What year is a 71 plate car?

How the age identifier works

DVLA’s current registration format for Great Britain began on 1 September 2001. A number has two letters, two digits and then three random letters. The two digits are the age identifier, and the two letters at the start are a memory tag that refers to the region where the vehicle was first registered.

The identifier changes twice a year. From March to August it is the last two digits of the year. From September to the end of the following February it is the last two digits of the year plus 50, so a car first registered in September 2021 carries 71, and one registered in September 2026 carries 76.

Recent plates

Northern Ireland plates

Registrations issued in Northern Ireland are a separate format. DVLA’s registration-number guide describes Great Britain’s, and its personalised-registrations service lists Northern Ireland’s format as dateless, meaning the number can go on a vehicle of any age. A Northern Ireland plate therefore carries no age identifier, so check the first-registration date on the car’s registration document instead.

What a plate does not tell you

The digits show when the number was issued, not when the car was built. A registration number belongs to the vehicle, but DVLA lets a keeper move a number to another vehicle, so a plate can carry an age identifier that is not its own car’s. The date a car was first registered is shown by GOV.UK’s free vehicle information check.

Cars registered before September 2001 use older plate formats, which this answer does not cover.