The most expensive number plates sold at DVLA auction
Most articles about expensive number plates tell you the same handful of stories. 25 O, F1, the ones that made the papers a decade ago. Those are worth reading, and we have written about them, but they answer a question nobody is really asking. What people want to know is what expensive plates cost now, and who is buying them.
This page tracks every registration DVLA has sold at its timed online auctions since January 2025. That is 27,656 lots and around £70 million of hammer prices, updated after each auction closes. It is the live market rather than the hall of fame, and it looks nothing like the listicles.
For the historic records, the six-figure private sales and the plates that made headlines, see the ten most expensive plates ever sold.
The top 100
The highest price in the period is £156,010, paid for 15 LAM in January 2026. Below that, the drop is steep. 3 lots have cleared £100,000, 18 have passed £50,000, and 110 have made £20,000 or more. Against 27,656 sold lots, that puts the £20,000 club at roughly 4 in every thousand.
The column that makes this table different is the last one. Where a plate has since been assigned to a vehicle, we show the car.
| Rank | Registration | Price | Auction | Vehicle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 LAM | £156,010 | Jan 2026 | Not assigned |
| 2 | BEA 5T | £111,120 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 3 | 52 O | £102,010 | Sep 2025 | Not assigned |
| 4 | 101 O | £91,020 | Mar 2025 | Land Rover Range Rover, Black |
| 5 | AVI 1 | £91,010 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 6 | 8 FU | £90,000 | Jun 2025 | Mercedes-Benz AMG, Green |
| 7 | KSK 1 | £82,010 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 8 | ELL 10T | £80,810 | Sep 2025 | Bentley Bentayga, Black |
| 9 | 95 A | £71,010 | Jun 2025 | Not assigned |
| 10 | 3 FU | £70,000 | Feb 2025 | Ferrari, Red |
| 11 | 57 O | £68,010 | May 2026 | Not assigned |
| 12 | 110 O | £67,010 | Mar 2026 | Not assigned |
| 13 | 81 O | £65,090 | Jan 2026 | Not assigned |
| 14 | 98 O | £63,100 | Jun 2025 | Lamborghini Urus, Black |
| 15 | 9 OAT | £62,030 | Sep 2025 | Rolls-Royce Wraith, Black |
| 16 | 54 O | £56,510 | May 2025 | Not assigned |
| 17 | OAS 1S | £56,040 | Jun 2025 | Porsche Macan, Green |
| 18 | TON 1S | £51,020 | Nov 2025 | Bentley Continental, Grey |
| 19 | SAM 1S | £46,010 | Jan 2026 | BMW M4, Grey |
| 20 | 9 XN | £45,010 | Jun 2025 | Not assigned |
| 21 | 7 FU | £42,510 | May 2025 | Lamborghini Huracan, Orange |
| 22 | ATL 4S | £41,110 | Feb 2026 | Rolls-Royce, Purple |
| 23 | 788 HS | £40,810 | May 2026 | Not assigned |
| 24 | 849 T | £39,450 | May 2026 | Not assigned |
| 25 | 80 LAW | £37,510 | Mar 2026 | Not assigned |
| 26 | FER 12C | £35,000 | Jul 2025 | Not assigned |
| 27 | 1544 C | £33,670 | Jan 2025 | Not assigned |
| 28 | 1 WHD | £33,260 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 29 | 505 O | £31,510 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 30 | 250 OOO | £31,050 | Mar 2026 | Not assigned |
| 31 | 66 OAT | £31,010 | Feb 2025 | Mercedes-Benz AMG, Grey |
| 32 | PO25 CHE | £31,010 | May 2025 | Not assigned |
