Both number and personalized plates may be purchased as a gift.  Gift certificates will be mailed to the purchaser.

Numbered plates must be ordered through your county treasurer's office.

Personalized license plates may consist of up to five characters and numbers.   All personalized plate choices must have at least two characters.

• No punctuation marks are allowed.
• No denoting a government agency (i.e., DOT ).
• No display of characters which are sexual in connotation.
• No characters suggesting profane, obscene or inflammatory words or phrases, or those contrary to public policy.
• No characters or words defined in dictionaries as a term of vulgarity, contempt, prejudice, hostility, insult, or racial or ethnic degradation.
• No characters considered to be offensive.
• No characters that conflict with the regular license numbering system.
• Recognized as a swear word.
• Reference to an illegal substance or criminal act.
• Any foreign word falling in any of these categories.
• No duplicate combination of characters, such as:

  A0000 through Z9999	AA000 through ZZ999
  0000A through 9999Z	A000 through Z999
  000AA through 999ZZ	Numbers only

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Applications may also be obtained from your county treasurer's office or from:

Office of Vehicle Services
P.O. Box 9278
Des Moines, IA  50306-9278

Telephone:  515-237-3110
E-Mail:  vehser@dot.state.ia.us

Your plates will be sent to your county treasurer's office and they will notify you when your plates are ready.  Plates must be assigned to a vehicle within 90 days or the plates will be voided and no refund issued.  Your current plates must be exchanged for your new plates.

©Iowa Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Division
Last Updated February 11, 2008