Wisconsin To Debut Of A New Series Of License Plates

When you drive in Wisconsin, or any state in America for that matter, you'll see a variety of license plates. That's because there are plenty of specialty plates to choose from, such as the blackout plates that have become extremely popular in states like Minnesota and Iowa.

While Wisconsin has yet to offer blackout plates, they recently announced that a new specialty license plate was available to recognize and raise money for the Wisconsin County Forests Association.

While plates like that are instantly noticeable, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was forced to make another change that will impact all Wisconsin license plates moving forward.

Wisconsin DMV Announces The Debut Of New ‘B’ Series Of License Plates

This week, the Wisconsin DMV announced it will soon debut a new series of license plates beginning with the letter ‘B’. After nearly eight years and 4.7 million letter and number combinations on license plates issued by the Wisconsin DMV, all combinations of plates beginning with the letter ‘A’ have been exhausted.

“Wisconsin DMV is proud to provide Wisconsin drivers the credentials they need to safely get from point A to point B and now we’re moving from A to B,” DMV Administrator Tommy Winkler said. “Drivers can ‘B’ on the lookout for the new license plates when they begin rolling out statewide this month.” Did you see what he did there?

Get our free mobile app

The first batch of Wisconsin ‘B’ plates will begin with BAA and then begin moving through millions of letter and number combinations until all combinations starting with ‘B’ are issued.

If you're wondering how long that will take, the Wisconsin DMV estimates that the process of issuing new plates and automatically replacing old plates that are still on the road will take about seven years.

It's also worth noting that Wisconsin license plates currently have seven characters, but that wasn’t always the case. They had six characters until April 2017, when the current format of seven-character license plates beginning with the letter ‘A’ began.

That additional character yielded about 100 million combinations; the previous six-character license plates yielded about 20 million combinations. The letters ‘I,’ ‘O,’ and ‘Q’ are not included in the combinations because they resemble numbers.

Currently, about 3.5 million vehicles have standard Wisconsin plates. Those vehicle owners who are looking to replace their older license plates have the opportunity to be among the first to order the new “B” series.