Vehicle registration plates of Turkey

A contemporary Turkish vehicle registration plate

Turkish car number plates are license plates found on Turkish vehicles. The plates use an indirect numbering system associated with the geographical info. In Turkey, license plates are made by authorized private workshops.

Appearance

The license plate is rectangular in shape and made of aluminum. On the left, there is the country code "TR" in a 4×10 cm blue stripe like in EU countries (without the 12 golden stars). The text is in black characters on white background, and for official vehicles white on black. On all vehicles two plates have to be present, being one in front and the other in rear except motorcycles and tractors. The serial letters use the Turkish letters except Ç, Ş, İ, Ö, Ü and Ğ.

The blue stripe

Euroband like blue stripe on the left hand side of the plates

The blue stripe was introduced after the entry of Turkey to the European Customs Union in 1995, in accordance to compliance to EU laws. Since then, the blue stripe area is often modified by car owners (even by some parliament members like Devlet Bahçeli). The predominant modification of this sorts is to replace the blue color with red and put up the crescent and the star of the Turkish flag. This type of modification is in the grey area of the law, for it does not clearly specify which color is to be used in the stripe.

Additionally, vehicle inspection stickers are often stuck on this area. A modification of the blue stripe area of a Turkish number plate (one common variant):

06 GH 1693

Size

• 15×24 cm in rear only for motorbikes, motorcycles and tractors with rubber wheels,
• 11×52 cm in front and 21×32 cm rear for cars, pickups, vans, trucks and busses. The size is 15×30 cm for imported vehicles if the regular plate does not fit.

Numbering system

The text format on the plates is one of the following:

• "99 X 9999", "99 X 99999"
• "99 XX 999", "99 XX 9999" or
• "99 XXX 99",

In some provinces, numbering is categorized in groups for tax collecting offices of different districts, for example Dolmuş in Ankara have plates of the form "06 J 9999" and a(ny) vehicle from Polatlı, Ankara has plates of the form '06 Pxx 99', "06 ET XXXX" from Etimesgut district. On the other hand, a Dolmuş in Eskişehir has a plate of the form "26 M 9999".

99 - two digits prefix denoting the location, shows the province code number of the main residence of car holder. There are 81 provinces as listed below:

X/XX/XXX – one, two or three letters.

9999/999/99 – four, three or two digits, depending on the number of letters before, not exceeding six letters and digits altogether.

Types

Type (Used by)	Appearance	Format and Explanation
Private vehicles	59 AF 2701	N/A
Provincial governments, university rectors	34 A 4406	99 A 9999 (red characters on white background):
Police	06 A 7655	99 A 99999, 99 AA 999 or 99 AAA 999 (white on blue)
Members of international organizations	06 B 0456	99 B 9999 (blue on white)
Diplomatic corps	34 CD 5034	99 CA 999 to 99 CZ 999: (green on white)
Consulates	34 CE 811	M4C to B 8 45: (white on #00CCCC)
Temporary	16 G 1485	99 G 9999 (black on yellow). Max. 1 month duration.
Temporary customs	39 GMR 032	99 GMR 999 (red on green)
Foreigners with temporary residence permit	34 MA 365	99 MA 999 to 99 MZ 999:
Taxis (Istanbul province only)	34 TSL 83	34 TAA 99 to 34 TKZ 99
Taxis (except Istanbul province)	35 T 9103	99 T 9999
Vanity plates		Turkey allows vanity plates to be issued. A desired text can be written instead of the serial letter place.
The presidential cars		The license plate of the president has no numbers, instead it uses the Presidential Seal of Turkey. Other convoy cars use the format CB 00X[citation needed].
Vice-speaker and chairpeople of the parliamentary commissions	TBMM 037	N/A
Speaker, prime minister, members of the cabinet, chief of the general staff, the highest ranking commanders of armies, some undersecretaries	0019	Gold on red (9999)
Province governors	18 0024	99 9999 (golden on red), with first two-digits as province code number prefix
Official vehicles belonging to the government and public administrations	07 YP 2099	99 AA 999: (white on black), with first two-digits as province code number prefix
Military	706001	999999 (black on a white rectangle of 7×20 cm on the bumper of the vehicle, painted by a stencil). 100999 Army, 300999 Air Force, 500999 Navy, 700999 Gendarmerie
Pre-1996 format (private vehicles)	59 AF 2701	These plates lacked the blue stripe on the left hand side.
Pre-1962 format (private vehicles)		These old plates had the name of the province written in full, black background with white letters and usage of dashes.

Location codes

Location codes by map.

First two digits indicating the province code:

01 Adana 02 Adıyaman 03 Afyonkarahisar 04 Ağrı 05 Amasya 06 Ankara 07 Antalya 08 Artvin 09 Aydın 10 Balıkesir 11 Bilecik 12 Bingöl 13 Bitlis 14 Bolu 15 Burdur 16 Bursa 17 Çanakkale 18 Çankırı 19 Çorum 20 Denizli 21 Diyarbakır 22 Edirne 23 Elazığ 24 Erzincan 25 Erzurum 26 Eskişehir 27 Gaziantep

28 Giresun 29 Gümüşhane 30 Hakkari 31 Hatay 32 Isparta 33 Mersin 34 İstanbul 35 İzmir 36 Kars 37 Kastamonu 38 Kayseri 39 Kırklareli 40 Kırşehir 41 Kocaeli 42 Konya 43 Kütahya 44 Malatya 45 Manisa 46 Kahramanmaraş 47 Mardin 48 Muğla 49 Muş 50 Nevşehir 51 Niğde 52 Ordu 53 Rize 54 Sakarya

55 Samsun 56 Siirt 57 Sinop 58 Sivas 59 Tekirdağ 60 Tokat 61 Trabzon 62 Tunceli 63 Şanlıurfa 64 Uşak 65 Van 66 Yozgat 67 Zonguldak 68 Aksaray 69 Bayburt 70 Karaman 71 Kırıkkale 72 Batman 73 Şırnak 74 Bartın 75 Ardahan 76 Iğdır 77 Yalova 78 Karabük 79 Kilis 80 Osmaniye 81 Düzce

External links

• Media related to License plates of Turkey at Wikimedia Commons
• License plates of Turkey
• Location codes on a map and more detailed info about district codes