California License Plates:
The white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting License Plate Era (1993?-date)

Starting at either the beginning of 1994 or the end of 1993, "California" started being written in a trendy red "lipstick" script across the top of the license plate, instead of being stamped in raised block lettering. This practice has continued to this day.

At various points, different text appeared in red at the bottoms of these plates. From 1998-2000, this text read "SESQUICENTENNIAL - 150 YEARS". Starting in 2011, the text began to read "dmv.ca.gov".

White-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting passenger plates

Standard white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting passenger plates continued to follow the same license numbering pattern as the previous white-with-California-in-block-printing passenger plates had. That is, a numeric digit, followed by three letters, followed by three numeric digits.

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting passenger plate seen

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting passenger plate seen

White-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting commercial plates

Standard white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting plates issued for commercial vehicles continued the license plate number pattern that had been in use by the white-with-California-in-block-printing plates. That is, they consisted of a single numeric digit, followed by a single letter, followed by 5 numeric digits. No half-space was used between any of these characters. As before, the 5 digit group was incremented first, then when they wrapped back around to zeroes the letter was incremented, then when the letter wrapped back around to A the first digit was incremented.

Continuing in this era, commercial plates beginning with 9 were reserved for, and issued to, big-rig tractor units.

Eventually, in either the late 2010s or the early 2020s, the non-big-rig combinations reached 8Z99999 and ran out. When this happened, the order was reversed: 5 numeric digits, followed by a single letter, followed by a single numeric digit. This pattern would have gone 00000A1, 00001A1, 00002A1, ..., 99999A1, 00000B1, 00001B1, ..., 99999Z1, 00000A2, 00001A2, etc..

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting commercial plate seen

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting commercial big rig plate seen

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting commercial big rig plate seen

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting commercial plate seen

White-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting trailer plates

White-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting trailer plates continued to follow the pattern of the white-with-California-in-block-printing trailer plates, with a single numeric digit followed by two letters followed by four numeric digits.

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting "normal" trailer plate seen

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting "normal" trailer plate seen

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting "commercial weight fee" trailer plate seen

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting "commercial weight fee" trailer plate seen

Permanent trailer plates

Prior to 2001, all trailers had to get a new registration sticker every year, just like cars and trucks did. Starting in 2001, trailers began instead to be issued "permanent trailer identification". A $10 registration renewal fee still had to be paid every 5 years, but this was so small that it wasn't worth it to require evidence to be displayed on the trailer itself.

(This rule does not apply to "trailer coaches" or "park trailers." These are trailers designed for human occupancy. Such trailers still get white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting plates issued to them with a license number that starts with 1 followed by 2 letters followed by 4 digits, and have to have a yearly registration sticker in the upper-right corner just like a regular passenger or commercial plate does.)

You'll see Permanent Trailer plates on semi trailers that are part of big rigs. That's because there is currently no weight fee connected to the trailer. Under current law, weight fees are connected only to the towing unit, and are paid based on the total gross weight of the combination for each state they enter. (If the towing unit has a "permanent" tag from another state, which isn't apportioned, such vehicles must use a trip permit or temporary registration to enter California. Source: https://anewscafe.com/2011/09/07/redding/traffic-cop-are-out-of-state-big-rigs-paying-their-share/)

Trailers with existing plates were issued a white "PTI" sticker, which was to cover up the previous year's annual registration sticker. Newly registered trailers were issued white plates with the "California" logo replaced with the words "California Perm Trailer" (also in trendy script), and red bars replacing the month/year registration sticker wells in the upper corners.

While the license numbers on these plates did continue the digit/letter/four-digits pattern of previous trailer plates, the first digit started with 4 to avoid overlapping the combinations used on previous plates.

First California Perm Trailer plate seen

Last California Perm Trailer plate seen

White Cal Apportioned plates

Commercial vehicles can pay rather hefty registration fees. When a commercial vehicle is operated both in California and in one or more other states, it can opt to divide its registration fees among the states it operates in, in proportion to how much time or travelling distance it spends in each state. Such vehicles are issued an apportioned license plate by their "home" state. California began issuing these in 1982 (during the blue license plate era), and continued the practice into the white plate eras.

