All vehicles in Ghana to receive new number plates from April 1, 2026 – DVLA
All vehicles in Ghana are to receive new number plates from April 1, 2026, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has said.
All the new plates are to be RFID-compliant (Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
The move is to ensure that, number plates can be digitally identified by scanning.
This is to help with electronic road toll management, speed camera reading and many others.
According to the DVLA, the introduction of new number plates for all vehicles will be done in phases, with new registrations starting January 1, 2026, following which vehicles already in the system will start re-registration with new number plates from April 1, 2026.
Earlier, the DVLA had explained it will abolish displaying the year of registration on vehicle number plates from January 1, 2026, for new registrations.
The new system, according to the Chief Executive of the DVLA, Julius Neequaye Kotey will instead only identify vehicles by the region in which they were registered for example “Greater Accra” written on top of the plate, followed by the vehicle’s unique four-digit number and a code showing the zone within which the vehicle was registered.
For example, a vehicle registered within the Adenta zone in Greater Accra will have “AD” code at the end of the four-digit unique number, replacing where the year of registration, for example, “25” for 2025 would have been displayed.
DV plates
For the “DV” [Defective Vehicle] plates too, he has said it is going to change.
And the aim, according to him, is to help prevent and limit the use of “DV” [Defective Vehicle] plates in the system, which ordinarily is supposed to be used by car dealers for specific reasons, when they only need to move the vehicle to a specific location for repairs or for a test drive for a potential buyer.
However, he said many private individuals are reluctant to register their vehicles and have been resorting to the use of DV plates all year round.
He shared a photo of how the new DV plates and the temporary (TMP) plates will look like on social media and indicated that the DVLA was introducing a new sticker for vehicles that are not yet ready for use on the road. This initiative aims to improve the tracking and identification of all vehicles, even those not in immediate operation.
