The car was stolen, can the owner keep the license plate?

The Ministry of Public Security has just issued Circular 24/2023/TT-BCA regulating the issuance and revocation of registration and license plates of motor vehicles, which stipulates that license plates are issued and managed according to the vehicle owner's identification code (hereinafter referred to as identification plates).

Identification plate is a plate with symbols, plate series, size of letters and numbers, and plate color according to the provisions of this Circular.

For vehicle owners who are Vietnamese citizens, license plates are managed according to personal identification numbers.

In case the vehicle expires, is damaged or ownership is transferred, the vehicle owner's identification plate will be revoked by the vehicle registration authority and reissued when the vehicle owner registers another vehicle under his/her ownership.

The identification number is retained for the vehicle owner for a period of 5 years from the date of revocation; after the above period, if the vehicle owner has not registered, the identification number will be transferred to the license plate warehouse for registration and issuance to organizations and individuals according to regulations.

In case the vehicle owner changes his/her headquarters or residence from one province or centrally-run city to another, he/she can keep the identification number plate (no need to change the vehicle number plate).

Regarding transitional provisions, the Circular clearly states that for vehicles registered with 5-digit license plates before August 15, 2023 but have not completed the revocation procedure, that license plate number will be determined as the vehicle owner's identification license plate number.

For vehicles registered with 5-digit license plates, if the vehicle owner has completed the revocation procedure before August 15, 2023, the license plate number will be transferred to the license plate warehouse to issue a new license plate according to regulations.

Vehicles that have been registered with 3 or 4-digit license plates are allowed to continue to participate in traffic, except in cases where the vehicle owner needs to change to a new identification license plate or when the vehicle owner carries out procedures for issuing and changing vehicle registration certificates, issuing and changing license plates, reissuing vehicle registration certificates, reissuing license plates or registering and transferring ownership or moving vehicles according to the provisions of this Circular, then the 3 or 4-digit license plate will be revoked and changed to a new identification license plate according to the regulations.

Regarding the new regulations of Circular 24, many people wonder whether the owner of a vehicle with a 5-digit license plate that is stolen and reported to the police can keep the license plate of the stolen vehicle?

Regarding this issue, according to Article 23 of Circular 24, if a vehicle is stolen, misappropriated and cannot be found, or is abandoned, the vehicle owner must request the revocation of the vehicle registration certificate and license plate.

Thus, the lost vehicles fall into one of the cases of revocation of registration certificates and license plates.

Regarding the revocation procedure for lost vehicles, the vehicle owner declares the revocation of vehicle registration and license plate on the public service portal and submits the vehicle registration certificate to the vehicle registration authority via postal service.

After receiving and checking valid documents, the vehicle registration authority will return the results of the registration revocation certificate and license plate to the vehicle owner on the public service portal.

In case of performing partial online public services, the vehicle owner shall declare the vehicle registration and license plate revocation declaration on the public service portal; provide the online vehicle registration file code and submit the revocation dossier according to regulations.

After receiving and checking the valid documents, the vehicle registration agency will issue a certificate of registration revocation and license plate number, one copy will be returned to the vehicle owner and one copy will be kept in the vehicle records.

After people complete the procedure to revoke the license plate and register the vehicle, the license plate will be stored in the electronic database. The license plate will also be reissued when the owner registers another vehicle under his/her ownership. After 5 years, if the owner does not want to use it again, the license plate will be revoked, stored in the license plate database to be reissued to someone else.

Thus, after completing the recall procedure, within 5 years if people buy a new car of the same type, they will be reissued the old license plate to register the new car.

Minh Hoa (t/h)

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