Customised labels

When can I apply for a personalised number plate? Applications for personalised number plates have been accepted since 1 January 2016, although the first opportunity to submit an application in person was on 4 January 2016, which was the first working day of the new year. Applications also began to be processed from that date. This change forms part of the amendment to Act No. 56/2001 Coll., on the conditions of road traffic.

How can I submit an application? Visit any local authority with extended powers with an application form on which you provide your personal details and the proposed combination of characters for your personalised number plate. If the proposed wording is approved, and once the fee has been paid, you will receive the number plate within 15 days.

What must the application contain? The application must clearly state who is submitting it, what it relates to and what is being proposed. A natural person must therefore state their first name, surname, date of birth and permanent address on the application. A legal entity must state its name or trading name, identification number and registered office address. The application must also include the text of the personalised number plate you are requesting.

What is the fee? The fee is 5,000 CZK per plate, i.e. 10,000 CZK for two number plates for a passenger car.

Can I reserve the text I want on my personalised number plate in any way? Yes, in that case, please contact any local authority with extended powers; once the text has been approved, the authority will reserve it for you for a period of 3 months. During this period, a number plate with the same text may not be issued to any other applicant. However, only one reservation may be held at any one time per natural or legal person. The same procedure applies if, at the time of submitting the application for a personalised number plate, the applicant does not own a vehicle or owns a vehicle that has not yet been registered.

What are the restrictions regarding the wording of personalised number plates? Generally speaking, a personalised number plate may consist of a combination of numbers and capital letters (only Arabic numerals and Latin letters without diacritics, with the exception of the letters G, CH, O, Q and W – due to the ease with which these letters can be confused). The number plate must also contain at least one number; it must not consist solely of letters. It is also not permitted to include on a personalised number plate any words that are offensive, incite racism, xenophobia or, in general, hatred towards any group of people, special characters (- * / ? ! § etc.) or abbreviations of state administrative bodies, representative bodies, regional authorities, etc. (e.g. abbreviations used in public administration – such as PČR, HZS, MDCR, etc.). Local authorities with extended powers have received guidelines and general criteria which they follow when approving proposed licence plate designs. The final assessment and approval of the text on a personalised number plate will be at the discretion of the relevant authority. The Vehicle Register will also ensure that no two identical personalised number plates are issued.

How many characters must the number plate have? For cars, the number plate consists of 8 characters; for motorbikes, it consists of 7 characters; and for mopeds, it consists of 5 characters.

Is the number plate transferable? Yes, the number plate is transferable; you can use it on another car, motorbike or moped of yours, but always on only one vehicle at a time. The number plate is linked to a specific person, so it cannot, for example, be sold to another person.

What happens to the personalised number plate if the vehicle is sold? If the vehicle is sold, the original owner has two options: 1. either keep the number plate for another of their vehicles (this means that when selling the car, they take their personalised number plate to the relevant authority, where they can have it re-registered to another vehicle or reserve it for three months and subsequently have it fitted to, for example, a newly purchased car), the new owner of the vehicle will then go to the relevant office and apply for a new registration number to be issued for the purchased vehicle (they will either be issued with a standard number or may also apply for a personalised number plate) 2. The owner decides they are no longer interested in their personalised number plate; the personalised number plate then remains on the vehicle they have sold.

How does the process work if I am having a personalised number plate issued for a vehicle that is not yet registered in the central vehicle register? In the case of registering a new vehicle (i.e. a vehicle that has not yet been registered in the Czech Republic), there are two options: 1. The owner of such a vehicle wishes to register it straight away with personalised number plates. They will therefore not drive the car until they have received the personalised number plates, after which they will have the car registered at the relevant District Office (ORP) with the allocated personalised number plates. In this case, the driver pays 800 Kč for the registration of the new vehicle + 5,000 Kč per number plate (for which they receive the vehicle registration certificates and number plates). 2. The owner of such a vehicle wants to drive it immediately and does not want to wait 15 days for the personalised number plate to be delivered. In this case, they will register the car and have a standard number plate issued for it, and only then will they apply for a personalised number plate (which they may have reserved in advance). When collecting the number plate with the personalised registration, they will then hand in the number plate with the standard registration to the relevant authority.

Is a personalised number plate subject to inheritance? A personalised number plate is not an object of ownership and is therefore not subject to inheritance. It should be understood as a registration identifier, the physical manifestation of which is the number plate bearing the characters chosen by the owner of the vehicle in question. Therefore, although the vehicle owner pays a higher administrative fee for a personalised number plate than for a standard one, this does not alter their relationship with the plate itself, and they do not, in the legal sense, become the owner of that plate. The vehicle owner pays this fee in return for receiving a premium service, namely the personalised number plate. However, if someone inherits a vehicle fitted with a personalised number plate, they become the new operator of the vehicle bearing that plate. However, it is not possible to inherit the number plate itself, separately from the original vehicle.

Is it possible to sell a personalised number plate registered to a legal entity along with the relevant business, thereby transferring it to a new owner? If the company changes ownership and the new owner acquires the vehicle fleet along with the company, there are two options – this is essentially analogous to the sale of a vehicle (see the question regarding the sale of a vehicle): 1. The original owner of the company wishes to retain the personalised number plates allocated to them and applies to the authorities to have them allocated to another of their vehicles (or reserves them); in this case, the personalised number plate will not remain on the vehicle, which will be allocated a standard number plate. 2. The original owner of the company is not interested in transferring the personalised number plate to another of their vehicles; they will therefore remain on the vehicles on which they were originally fitted. However, this does not constitute a transfer of ownership of the number plate; neither a natural person nor a legal entity owns the number plate (the fee of 5,000 CZK is merely an administrative charge commensurate with the exclusivity of the procedure in question). In this case, the number plate should be understood solely as a vehicle identification mark. At the same time, the number plate is linked to the vehicle on which it is fitted; that is to say, if the vehicle is sold, the personalised number plate may be transferred with it. Only the person who purchased the personalised number plate is entitled to transfer it to their new (additional) vehicle, and this additional vehicle must be in their ownership. If they do not make use of this option, the number plate will remain on the vehicle to which it was originally assigned, but it is not the property of the company. It is tied to the vehicle on which it is fitted and can no longer be transferred to another vehicle.