Find Your Perfect Private Number Plate

Yes. You can buy a plate before you have a vehicle, then keep it to assign later. Some buyers do this when they’ve found the right plate first, or they’re buying it as a gift. Just make sure you’re comfortable with the format and characters and keep the details safe for when you’re ready to assign it.

Prices vary. In the UK, personalised number plates start from under £200, and can rise to hundreds of thousands of pounds depending on how short, rare, or in-demand the letters and numbers are. If you’re browsing registration plates for sale, the quickest way to stay on budget is to start with a price range, and then refine by format and characters.

At National Numbers, there’s a huge spread of private plates from affordable options to in-demand, exclusive registration plates.

Prices mainly come down to scarcity and demand - how rare the combination is, and how many people want something similar. Plates tend to cost more when they’re short and clean, easy to read, work for common initials/names, or don’t show a year identifier (dateless-style).

Some niche plates can also be expensive if they’re rare and strongly match a specific name, brand, or high-demand idea, which is why prices vary so much across personalised number plates.

They can, but it depends on how in demand the number plate is. If you’re buying with future value in mind, look for plates with broad appeal (clean character sets, popular letters/numbers) rather than something very niche.

If you already have a personalised plate and want a quick sense-check on the value, the simplest starting point is a free, no-obligation online valuation, which gives you an instant estimate based on selling patterns.

Once you’ve bought the plate, the next step is DVLA assignment - adding the new registration to your vehicle. What you need and how you do it depends on whether the plate is being assigned online and whether you have the right vehicle documents to hand. For the simplest step-by-step, use our guide on how to assign a DVLA private number plate.

Not always. A custom number plate has to fit UK plate formats and DVLA rules, which means you’re limited to the letters and numbers that can legally appear in a registration, and you can’t use spacing or styling to misrepresent what it actually says. Some words simply won’t be possible due to character limits and availability, but you can often get close with initials, numbers, or creative alternatives that still read cleanly.

The best approach is to start with the word/idea you want, then test variations (initials, numbers that stand in for letters, or shorter alternatives) until you find a combination that works and stays compliant.

Yes, you can buy multiple private plates for sale if you want to keep options open or buy plates for different vehicles, or as gifts. Just remember each plate is a separate purchase and you’ll need to manage the assignment for the one you actually want to use.

Yes, you can get personal number plates on finance at National Numbers. Finance is available across most of our 72 million+ plates, and you can apply online via our customer finance partner, Payment Assist. To secure the plate, you’ll pay a small deposit, then spread the remaining cost over 12 or 24 months.