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Hawaii License Plates

The current base began in 1991.

I, O, or Q not issued on any plates in Hawaii. Unlike some other county-coded states, Hawaii does not appear to require new plates when one moves from one county to another. There are many plates from other counties on each island.

Commercial plates are listed on the site as Truck plates, but in reality, they can on both cars and trucks as long as they are owned by a commercial entity. On the other hand, a personal pickup would not be issued these plates.

For a period of time around the late 1990s, a different font was used on plates in Hawaii. Most Hawaii plates have a font equivalent to that of Oregon, but for those few years the characters were shorter and fatter.

In Honolulu County, they start somewhere between FTR and FTV and run through GNZ. Plates from GPA forward are on the current font.

In Kauai, they run from KRD through KRZ. Plates up to KRC and from KSA onward are on the current font.

In Maui, they run from either MZL or MZM through MAE. Also, MUB, MUE, and MUF were seen with this font. However, MUA and MUC were seen with the current font?!? Maui trailer plates are in the MU- series, so perhaps they originally skipped some early MU- plates and then issued them after reaching MZZ.

In Hawaii, they run from HWN to HWZ, then from HUA to HUV. This is how it is known that HU- was issued after HW-.

Most plates issued before the font change (approximately 1991 through 1997) are very faded with the rainbow on the plate usually indiscernible. The exception to this is the Exx plates in Honolulu County which were replaced.

The Honolulu County Exx plates are only being replaced in Honolulu County. For those Exx plates on other islands, they continue to languish in their faded state. While it was reported that a similar replacement of older plates is underway in Hawaii County, there is no direct evidence of this, although some but not all HX- through HZ- plates look newer, but all HN-HW plates are still old and worn.

Stickers

11 - black on white

12 - white on black

13 - black on white

14 - white on black

15 - black on white

16 - white on black

Standard Passenger Plates

Hawai'i

ZMS 178

Pat - Nov 16 ’24

Started at HN-, then HP-, HR-, HS-, HT-, HV-, HW- then HU-, followed by HX through HZ-, then HA- through HM-. Based on the wear and tear seen on the plates of the Big Island, it is likely that the HZ- series was issued sometime later than its sequence would indicate; they looked much newer than HA-, for example. Other than HGA, no HG- plates were seen on the Big Island; not sure if they were ever issued. Unlike Kauai, both Hawaii and Maui Counties share letter series with their Motorcycle, Trailer, and Commercial plates. For example, HDP plates were issued on cars with the letters before the numbers and HDP plates were also issued on commercial vehicles with the letters after the numbers.

After reaching HZY, Hawaii Co. started over at HAA. HZZ ended up being issued in Honolulu Co. due to a shortage of plates. HBL may have been skipped. Everything through HMJ has been issued, but no HMK, HML, or HMM spotted yet. HMN and HMP are in use.

After HMZ 999 was issued the Z series began with ZAA 001 -- because some HNn plates still exist on the road. The lowest plate seen is HNB 172. There is no reissuing of plates as previously thought. Dates on the plates (a hologram with the last two digits of the year of issue in white on a black circle repeated down the center of the plate) correspond to chronological issuing. For example, shiny HZ plates (which were thought to be reissues) have an issue dates of "97" and "98", HX plates have "94" and HN has "91", HC has "01", etc.

ZBA, ZBB, and ZBC were issued, and then ZBP started to show up. There will probably be a lot of filling in since it appears that someone opened up the wrong box.

From Andy DeCeunynck: As of early February 2014, it appears as though all combinations up to ZBT have been issued but nothing from ZBU-ZBZ. ZCA-ZCC but no ZCD, then ZCE but no ZCF, and most recently ZCG and ZCH. Also, it looks like no plates issued with L in the third position.

Jan. 2015 update from Neal: Have seen ZRx series a number of times (3 ZRCs, ZRG, ZRJ, ZRT) and also three ZTCs but these are obviously out of order (opening wrong box) and will be filled in with normally issued plates.

Honolulu

YAC 108

Ryan - Jan 10 ’25

In Honolulu County, series started with E, then F, G, J, N, P, R, and now S. Beyond the typical omission of I, O, and Q, there are no plates are issued in Honolulu County with the letters H, K, L, or M. These are, probably not coincidentally, the same letters that start the plates in the other counties of Hawaii. These letters are also not used on Commercial, Motorcycle, or Trailer plates in Honolulu County.

Update: Honolulu’s WY-series plates appear to be an exception rather than the rule, with WYH and WYK plates seen.

