the new font in order to foil attempts to cut out letters and put them back in upside-down when forging licence plates.
[citation needed] Most plates come in rectangular form with all the characters of the serial on a single horizontal line.
Unlike white plates, these do not feature a holographic pattern on the background field, and instead use a small 'NZ' logo at the bottom righthand corner to confirm validity.
Other two-letter series skipped include BO, FA, FO, FU, II, and IO.
From late 1996 until the end of the two-letter format in April 2001, each series (with three exceptions) started from 1000 instead of from 1, meaning that serials were strictly six characters in length.
As the official representative of the monarch in New Zealand, the Governor General's primary vehicle carries no number plate but instead displays the royal crown.
These include: FAG, FKN, FUC, FUK, FUQ, KGB, KKK, KUM and NGA.
The combinations EBA, FCC, FNA–FNZ, G(A–H)A, MMM, NWA, PCP, PDW, PFZ, PGF, PGR, PHN, PQW, PSD, and PUB were also excluded.
In May 2019, after the Christchurch mosque shootings, the NZTA offered to replace any plates with the prefix "GUN" (issued in 2013) on request, although the series was not withdrawn.
Rights to unique combinations of up to six characters can be purchased from a private company licensed by the NZ Transport Agency.
[10] The purchaser may acquire any unique combination that falls outside the standard numbering sequences (apart from derogatory, obscene, profane or intentionally confusing combinations, or if they promote violence, discrimination or bias)[11] or standard numbers that have fallen into disuse.
New Zealand does not require associating the plate with a vehicle, and allows outright sale rather than just a periodic lease.
Although plate character/number combinations can contain "spaces", they do not form part of the unique identification and are typically not stored (for example, in Police computer-systems).
Number-plate frames attach to the plate and provide space for messages above and/or below the licence number, thus potentially perpetrating advertising.
Some of the vehicle report providers (including CarJam, Autocheck, Checka, That Car) allow to confirm the owner free of charge.
Before purchasing a vehicle, buyers can conduct a search of the Personal Property Securities Register to ensure there is no money owed on it.
A Licence Plate Lookup returns the vehicle's VIN and other data, removing the need for a tradesman to physically locate and record this 17-digit code.
As a result, much of the information contained in the VIN for parts-purchasing purposes is absent[20] and many vehicles still require a tradesperson to physically identify a particular chassis and engine type.
This has reduced the purchase cost of the information and allows businesses to develop their own licence plate lookup systems.
Although many input fields are available[23] most are not mandatory and the quality of the data entered differs depending on the experience of the operator and the information available to them.
Open input fields are used in some instances where lists should be provided causing spelling differences and errors.
The NZTA offers data analysis of the register[24] but not with VIN, engine number or chassis codes as these can uniquely identify a vehicle.
