Alabama Travel Plate
2022–presentAlabama · current · “Heart of Dixie”
Alabama's default plate since January 2022, and a state selling itself: sunrise over the Gulf, sea oats on the dune, a beach that could be Gulf Shores on a still morning. The web address printed on the blue band is the tell, alabama.travel, because this is a tourism advertisement you are required to bolt to your car. HEART OF DIXIE survives in a small white heart at the lower right, all that is left of a slogan that once ran the width of the plate. The first character of the serial encodes the county that issued it. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
Still on the road
This is a current issue, first seen in 2022 and still being handed out. Nothing about it is settled history: the serial sequence is still advancing, and the design will only stop where the state decides to replace it.
Printed, not stamped
This plate is smooth. The design is printed onto flat reflective sheeting rather than pressed into the metal. It is what makes photographic backgrounds and fine detail possible at all, and it is the reason a modern plate feels like a sign where an older one feels like a stamping.
Sources
Reference is the Department of Revenue's own scan of a physical sample plate, carrying a placeholder serial (All rights reserved, cited not reproduced). Issue date, county-coded serial format and the thermal printing method (CC BY-SA).
- Issued
- Standard issue
- The plate you received by default when you registered a vehicle.
- Serial format
- 9A9999A
- Material
- Flat aluminium, thermal-printed on reflective sheeting
- Source license
- All rights reserved, cited not reproduced
- Reference
- View original