How will license plates change after the merger of provinces and cities?
Currently, the license plates of 63 provinces and cities are regulated in Circular 79/2024/TT-BCA. Accordingly, license plates of provinces and cities are regulated starting from No. 10 to No. 99.
Previously, when Ha Tay province was merged into Hanoi city in 2008 - the license plate of Ha Tay province was 33 and after the merger, this license plate has continued to be used until now.
In the near future, when merging provinces and cities, local license plates may continue to use license plates of the old provinces.
Do I have to change my vehicle registration and license plate after the merger of provinces?
According to current regulations, after merging provinces and cities, people are not required to carry out procedures to change their license plates.
Article 10 of Resolution 190/2025/QH15 of the National Assembly clearly states:
- Documents and papers that have been promulgated and issued by competent agencies and titles before arranging the organizational structure of the State but not yet validated or not expired, they continue to be applied and used in accordance with law until the expiry of the deadline or amended, supplemented, replaced, abolished, abolished, revoked by the agency or position of authority, duties or authority.
- Organizations and individuals are not required to carry out procedures for issuing and exchanging documents issued by competent authorities and titles before implementing the reorganization of the state apparatus when these documents have not expired, unless otherwise provided by law.
- The Prime Minister abolishes legal documents that are no longer applicable issued by Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies or jointly issued with other Ministers and Heads of ministerial-level agencies before reorganizing the state apparatus, but after the reorganization, it is not possible to determine the competent authority to abolish the document.
At the same time, according to Article 18 of Circular 79/2024/TT-BCA, no school requires changing the vehicle registration certificate and license plate when merging provinces and cities.
The cases of changing vehicle registration certificates and license plates specified in Article 18 include:
- Vehicle registration certificate, vehicle registration plate is blurred or damaged.
- Renovated vehicles; vehicles with changed paint colors.
- Vehicles that have been registered and issued with a license plate with a white background, black letters and numbers are changed to a license plate with a yellow background, black letters and numbers (vehicles used for business of automobile transportation) and vice versa.
- Change the vehicle owner's information (vehicle owner's name, identification number) or the vehicle owner needs to change the vehicle registration certificate to a new address.
- The vehicle registration certificate has expired.
- Change the old vehicle registration certificate and license plate to the vehicle registration certificate and license plate according to the provisions of this Circular; vehicle owners who want to change short license plates to long plates or vice versa.
Thus, if not in the cases of vehicle license plate exchange, the vehicle license plate issued by the competent authority before the merger of provinces will continue to be used normally.
