Vehicle registration plates of Norway
The registration plates of cars in Norway are maintained by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications.
The design of the plates remained the same until 2002, when the road authorities decided on a new font which standardized the width of each character.
[1] The new design was unsuccessful due to legibility issues, for example the letters "A" and "R" were often hard to distinguish.
From 2006 the font was changed again to improve legibility, and space was provided for a blue nationality stripe with a Norwegian flag.
This includes logging and mining equipment, snowmobiles, various transports at airports and ports, etc.
This category is primarily intended for tradesmen, couriers and such, but there is no restriction on who can own or operate such a vehicle.
These are diplomatic corps plates; they are used on official cars of foreign embassies and consular services.
[5] Military test plates, with two or three letters (FMU or T-U) followed by three number with leading zero.
Starting in 2017, it is possible to apply for personalised number plates bearing any combination of two to seven letters and digits, with certain exceptions, mainly for offensive words or phrases and registered trademarks.
Subject to those conditions, and upon payment of a NOK 9 000 fee, the applicant is granted the exclusive right to use the requested registration number on any class A or E vehicle they own for ten years.
[6] Between 1993 and 2012, self-adhesive validation stickers in primary colours were issued annually to every car that had valid road tax and insurance and had passed its latest biennial safety and emissions test.
The stickers included the registration number in the form of a bar code, and changed colour every year on a three-year cycle: red, blue and yellow.
This stripe is blue with Norway's national flag and international vehicle registration code "N", in a similar format to that used by many central European countries before they became EU members.
The resemblance to EU registration plates infuriated some adherents of the anti-EU movement, leading the Public Roads Administration to issue white or black adhesive labels with which they could cover the blue stripe.
[4] All Norwegian licence plates for civilian vehicles have a prefix of two letters, followed by a sequence of numbers.
Additionally, the combinations "NS" and "SS" have been omitted because of their connotations to World War II.
Example; BL50000 will always be the real-life version of the legendary "Il Tempo Gigante [nb]" from the Flåklypa Grand Prix movie.
The car registration number is not altered when the owner moves to another town, or if it is sold.
The registration number is assigned to a vehicle's chassis number (often etched into the wall, or on a plaque inside the engine room (older cars), or on a small plate in the lower corner of the windscreen (newer cars)) when it is first imported to Norway.
Oslo began in 1971 with "DA", and proceeded to "DB" around 1974, to DC in 1977, DD around 1980, DE around 1984, DF around 1987, DH in 1992, DJ around 1997, DK around 2000, DL around 2006, DN around 2008, and DP around 2010.
From 1 April 1913 to 31 March 1971 only a single letter was used on Norwegian vehicle license plates.
