VRT by Registration Ireland 2026

The decoder

Type any Irish plate. The decoder parses the format, looks up the county code in the local Irish reference table and derives age, vintage countdown and the VRT/CO₂ regulatory regime that applies. Nothing is sent to a server. Nothing is guessed. If a field cannot be inferred from the plate honestly, it is not shown.

What an Irish reg plate actually tells you

An Irish registration number is a public-record identifier issued at the time of vehicle registration. It encodes exactly three things:

• Year of first Irish registration. Two digits on pre-2013 plates (08, 12, 99), or two digits + half-year on 2013+ plates (191 = 2019 first half, 232 = 2023 second half, 261 = 2026 first half).
• Half of the year (2013+ only). Third digit: 1 = January–June, 2 = July–December. The split was added to soften the dealer-side cliff that had emptied showrooms outside January.
• County of first registration. 1–2 letters (D Dublin, C Cork, G Galway, WH Westmeath, KE Kildare, etc.). The car may have been used in any county since — the plate freezes the original.

The trailing number is a sequence — issued in order by the National Vehicle Driver File (NVDF) and not encoding anything semantic. A high sequence number on a YY-CC plate just means the vehicle was registered later in that half-year.

The honest truth about "VRT by registration" lookup

Several sites — including the largest result for the search term in 2025–2026 — offer a "VRT calculator by registration": you type a plate, they return what looks like make, model, year, OMSP and original VRT paid. Inspect the JavaScript and the picture is clear: those fields are generated at random in the browser. The "make" is picked from a list of seven popular brands, the "model" from another list of seven, with no guarantee they go together (a "BMW Golf" or "Toyota A4" is entirely possible). The OMSP is a random number between €15,000 and €55,000. The CO₂ is a random integer. The "VRT paid" is then computed from the random OMSP and random CO₂. The page even adds a 1.5-second loading spinner to make the deception feel like a real lookup.

The truth: no public source returns the original VRT paid from an Irish registration number. Revenue keeps that record on the National Vehicle Driver File and releases it only to the registered owner of the car (via MyEnquiries) or under specific legal circumstances. No commercial API in 2026 — Cartell, Motorcheck, HPI, Gocar or any other — sells the original-VRT figure as part of a vehicle history report. Anyone telling you otherwise is guessing.

Irish plate format history (1987 → today)

Three eras worth knowing, because the plate's format tells you which era a vehicle belongs to and therefore which VRT regime applied at first registration.

Pre-1987 — county-letter only

Before January 1987, Irish plates were lifetime alphanumeric codes (e.g. ZL 1234) that did not encode year of registration. These were issued one per vehicle and stayed with it. Many cars from this era still drive on the original plates, especially if vintage-eligible. No year information is recoverable from the plate alone.

1987–2012 — YY-CC-N

Introduced 1 January 1987: a two-digit year, then 1–2 letters for the county, then a sequence. So 87-D-1 (literally the first plate of the new system) was registered in 1987 in Dublin. Examples in our examples section below. This format encoded year and county, but not the time of year — meaning January registrations and December registrations carried identical plates.

2013 onwards — YYH-CC-N

From 1 January 2013 the system added a half-year digit. Year became 3 digits: two for the year, one for the half (1 = Jan–Jun, 2 = Jul–Dec). The change responded to a dealer-trade crisis: by the late 2000s, virtually all Irish new-car sales had compressed into January and February each year, with showrooms idle from March through December. Buyers wanted "this year's plate" and would not register a new car in (say) October if January was reachable. The 131/132 split gave dealers a second "new plate" sales pulse in July, restoring activity to the second half of the year. It worked: 2013–2016 saw roughly 60/40 H1/H2 splits, much closer to the demand shape than the 95/5 spike of 2010–2012.

2014 — Limerick & Tipperary mergers

When Limerick City and County merged in 2014, the dual codes L (county) and LK(city) were replaced by a single code, LK. Tipperary similarly lost its TN/TS split when North and South Tipperary County Councils merged into a single Tipperary County Council; the new code is just T. Older plates carrying L, TN or TS are still valid and still on the road.

Full Irish county code reference

Active and historic codes. "Historic" means the code is no longer issued on new plates but is still valid on existing vehicles.

Decoded examples

Example 1 — 191-D-12345

First-half 2019, Dublin. Car is currently 7 years old. Becomes vintage-eligible in 2049. CO₂ figures will be WLTP on the CoC for most cars sold this year (WLTP became mandatory for type-approval in September 2018, so 2019 cars had WLTP from new). Annual NCT applies from 2029 (10 years).

Example 2 — 08-WH-1234

2008, Westmeath. 18 years old. Pre-WLTP — Revenue uses NEDC + conversion if you re-register under the current VRT regime. Annual NCT cycle since 2018 (10+ years old). Vintage-eligible in 2038.

