DVLA list of banned '73' registration plates

A new list of banned UK number plates has been revealed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), adding to the extensive and ever-growing archive of inappropriate or explicit combinations that won’t be seen on the road.

Who would have ever thought that any number plate would ever need to be banned!

A every release of new number plates, the DVLA issues more than one million possible number combinations and at the same time they create a long list of banned number plate combinations.

The AN73 prefix potentially being read as ‘ANTI’ or ‘ANY’ that’s been disallowed when followed by a wide variety of three-letter combinations. The same applies for EA73 with its ‘EATS’ connotations and HA73 as a shorthand for ‘HATES’.

List of banned 73 reg plates

As you can probably work out from the above list the criteria for plates to be banned is if they “may cause offence, embarrassment or are in poor taste”. The DVLA do state that it’s only a small minority of combinations that end up on the suppressed list, with the vast majority of registrations being publicly available.

You can purchase a 73 registration and keep it on certificate indefinitely, assigning it to a suitable vehicle in the future, or simply retain it on certificate as an investment.

There are currently some 1,712,166 registrations in the 73 series to choose from. Although you need a vehicle registered on, or after, 1st September 2023 to display a 73 reg on, you don't actually need to be in possession of a suitable vehicle to own a 73 registration plate.

Once you have bought any new reg plate unless it comes with the vehicle you are going to need to purchase the actual plate to put on the car, our choice of supplier is Car Plates Direct.