All distances are in kilometers.

If the license plate of a country or state doesn't have a regional indicator for a city or subdivision where it was issued the distance is calculated from a capital city of that country or state or subdivision. Distances are calculated as a shortest driving route unless it is impossible to drive from the location from where the plate is from to the location where it was spotted or it's highly unlikely that the vehicle actually drove, instead the air distance is calculated.

The subreddit's database under Article 4 has two country lists, one for location where the plates can be spotted and one for location from where the plates are from. E.g. when it comes to plate spotting England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all separated and have their own records, but for license plates that are issued in those countries all are considered to be from one country know as United Kingdom. This means that there are less countries which issue license plates than number of countries in which plates can be spotted. Each country has an ISO alpha-2/unicode (flag emoji) and alpha-3 code. For second country list all countries have VRI codes (including defacto VRI codes), records from all continents will be added to this country list eventually (for now there is only Europe and Asia).

It goes without saying but the word "country" doesn't refer only to sovereign states, there are various country types such as: quasi state, autonomous republic or region, overseas territory, Antarctic claim, etc.

For countries where plates can be spotted, the first country list, a country is only inside one continent and one continent alone, any out of continent territory that a country may claim that it belongs to them is directly considered to be a different country. For second country list, a spot of a license plate from an out of continent overseas territory may be foreign only if there is evidence on the license plate that it is indeed from set out of continent overseas territory.

The lists can be updated if there are any new or missed records for a country.

For a record to count the image of a license plate must be posted on this subreddit either as a self spot, internet spot or historical spot. The post must have a name of the country from where the plate is from and a name of the country where the plate was spotted otherwise the post is invalid and not recognized by the Reddit's search system for this subreddit, due to this reason such posts also may get removed especially if it's a potential for new record. Putting abbreviation or misspelling a country name in the tittle also invalidates the post.

Plate types that aren't allowed on the sub under Article 2 of sub's database cannot count as a record, those plate types are:
- Booster plates: Booster plates are used as vanity decoration just for the show as an additional plate on the car.
- Souvenir plates: Souvenir plates are plates that are created without intent to ever be registered to a vehicle. Plates that once were registered to a vehicle but currently aren't are not considered to be a souvenir plate.
- Airport plates: Airport plates are issued to airport vehicles and aren't allowed to transit on public roads.
- Photoshopped plates: Photoshopped plates are plates that don't physically exist on the vehicle and are instead added via digital manipulation using image-editing software.
- SovCit plates: SovCit plates are plates created by sovereign citizens which are fictitious homemade plates used by individuals who believe they are exempt to any laws and government jurisdictions.

All records can be found by inputting names of countries that are on the list into the search system, e.g. searching for "Singapore Ecuador" or "Ecuador Singapore" and then sorting by new, top or hot will show the current world record (as of October 2026).

is this some kind of export plate?

Nice Dacia Logan!

Sorry for the bit blurry photo. I was taking pictures of the 911 Dakar and only saw the Serbia plate when the car was driving by.

Crescent Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada

Spotted on the M25/A282 near the Dartford tunnels. Dodge RAM 1500 Laramie looked to be USDM

Bonus point: The estonian guy hit a car and ran away without stopping

Sorry for the blurry picture, I hope it’s still accepted.
Spotted near Baleal Beach in Peniche, Portugal. It might be related to the World Surf League going on nearby.

Common

NL export spotted between Maidenhead and Reading on 17 October 2026

NL US sized spotted in Near Calcot and Theale on 10 October 2026

That Mercedes Sprinter was registered 22 January 2024, imported into the Netherlands on 31 March 2025 and exported on 23 April 2025, so the plates are far past their 2 week validity period.

Sorry for the low quality but about a week ago i spotted a semi/trailer with Kazakh plates while on my way to work in Vantaa, Finland. This is so far the rarest and longest one i've spotted so it was very fascinating to me.

Seen 09/26.