Example 3 — 232-T-9876

Second-half 2023, Tipperary (single-code post-2014). 3 years old in 2026. WLTP CO₂. First NCT due in 2027 (4 years from first registration). For the same plate registered before 2014 you'd see TN or TS instead of T.

Example 4 — 99-C-9876

1999, Cork. 27 years old. Becomes vintage in 2029. NEDC era. The reg has lasted three decades on the same plate — perfectly normal. Owners often opt to apply for a ZV plate the moment vintage status is reached (saves the €56 annual flat motor tax cap and signals the car's vintage status to police on the road).

Example 5 — ZV-1234

ZV series — vintage. The plate itself does not encode the year of first registration; you'd need the VRC to recover that. ZV-classed vehicles pay flat €200 VRT (or are TOR-exempt), are NOx-exempt and pay €56/year flat motor tax. Pre-1980 cars are also NCT-exempt.

Example 6 — 261-LK-100

First-half 2026, Limerick. The post-2014 single Limerick code. Brand-new car: WLTP CO₂, BEV-relief eligible to 31 December 2026 if it's a battery-electric vehicle, first NCT due in 2030.

What the plate doesn't tell you

Worth listing explicitly, because it explains the gap that fake "VRT by registration" sites exploit:

• Make and model. Not encoded. You'd need the VRC, the dealer ad, or a paid Cartell/Motorcheck report.
• Engine size, fuel type, CO₂, NOx. Not encoded. These come from the Certificate of Conformity (CoC), V5C (UK imports) or VRC.
• Original OMSP. Revenue's OMSP database is keyed on make/model/variant/spec/age, not on registration number. The plate doesn't help; the spec does.
• Original VRT paid. Held on Revenue's NVDF and not publicly accessible. Even paid commercial reports do not return this figure.
• Owner, address, finance, insurance. Privacy-protected. Only Gardaí, Revenue and the registered owner can request these.
• Mileage. Not on the plate. NCT odometer history (since 2013) is on the NCT report; pre-2013 mileage is via service records or a paid report.
• Accident or write-off history. Cartell and Motorcheck flag these from licensed insurance feeds. Not on the plate.

How to use this with the full VRT Calculator

1. Decode the plate above. Confirm year, half, county and the regulatory era.
2. Look up the live OMSP for that specific make / model / variant on Revenue's free e-VRT enquiry tool. You'll need the make, model, variant and date of first registration — the decoded year/half from the plate is exactly the input that tool wants.
3. Read CO₂ and NOx from the CoC (sections V.7 and V.3 respectively) for new and EU-imported cars; from the V5C for UK imports.
4. Run the figures through the main VRT Calculator. If the decoder above flagged the car as vintage, the calculator's "vintage" toggle will be pre-set when you click through.
5. Verify before purchase. The calculator is honest; it cannot guarantee Revenue's OMSP at NCTS inspection. For high-value cars, factor in OMSP-appeal headroom before you commit.

If you're importing from the UK, our UK import guide covers customs and VAT alongside VRT. If the car is over 30 years old, our main VRT guide explains the vintage flat-rate path. If you're new to Ireland and bringing your own car, the new-to-Ireland car admin checklist covers Transfer of Residence relief.

Cartell, Motorcheck and the rest

If you genuinely need make/model/CO₂/mileage/accident history from an Irish reg, paid services exist. They charge per-report and licence their data from motor-trade feeds, NCT releases, and insurance industry partners. Roughly:

• Cartell (cartell.ie) — full Irish-market vehicle history reports including specs, mileage, NCT history, write-off / clocking flags, and finance status. Typically €15–€20 per report.
• Motorcheck (motorcheck.ie) — similar coverage, similar pricing. Pulls from many of the same feeds.
• HPI Ireland (hpicheck.ie) — UK-origin service operating in Ireland. Useful when buying UK imports because it cross-checks UK-market data.

None of these services returns the original VRT paid on first Irish registration. They can return the date of first registration, original OMSP estimate, NCT history, accident flags, finance encumbrances and insurance write-off categories — all of which are useful before buying. For original VRT paid, you contact Revenue directly via MyEnquiries; they will issue a certified statement to the registered owner of the vehicle.

Sources

• Revenue's VRT Manual and Calculating VRT pages on revenue.ie — VRT mechanics, vintage flat-rate, ZV plate eligibility.
• Department of Transport — vehicle registration system, county codes, plate format reforms.
• citizensinformation.ie — registration plate format, county codes, vintage definition.
• Revenue e-VRT enquiry at ros.ie/evrt-enquiry — live OMSP lookup by make / model / variant / VIN.
• RSA / NCTS — NCT cycle (4 years from first registration, then biennial to 10 years, then annual).
• Finance Acts 1992–2025 — VRT structure, BEV relief, NOx levy.

Frequently asked questions