Is Your Car Number Plate Worth Much?

Can you make cash from selling your car registration plate – or perhaps buying one?

Us Brits have spent a record of £102,000,000 on personalised number plates for our cars in the last 12 months. A report now claims that this brings the Treasury’s total pull from custom car number plates to a remarkable £2 billion since the DVLA began flogging these particularly well-liked plates back in 1989. It also means there’s the outside chance that any of us could make a bit of cash from our car registration. Even the default ones we get when they’re just randomly generated.

Also, in addition to the Treasury’s sales, there’s a very active second-hand market, where an enormous assortment of personalised plates for your car are traded. The five most expensive plates ever sold in the UK are:

M1 – traded in 2006 at a charity sale for £331,000, to a mobile phone magnate – who also said he had purchased it for his son.

1D – traded in 2009 for £352,000. It also set a new record at the time for the steepest registration ever sold straight to the customer from the DVLA, whereas usually these highly priced plates come from mostly private seller.

S1 – traded back in 2008 for £404,000. It’s widely believed to be the first ever number plate to be registered in Scotland, initially sold in 1903 so it’s no surprise that it’s especially sought after.

F1 – traded back in 2008 for £440,625 to an anonymous businessman based in the Bradford area. The purchaser said he has since had offers all over the world of over millions for it apparently, but so far he still refuses to sell it.

25 O – flogged for only £518,000 only two years ago in 2014 to a car salesman who specialises in Ferraris. Apparently the number plate is now adorning his Ferrari 250. He also stated in the report that he predicts the plate to rise even further in value, and to ultimately become the UK’s first number plate for a car sold for at least £1 million.

A special mention also goes to number plate KR15 HNA, which was traded for a staggering £233,000 last year, which was the largest price ever attained for, and is quite a surprise for a standard UK number plate, but there you go, you never know how much the plate the DVLA has seen fit to bestow upon your vehicle is worth really. You could be in for a nice surprise one day.