Vehicle registration plates of Argentina

Argentine license plates (in Spanish, "chapas patentes" or simply "patentes") are used to uniquely identify cars and other motor vehicles in the roads of Argentina. The current system employs three letters followed by three digits, issued consecutively (see details below), but the license plate system underwent important changes before the use of this format.

The history of license plates in Argentina can be broken down in two major phases, the decentralized phase (until 1972) and the centralized one (since 1972). During the decentralized phase, license plates were assigned by each municipality or by the provinces, while during the second phase, the national state took charge of standardizing and centralizing the design and style.

1900s-1972: Decentralization

The first formal license plates were assigned in the 1900s, although few records exist of those. The period comprised between 1916 and 1972 was the most prolific in designs. Since each district was allowed to issue its own license plates, it is very possible to find a small piece of history of each one just by looking at their past plates.

1972-1994: Identifying the provinces

In 1972 the national government standardized the plates, the format being one letter and six digits, printed white on a black background. The numbers were issued consecutively and the first letter identified the issuing province (or city, in the case of Buenos Aires). This letter was usually the province's initial but since several provinces share them, odd assignments were found (such as "X" for Córdoba, "A" for Salta, and "N" for Misiones); this standard is still used in the geocode.

The only two districts to ever surpass one million plates, thus generating a conflict in formatting, were the province of Buenos Aires and the capital, Buenos Aires City, but the issue was quickly fixed by moving the letter slightly upwards and adding the extra number below it.

1994 onwards: All equal

In 1993 the government decreed that all cars sold on or after January 1, 1994 were to have a new license plate design, all used cars sold after that date will get new plates, and the rest of the cars were going to be issued new plates in stages.

This new design contains three letters followed by three digits, and removes any clues identifying the province of origin. This was advertised as a federalist move from the government.

In a move to simplify the transition, all plates issued to cars sold prior to the cut-off date started with the letter "R" (and successively "S", "T", "U" and so on), while the cars that received the plates as their first plate started alphabetically from the letter "A" ("AAA000" being the first). The lettering is stamped in a white font over a black background. The plates also have a white frame with the word "Argentina" on top. All materials are reflective, to improve visibility on the streets. Some plates feature a little "D" or "T" between the letters and the numbers, denoting that this plate is a duplicate or triplicate.

Limits of the system

It is still unclear what will be done when the system runs out of numbers. The 3-letter-plus-3-digit code allows for 26³ × 10³ = 17,576,000 license plates. "RAA-000" to "ZZZ-999" were reserved for older vehicles. Since 1994, new licenses have been issued starting from "AAA-000". In October 2005, new cars have licenses starting with "F", while about the same month in 2004, license plates started with "E". This shows that, if licenses continue to be granted at the current rate, in a few years the system will run out of numbers. An efficient solution would be to add a fourth letter, which will increase the system's capacity by a factor of 26, to 456,976,000 vehicles (a fourth number would only increase it tenfold to 175,760,000 licenses). At August 2008, new cars have licenses starting with "HJ_ ___".