The U.S. state of

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

first required its residents to register their motor vehicles and display

license plate A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate (Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificatio ...

s in 1913. , plates are issued by the

Montana Department of Justice The Montana Department of Justice is a state law enforcement agency of Montana. The Department is equivalent to the State Bureau of Investigation A state bureau of investigation (SBI) is a state-level detective agency in the United States. Th ...

through its Motor Vehicle Division. Front and rear plates are required for most classes of vehicles, while only rear plates are required for motorcycles and trailers.

Passenger baseplates

1913 to 1975

In 1956, the United States, Canada, and Mexico came to an agreement with the

American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) is a non-governmental, voluntary, tax-exempt, nonprofit educational association. AAMVA is a private corporation which strives to develop model programs in motor vehicle administration, ...

, the

Automobile Manufacturers Association The Automobile Manufacturers Association was a trade group of automobile manufacturers which operated under various names in the United States from 1911 to 1999. A different group called the Automobile Manufacturers' Association was active in the ...

and the National Safety Council that standardized the size for license plates for vehicles (except those for

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...

s) at in height by in width, with standardized mounting holes. The 1956 (dated 1957) issue was the first Montana license plate that complied with these standards.

1976 to present

Optional plates

All optional plates issued from 2003 onwards use an ABC123 serial format. Since 2012, this format has also been used on the Montana Centennial replica plate (above).

Before 2003

Non-passenger plates

Discontinued

County coding

Montana established a numeric county-code system for its license plates in 1934, which remains in use today (except on optional plates). With some exceptions, the order of the codes is based on the respective populations of the state's 56 counties according to the

1930 United States census The United States census of 1930, conducted by the Census Bureau one month from April 1, 1930, determined the resident population of the United States to be 122,775,046, an increase of 13.7 percent over the 106,021,537 persons enumerated durin ...

References

External links

Montana license plates, 1969–present
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vehicle Registration Plates Of Montana

Transportation in Montana Montana transportation-related lists