Personal Car Registration

These are commercial vehicles like taxi, cabs, trucks. Yellow number plates have a different tax structure compared to white number plates and commercial car drivers with yellow plates are also mandated to have a commercial driving permit.

Commercial Car Registration

The most common type of number plate, attributed to private or non-commercial cars. Vehicles bearing this number plate cannot be used for commercial purposes like goods transport, ferrying passengers etc.

Self Driven/Rental Car Registration

Black number plates are for a vehicle registered as rental or self-driven. These types of number plates are also popular with luxury hotel transport. These cars can ply as a commercial vehicle without the driver having to own a commercial driving permit.

Electric Vehicle Registration

This number plate is unique to electric cars only. This is applicable to road-legal electric busses and other electric commercial vehicles (like Mahindra e20, Tata Tigor Electric).

Temporary Car Registration

The red registration plate is issued as a temporary registration for a brand new vehicle until permanent registration us issued by the RTO. Temporary registration is valid for 1 month only. However, all Indian states do not allow temporarily registered vehicles to ply on road.

Diplomat/Embassy Car Registration

A blue coloured number plate with white lettering is issued to a vehicle belonging to a foreign diplomat United Nations (UN), Diplomatic Corps (CD) or Consular Corps (CC).

Military Vehicle Registration

A vehicle bearing these number plates are military vehicle registered Ministry of Defence in New Delhi. This registration plate has an upward pointing arrow at the first or after the second character, known as Broad Arrow. The digits succeeding the arrow denote the year in which the vehicle was procured. The next is the base code, followed by the serial number. The letter ending after the serial number indicates the class of the vehicle.