Japan License Plate Generator

Source status

A Japanese passenger plate is four fields, not one serial. An example shape from the sources is 足立 500 き 21-41: the issuing office in kanji, a class number, one hiragana, then four digits often split with a hyphen.

Color pairs

• Private car: white plate, green characters.
• Commercial: green plate, white characters.
• Kei private: yellow plate, black characters.
• Kei commercial: black plate, yellow characters.

Those four pairs are the whole color system I will draw. I am not adding a fifth “luxury” color.

Hiragana the offices skip

The plate article says お is skipped because it resembles あ, し because it suggests death, へ because of a rude reading, ん because it is hard to say over a phone, and ゑ and ゐ because they are obsolete. If you type one of those into the preview, the picture will still render. The list above is the warning, not a filter I pretend is the official form.

Sizes, including two-wheelers

Medium plates are 330 by 165 mm, large plates 440 by 220 mm, and the small plate 230 by 125 mm. Motorcycle searches are the reason for the small size. The 230×125 mm example is for the relevant motorcycle category; smaller motorcycle and moped categories use different local plates.

The illustrated-plate page at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is the office link. Preview a white-and-green plate from the generator, or roll a class-500 string on random.