Vehicle registration plates of Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, vehicle registration marks are managed by the Transport Department. The physical number plates are not provided by the government, but are made by garages to the order of the car owner.

Each vehicle must display two number plates, one at the front and one at the rear of the vehicle. The front plate has black characters on a white background, and the rear plate has black characters on a yellow background. The height of the letters and numerals are not less than 8 cm (3.1 in) and not more than 11 cm (4.3 in). The plates should comply with British Standard B.S. 145a and have permanently marked on the plate the specification number "B.S. AU 145a".

Vehicles of the Chief Executive do not have registration plates. Instead, they have the Emblem of Hong Kong in front and at the rear. During British administration, the vehicle of the Governor bore the St Edward's Crown emblem.

Most car numbers consist of a two-letter prefix followed by a number between 1 and 9999 without leading zeroes. Some car numbers do not have a letter prefix. The letters "I", "O" and "Q" are not used to avoid ambiguity.

The very first numbers allocated (1–9999) have no prefixes. "HK" and "XX" were the first two prefixes allocated, then went from "AA", "AB", "AC", all the way to "AZ", then "BB", "BC", "BD", all the way to "BZ" and then "CA", "CB", "CC", etc.... It is worth noting that there was no "BA" prefix allocated at the time because the government thought that it would get mixed up with "AB". "BF" was also skipped; however, authorities changed their minds to allocate the "CA" prefix after "BZ", and in 2003, "BA" and "BF" prefixes were available for auction.

The prefixes "FU" and "FV" were also issued out of turn. These are typically issued to vehicles with primary registration in Mainland China and are used as their "cross-border" plates while in Hong Kong. Some "DW" and "EW" registration marks are also used for this purpose.

Shortly prior to the handover of Hong Kong on 1 July 1997, the Advanced Detachment of the People's Liberation Army entered Hong Kong. The vehicles of the Advanced Detachment were assigned a series of "AD" registrations for their Hong Kong registrations. These vehicles also displayed their Mainland Chinese registrations whilst in Hong Kong.

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