Until 2011, the "CAL APPORTIONED" logo at the top was in embossed block lettering. This was subsequently changed to a non-embossed "Cal Apportioned" logo in trendy red cursive script, similar to what was in use on mainstream plates and "Cal Perm Trailer" plates. Of note is the fact that, unlike the previous Apportioned plates with block lettering, these trendy-script apportioned plates do have a space for a month sticker in the upper-left corner.

License numbers for these plates consist of 2 letters followed by 5 digits. Since no apportioned plates for trailers were issued after 2001, all plates with the red cursive "Cal Apportioned" logo at the top have a second letter of "P" (for "Power unit," i.e. a vehicle with an engine). First letters from S through Z are reserved for vehicles that only require a single license plate in the front, such as a big-rig tractor unit.

Last white plate seen with Cal Apportioned in trendy red cursive script

Last white big-rig plate seen with Cal Apportioned in trendy red cursive script

White-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting exempt plates

During the early years of the white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting license plate era, exempt plates continued to be indicated by an "E" on the left side of the plate inside an octagon or a diamond — octagon for local governments, diamond for the state government.

The license numbers for these plates consisted entirely of six numeric digits, ranging from 100000 to 999999, after the E-in-the-octagon-or-diamond. Although there were no sticker wells, thin rectangles with the words "MO" and "YR" still appeared where the month and year sticker wells would go on a regular non-exempt plate.

Some of these plates had a first numeric digit of 0. Despite having California in trendy script at the top, these were actually part of the subsequent "CA EXEMPT" plate program that started in 1998 (described below). There had been a surplus of [E]-stamped blank plates lying around, so California decided to use them up by treating the [E] as a 1. A vehicle with an E-in-an-octagon license number of [E]012345 would be listed in the DMV database as having a license number of 1012345, for example.

CA EXEMPT plates

Starting in 1998, California stopped making a distinction between license plates for exempt vehicles owned by local governments, and license plates for exempt vehicles owned by the state government. Instead, all exempt vehicles are now issued license plates with "CA EXEMPT" in non-embossed red block letters across the top.

These plates have 7-digit license numbers, from 1000000 onward.

Last CA EXEMPT plate seen

White-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting disabled plates

There are two types of license plates issued for vehicles driven by disabled persons: "DP" (for Disabled Person) and "DV" (for Disabled Veteran). In both cases, DP or DV appears as two small letters stacked atop one another, either at the beginning of the license plate number or the end. On the left side of the plate is the standard disability logo (a line drawing of a person in a wheelchair in white, against a blue background).

The letter-and-digit patterns on the DP plates have gone through several iterations. Starting in 1995, they had 5 numeric digits followed by the [DP]. Some time before 2000, they swtiched to [DP] followed by 5 numeric digits. Then to [DP] followed by a letter followed by 4 digits, then to 4 digits followed by a letter followed by [DP], then to [DP] followed by two letters followed by 3 digits, and finally to 2 letters followed by 3 digits followed by [DP].

There have been fewer DV plates issued, presumably because there are fewer disabled veterans than there are disabled members of the general population. Starting in 1994, these plates had 5 numeric digits followed by the [DV]. They ran 00000[DV] through 99999[DV]. In 2023, when those combinations ran out, they switched to [DV] followed by 5 numeric digits. The first of these combinations started in the middle of [DV]1#### (rather than [DV]00000) to avoid re-using combinations that had been issued for disabled veterans in earlier eras, when the DV appeared as normal sized letters next to each other.

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DP plate seen with the DP on the left

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DP plate seen with the DP on the left

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DP plate seen with the DP on the right

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DP plate seen

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DV plate seen

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DV plate seen with the DV on the right

First white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DV plate seen with the DV on the left

Last white-with-California-in-cursive-handwriting DV plate seen with the DV on the left

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