page_title: Vehicle registration plates of the United States
section_title: Department-specific examples
hierarchical_section_title: Vehicle registration plates of the United States / Professional and governmental plates / Department-specific examples
caption_attribution_description: &#160;United States of America English: Newest GSA license plates (U.S. federal government)
context_page_description: In the United States, vehicle registration plates, known as license plates, are issued by a department of motor vehicles, an agency of the state or territorial government, or in the case of the District of Columbia, the district government. Some Native American tribes also issue plates. The U.S. federal government issues plates only for its own vehicle fleet and for vehicles owned by foreign diplomats. Until the 1980s, diplomatic plates were issued by the state in which the consulate or embassy was located.
  The appearances of plates are frequently chosen to contain symbols, colors, or slogans associated with the issuing jurisdiction. The term license plate is frequently used in statutes, although in some areas tag is informally used. The official three letter DSIT international code attributed to the United States is USA.
context_section_description: Vehicles owned by a branch of the U.S. military may have a license plate issued by that branch of the military, although some utility vehicles will have no license plate at all, only an identification number applied directly to the body. The United States Postal Service adopts the same practice, especially for its delivery trucks. Vehicles owned by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will have plates issued by the GSA in standard format. U.S. Government plates starting with "P" are USPS vehicles.
  In the United States, all states issue some special sort of license plate for vehicles which are owned by state and local governments, and the federal government issues plates for vehicles it owns, except for many belonging to the United States Postal Service, many of which use no plates. For the most part, the plates are similar to the regular passenger plates, except with a separate numbering sequence and/or with a message such as "government", "official", "state owned", "municipal", or "exempt" (from registration fees) replacing the slogan.
caption: 2015 US Government license plate
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