Vehicle registration plates of British Columbia

The Canadian province of British Columbia first required its residents to register their motor vehicles in 1904. Registrants had to provide their own licence plates for display until 1913, when the province began to supply plates.

In 1956, the Canadian provinces and U.S. states came to an agreement with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, Automobile Manufacturers Association, and National Safety Council that standardized the size for license plates for vehicles, except those for motorcycles, at 15cm in height X 30cm in width (6 inches X 12 inches in the U.S.), with standardized mounting holes. The 1954 (dated 1955) issue was the first British Columbia licence plate that complied with these standards.

Licence plate serials for passenger vehicles omit the following letters: I, O, Q, U, Y, and Z. From the introduction of the ABC-123 series in 1970 until the end of the 123-ABC series in 2014, the set of 20 available letters was divided into two 10-letter blocks: A-K and L-X. When a serial reached the end of a block, the next issue would roll over to the start of the same block, so that AAK was followed by ABA, rather than AAL. Likewise, AAX was followed by ALA, rather than ABA. The serials were issued in two sets of 8 blocks each (letters first 1970-2001, then numbers first 2001-2014): AAA-KKJ, AAL-KKX, ALA-KXK, LAA-XKK, ALL-KXX, LLA-XXK, LAL-XKX, and LLL-XXX. As of the AB1-23C series introduced in 2014, the serials are being issued in a single 20-letter block, in alphabetical order (i.e. AA0-00A to AX9-99X, then BA0-00A, etc.).

501-600

601-999

501-999

*Unconfirmed

On November 28, 2016 BC announced its new BC Parks Future Strategy. In this, was the mention of using a special ICBC issued licence plate that would have the proceeds go to preserving BC Parks. On January 18, 2017 ICBC unveiled the new plates. There are 3 different designs and they went on sale January 29, 2017, through the Autoplan broker network. They are $50 for the initial purchase with $33 going to fund BC Parks. After that, there is an annual renewal fee of $40, 100% of which goes to funding the parks system. In just under 8 weeks since becoming available, it was reported that 10,000 BC Parks plates have been sold; this includes all 3 deisgns.

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