In addition, the letters A, E, or U are not issued in the second position. A and E were issued in the middle position for the EA-, EE-, FA-, FE-, GA-, and GE- sets, but nothing after that. The U has never been in the middle position.

JNx series skipped.

In early 2006, vehicle owners in Honolulu were told that all E series plates (the lowest on the current base) were to be discarded because the reflectorization was failing due to age. Holders of E series plates were given the option of getting new plates (at the time in the N series) or having new plates made with their existing number. All E series plates now in use should be remakes of the originals still in use by the original registrant. Although not confirmed, it is believed that the F series was being similarly replaced in 2007, but Andy reports in early 2011 that the F series plates still in use are old.

Most series through RJE have been used, but nothing has been seen between RJE and RJN.

Kaua'i

KFR 218

Markiel Balden - Aug 18 ’24

Kaua'i County started with KH-, then KJ-, KK-, KP-, KR-,KS-, KT-, KV-, KW-, KY-,KZ-, then KA-, and now KB-. Kauai issued KM- for Motorcycle, KX- for Trailer, and KB- for Commercial. The letter L was used in all possible combinations through KSL, but was then discontinued. No obvious reason for why KN- was not used. Even though the Commercial, Trailer, and Motorcycle plates have the letters after the numbers, the letters sequences in these series are not usually duplicated with car plates. KB- was issued for both Passenger and Commercial. It takes about 2 years to use up each two letter sequence (for example KAA through KAZ) on Kauai.

Maui

LRC 234

Pat - Jan 16 ’25

From Andy DeCeunynck:

In Maui County, plates started at MT-, proceeded through MZ-, then from MA- through MS-, and now LA- and LB- plates. Maui has an interesting way of issuing plates. Large blocks of several thousand plates are issued to rental car companies on the island and then similar large blocks are issued to residents of the county, including those on the islands of Lanai and Molokai. After a period of time -- probably about a year -- rental car series are no longer seen anywhere on the road. So the plates currently seen in Maui are only a fraction of what was originally issued. I saw a picture in a travel guide of a rental car in the MRZ series, which would only have been from a couple years back, but I didn't seen any cars on Maui between MRY and MSC the whole time I was there. On the other hand, plates between MMM and MMR, issued well prior to MRZ, are easily found because they were not given to rental cars. Currently, the newest rental cars are LBR through LBT and now LBZ. Plates for residents were issued in the LBN-LBP sets and now LBU through about 5xx-LBX. No higher LBX or LBY seen yet but they are either on other islands or will be issued in the very near future. Maui is the only county that issues its plates like this, other counties intersperse their rental and non-rental plates in much smaller blocks.

Andy thinks the LEA set may have been issued out of sequence. It is easily seen in the central valley (Kahului/Wailuku area) of Maui. Other new non-rental plates are LCL on the western side of the island and LCU in Kahului. Newest rentals are LCR-T and LCV-LCW. No LCM-LCP or LCX-LCZ yet. He highly doubts that the LD- plates will be skipped, but that remains to be seen.

Update: LDA 951 was issued after the LEA plates, so the actual high is now in the LDA series and it appears the LD- series will be issued.

Non-passenger Plates

Commercial (Honolulu)

035 TYD

Pat - Apr 10 ’24

Honolulu plates started at TGA, ran through TGZ, then TJ-, TN-, TP-, TR-, TS-, and now TT-. Again, no H, K, L, or M, plates in Honolulu County. Different font on TPY through TRC. Most plates in the TG- series are replacements (similar to those car plates beginning with E.) No Commercial (or any other non-pass types) plates with different font have been seen outside Honolulu County.

Upon reaching the end of the TPZ series, the issue advanced to the TRE series. Also, the TRD series was alloted to Hawaii County around the same time after they had reached the end of their HCZ series for trucks. It appears that no truck plates in the HDA series had been made yet, but they are now being issued in Hawaii County. Not all of the TRD series plates were issued in Hawaii County. At some point in the issuance of the TRD series in Hawaii County, they received and began issuing the HDA series, so later TRD series plates not issued by Hawaii County were issued by Honolulu County. Meanwhile, back in Honolulu County, it appears that they filled in from the TRA - TRC series, but the TRE series appeared first. Now the issue is back on track in the TT- series. No TTR or TTS series have been reported.

County Govt. (Hawai'i)

3760

Brian - Feb 21 ’20

Hawaii County Government plates have always been in the CofH pattern. Currently around CofH3100. No space between letters and numbers.

