The DVLA Register of Number Plate Suppliers
Amongst the new laws the DVLA has enforced during the last decade, one of the most welcome within the Number Plates industry has been their Register of Number Plates Suppliers scheme, or RNPS.
Previously the physical perspex number plates were made by garages, motoring accessory shops and some hardware stores. Now if you require a set of number plates by law they can only be supplied and made by a DVLA Registered Supplier.
What is the Register of Number Plates Suppliers?
A number plates supplier is a company that supplies physical number plates i.e. the perspex plates that show the registration mark of a vehicle as registered with the DVLA.
CarReg is a Registered Number Plate Supplier, holding RNPS membership number 27154.
Introduced in 2003, the DVLA’s RNPS is legislation to regulate the many companies that supply physical number plates. At the scheme’s heart is the requirement that plates may only be sold if a link can be demonstrated between the number requested and a valid, existing vehicle registration.
The scheme covers a wide array of organisations including:
- Assemblers
- Distributors
- Manufacturers
- Motor dealers
- Motor factors
- Retail outlets
- Online retailers - such as ourselves!
Why introduce the register?
The Home Office established The Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team, or VCRAT, to develop and implement a plan to cut vehicle crime. One VCRAT recommendation was statutory registration of the number plate suppliers in order to make it much harder for criminals to make stolen vehicles appear legitimate by using counterfeit number plates. This was enacted as the RNPS.
It is illegal to supply number plates unless registered under the RNPS. Offenders could be charged with selling counterfeit plates!
As you need to provide proof that you are entitled to a set of number plates, the scheme makes it much harder to obtain plates illegitimately.
Who is exempt from the DVLA RNPS?
There are some exceptions to the UK’s RNPS legislation, including:
- Supplying plates for newly registered vehicles
- Suppliers located entirely outside the UK
- Components manufacturers who don’t sell complete plates
- Companies who fit plates to their own vehicles but do not supply them to anyone else.
Please note that a motor trader who fits new plates to used vehicles to sell on is not exempt because the vehicle has been previously registered. You can see CarReg’s listing on the DVLA website
