Personalised number plates on the rise in Belgium

Even though personalised number plates cost €1,000, their popularity never ceases to grow, according to new figures from Belgium’s transport and mobility department.

Authorised since 2014, there were at least 13,000 new personalised licence plates issued in 2023 and 10,000 already have been bought this year. Some 83,000 have been paid for in the past 10 years. While mainly personal, they can also be for professional use. Several drivers use them to advertise their business.

At one stage, authorities had planned to double the price of these plates. But following the dramatic fall in orders, the initial price remained, which has never been indexed to account for inflation.

“Of course, you cannot put just anything on your vehicle,” said transport ministry spokeswoman Charlotte van den Branden.

“Already you can only have eight characters and at least one letter. And then, it is clearly forbidden to use words or formulas that have a racist, xenophobic, homophobic or hurtful connotation. The same goes for dubious allusions to certain periods of history, such as the Nazi era.”

Unfortunately some signs, sometimes due to language such as non-French insults not being understood, slip through the net. One notable example is HH-88 (Heil Hitler with H being the eighth letter of the alphabet).

Each number plate needs to be approved first by a piece of software and then an administrative agent, but “not everyone knows these historic references,” van den Branden added.

And unfortunately, once a number plate is out on the road, it is very difficult to take it away. “The administration cannot do anything,” she said. “You can only count on the good will of the owner or take a case to court if a complaint is made to the police, but this is very rare.”

Daphné Keraudren, a young architect who loves collecting photos of number plates on Instagram, said: “I cycle a lot and every time I see a funny number plate, I take a photo of it.”

Her favourites are the ‘hahaha’ and ‘hihihi’ duo of a couple’s cars, a funeral parlour with ‘RIP’ and a driving school with ‘désolé’ (sorry).

Others include ‘mamy jaja’, ‘zizou’, ‘amour’ or ‘chipie’. There are also the more boastful ‘the boss’, ‘first’, ‘master’ or even ‘Ciao 911’ to signify that this car is faster than a Porsche 911. Other signs are less welcome, such as the macho ‘Sexolog’, ‘Rodeur’, ‘Sexylady’ or ‘ToyDaddy’ number plates.

While well-off Knokke buys the most personalised plates in Flanders, in Wallonia it is less moneyed Charleroi where they are most common. Likewise, in Brussels, Anderlecht and Saint-Josse, not Uccle, own the most personalised number plates. “It’s a thing for the ‘nouveau riche’,” Keraudren suggests, “a way of showing that you can afford this.”

Once you have obtained a personalised plate, it is yours forever. However, if you change your car and want to keep your number plate you have to do this within four months. This means that money for personalised plates becomes a kind of voluntary tax.

Tax or not, this especially Belgian habit is attracting much attention, van den Branden said.

"At first, it was a curiosity, but now it’s becoming a bit of a phenomenon," she said. "France, in particular, is taking a close interest in our system. Inevitably, they’re our neighbours, so they regularly see our cars on their roads during the holidays. They’re wondering how we do this, and maybe one day they’ll get on board too."