Hawaii County Government Motorcycle: CofH 21

Hawaii County Government Trailer: CofH 1321 Pattern is CofHnnnn after "Trailer' stacked vertically on left side. The former format was just CH, rather than CofH on Trailer plates.

EMS (Honolulu)

EMS M23

David Cabatu - Jun 11 ’23

As of June 2023, Honolulu Emergency Medical Services ambulances have new EMS M series plates (EMS M01 through EMS M23) that indicate unit "medic" numbers. Only new ambulances in service use the new plate series; older ambulances still use the old C&C plates. More EMS Mxx plates will be seen when older ambulances are retired and replaced.

Fire Dept. (Hawai'i)

HFD 605

Neal Evenhuis - Jan 6 ’16

On the island of Hawaii, the fire department vehicles (including county-owned ambulances) use HFD plates. Most are HFD 3nn and HFD 4nn but the newest are HFD 5nn.

Honolulu Fire Department also uses HFD but only for administrative vehicles (Fire Chief, Fire safety inspectors, etc.). The fire trucks use C&C plates. In Honolulu, they use one digit, two digit and three digit series for cars and trucks, but the three digits are in the 100s only and are for maintenance trucks.

In Hawaii County they use only three digits.

Fleet Passenger

P19401FLEET

Neal Evenhuis - Aug 24 ’15

Red on Yellow, the word FLEET is stacked vertically to left of number, HAWAII across the top of plate, ALOHA STATE across bottom. Issued in blocks by county.

Honolulu Fleet Cars are in the P12nnn and P13nnn range in Honolulu County (the highest seen there was P13671), P15nnn in Hawaii County, P16nnn in Maui County, and the high P16nnn and low P17nnn on Kauai.

Fleet Truck

T28764FLEET

Jacco Hoekstra - Jul 16 ’22

Red on Yellow, the word FLEET is stacked vertically to left of number, HAWAII across the top of plate, ALOHA STATE across bottom. Issued in blocks by county.

Honolulu Fleet Trucks are up to T21nnn, but Hawaii County is currently using T20nnn, Maui County is using T22nnn, and Kauai County is in the T24nnn series.

Oahu-based companies like Hawaiian Telcom have trucks on all islands, but all have fleet plates in the Honolulu County allocation. UPS trucks also have Honolulu plate series throughout the State.

Neal updates in Feb. 2015 to say numerous plates with the same number prefix on different islands (shipping vehicles from one island to another is not uncommon) -- e.,g., most recently the T25- series has been seen on both the Big Island and Oahu. Therefore, the allocation we have shown here may not be absolutely correct.

Police (Honolulu)

HPD2053

Brian - Oct 12 ’22

In Honolulu and Maui, police departments have their own plates. Honolulu originally ran up through HPD 999 and now are 7 digit plates from HPD1000 up to somewhere around HPD1350. These are the only 7-digit plates in Hawaii and nearly all police cars on Oahu are 7 digits.

On Maui, the MPD letters are used for police cars.

On Kauai and Hawaii, police cars use regular county plates.

NEW! Honolulu Police Trailer: Black on white rainbow graphic, HAWAII across top, ALOHA STATE across bottom, TRAILER stacked vertically to left of "HPD". HPD in smaller size (about 2/3) than numbers in order to fit 7 digits on plate. These are used primarily for the LED radar-based speed notices on roads that say "You are going xx MPH". HPD1181 is the high on this type.

It seems that all the HPD numbers are unique but they issue as cars, trailers, or motorcycles with the different plates schemes for each but do not issue numbers separately for each.

Specialty Plates

Polynesian Voyaging Society

RC67M

David Cabatu - Aug 16 ’24

This series became available January 31, 2022, first in Honolulu, and then gradually spreading to the other islands. The series begain with the "PV" prefix and ascended from there. The first plate issued on Kaua'i was PV01J.

The design depicts the Hokule'a, the double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe, anchored at Kualoa on the island of O'ahu.

Specials

JC147

Joey - Feb 3 ’22

Stickers supporting various causes are placed at left of the AA000-format serial. This series was created to give non-profit organizations part of the proceeds from the registration of these plates.

The reason Specials jumped from DJ to DN so quickly: The DK series is restricted to Kauai; the DL and DM series are restricted to Maui county; and the DH series is restricted to Hawaii county. There were no DI series printed nor will there be DO.

Military and Veteran Plates