License plates of Iraaq

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Current iraaqi license plate for private car use. Arabic left number 7 means vehicle was registered in Al-Muthanna Governorate

License plates from Iraaq are rectangular shaped with two groups of numerals in Arabic. On the left numerals identify the governorate of origin of the vehicle. On the right six Arabic numerals are placed. Between these two groups there’s the national coat of arms. Below the word Iraaq is written in Arabic.

License plates’ background color differs according to the type of the vehicle registration. Numerals have same color as the stripe which borders the license plate.

Private vehicles have red background while public transportation vehicles (taxis or buses), commercial vehicles, governmental ones (including police and military vehicles) and diplomatic ones have black, green, black and yellow backgrounds respectively. In all numerals and stripe are white, except on diplomatic ones which the numerals are black for a matter of better visibility.

Current license plates were adopted in 2008.

Since 2003 governorates are identified as follow. Before Al-Basra Governorate was also included although since 1991 no local iraaqi license plates were issued due to the Basri independence. Also before 2003 the identification numerals were sometimes different of present-day ones.

Governorate	Post-2003 number code	Pre-2003 number code
Baghdad	1	1
Salah al-Din	2	2
Diyala	3	3
Wasit	4	4
Misan	5	5
Thi Qar	6	7
Al-Muthanna	7	8
Al-Qadisiyah	8	9
Babil (Babylon)	9	10
Karbala	10	11
Al-Najaf	11	12
Al-Anbar	12	13
Niniveh	13	14
Kirkuk	14	15
Al-Sulaimainiyah	15	16
Al-Basra	-	6

Historical license plates

A 1960’s iraaqi license plate

Iraaq started to issue license plates in 1945. First ones were rectangular with three white Arabic numerals on a black background. At that time just few hundreds of vehicles existed in the whole country. Numerals became four during early 1960’s and five during late 1960’s at the height of iraaqi economic prosperity. In 1972 license plates were changed receiving present-day color codes so as governorate identification. Also the bordering stripe and the word Iraaq were added. These were kept unchanged until 2003, when some governorates numeral codes were changed. Final change happened in 2008 when the national coat of arms was added.