Vehicle registration plates of Algeria

Algerian registration plate, front of the vehicle

Algerian registration plate, rear of the vehicle

Standard issue plates are white with black digits (affixed to the front of the vehicle) and yellow with black digits (mounted onto the rear of the vehicle). Being composed solely of numbers, they are one of the few vehicle registration plates which can accurately be referred to as 'number plates'.

The registration mark takes the form of three groups of digits separated by a space (early plates were separated with a hyphen[2]). Since the late-1990s,[3] the first group of numbers is composed of 5 digits (including leading zeroes – earlier plates have up to three digits with no leading zeroes), which make up the vehicle's actual registration/serial number. The next group is formed of 3 digits, and is used to identify the vehicle class and year of manufacture (e.g. 198 denotes a private vehicle manufactured in 1998). A two-digit suffix on the plate identifies the wilaya (Arabic: ولاية) or province in which the vehicle was first registered.

Example of front and rear plates on a private vehicle manufactured in 1963, and registered in Blida

Example of front and rear plates on a private vehicle manufactured in 2001, and registered in Mostaganem

Algerian army registration plate

Diplomatic vehicles are issued with plates featuring three groups of black digits, separated by hyphens, on a light teal background. The first group are the vehicle's actual registration/serial number (up to 3 digits in length); the second is composed of two digits indicating whether the vehicle belongs to a diplomat or embassy staff. The final two digits identify the embassy itself (e.g. 27 for Italy; 37 for Norway, &c.)

Example of front and rear plates on a diplomatic vehicle belonging to the Italian embassy