Vehicle registration plates in Ireland

Registration marks on number plates in the Republic of Ireland issued since 1987 have the format YY-CC-SSSSSS where the components are:

• YY — a 2-digit year (e.g. 87 for 1987; 05 for 2005)
• CC — a 1- or 2-character county identifier (see table on the right).
• SSSSSS — a 1- to 6-digit sequence number, starting with the first vehicle registered in the county that year.

Since 1991, the design of the standard Irish number plate has been based on European standard guidelines, with a blue band to the left of the plate containing the 12 stars of the European flag and the country identifier IRL. The rest of the plate has a white background with black characters. Unlike legal requirements in most other European countries, a standard uniform character font is not required. The rules simply require legible black characters, no more than 70 mm high and 36 mm wide, on a white reflective background. The result is that a large variety of perfectly legal font styles may be seen, on either pressed aluminium or acrylic plates, both of which are allowed. Despite the rather relaxed lack of a specified font, the hyphen between the lettering must lie between the minimum dimensions of 13mm x 10mm or the maximum dimension of 22mm x 10mm. Also required is the full Irish language name of the county which must be positioned above the identifier. Vehicle owners may be fined if the plate's format does not meet the requirements and will most certainly automatically fail government vehicle testing NCT which the vehicle is required to undergo on a two-yearly basis.

A vehicle's number plate is determined when it is first registered, the county code being taken from the first owner's postal address. Registration remains fixed on the one vehicle until it is de-registered (exported, destroyed, etc), and cannot be transferred to other vehicles.