| 33 | 111 SO | £30,010 | Nov 2025 | Rolls-Royce, Silver |
| 34 | 122 A | £30,010 | May 2026 | Not assigned |
| 35 | 303 O | £30,010 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 36 | 992 AB | £30,010 | Jun 2026 | Audi RS6, Grey |
| 37 | AUT 15M | £30,010 | Oct 2025 | Lamborghini Revuelto, Black |
| 38 | 200 OOO | £29,600 | Feb 2025 | Not assigned |
| 39 | 3000 O | £28,510 | Nov 2025 | Not assigned |
| 40 | 7007 JB | £28,010 | Mar 2025 | Land Rover Defender, Grey |
| 41 | 8008 S | £27,410 | Mar 2025 | Ferrari F8, Grey |
| 42 | 1 ORO | £26,260 | Mar 2025 | Mercedes-Benz G, Black |
| 43 | 4000 O | £26,230 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 44 | 321 OO | £26,010 | Sep 2025 | Land Rover Range Rover Evoque, Grey |
| 45 | RVS 1 | £26,010 | Feb 2025 | Land Rover Range Rover Sport, Blue |
| 46 | 86 OO | £25,760 | Jan 2025 | Not assigned |
| 47 | 123 AS | £25,510 | Mar 2026 | Ferrari 12Cilindri, Blue |
| 48 | EMZ 1 | £25,510 | Nov 2025 | Bentley Continental, White |
| 49 | JSK 7 | £25,210 | May 2025 | Land Rover Defender, Grey |
| 50 | HMZ 4 | £25,160 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 51 | MVS 1 | £25,110 | May 2025 | Rolls-Royce Wraith, Grey |
| 52 | 8000 O | £25,060 | Jan 2025 | Not assigned |
| 53 | 150 OOO | £25,010 | Feb 2026 | Not assigned |
| 54 | 296 VS | £25,010 | Jul 2025 | Not assigned |
| 55 | 296 X | £25,010 | Oct 2025 | Ferrari 296, Green |
| 56 | JSZ 1 | £25,010 | Jan 2026 | Land Rover Range Rover, Orange |
| 57 | PAD 5L | £25,000 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 58 | PAD 6L | £25,000 | Feb 2025 | Porsche Panamera, Blue |
| 59 | 154 M | £24,990 | Nov 2025 | Land Rover Range Rover, Green |
| 60 | 6 RUP | £24,510 | Feb 2025 | Not assigned |
| 61 | 40 NAN | £24,040 | Mar 2025 | Land Rover Range Rover, Black |
| 62 | 160 Y | £24,010 | Feb 2025 | Not assigned |
| 63 | YDS 1 | £24,010 | Nov 2025 | Not assigned |
| 64 | 7 HSK | £23,510 | Jan 2025 | Not assigned |
| 65 | 121 O | £23,360 | Jul 2025 | Lamborghini Urus, Grey |
| 66 | 91 SS | £23,110 | Sep 2025 | Bentley Continental, White |
| 67 | 23 RAD | £23,010 | Nov 2025 | Not assigned |
| 68 | 74 OO | £23,010 | Jul 2025 | Mercedes-Benz G, Black |
| 69 | 7777 O | £22,960 | Feb 2026 | Not assigned |
| 70 | 411 OYS | £22,770 | Sep 2025 | Not assigned |
| 71 | OSK 1 | £22,500 | Mar 2025 | Not assigned |
| 72 | BUL 1T | £22,450 | May 2026 | Not assigned |
| 73 | 11 BUX | £22,250 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 74 | 105 B | £21,710 | Feb 2025 | Not assigned |
| 75 | 1 LRV | £21,510 | May 2026 | Mini Cooper, Silver |
| 76 | 77 LAW | £21,510 | Jul 2025 | Audi RSQ8, Grey |
| 77 | 930 TBO | £21,500 | May 2026 | Not assigned |
| 78 | DUA 4A | £21,470 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 79 | DAM 1T | £21,090 | Feb 2025 | Not assigned |
| 80 | 1 VLW | £21,010 | Jul 2025 | Not assigned |
| 81 | 810 W | £21,010 | Jul 2025 | Mercedes-Benz C-class, Black |
| 82 | 911 OUT | £20,800 | Jun 2026 | Not assigned |
| 83 | 8 MMR | £20,530 | Nov 2025 | Not assigned |
| 84 | 106 A | £20,510 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 85 | 61 OO | £20,510 | Mar 2025 | Not assigned |
| 86 | 143 E | £20,180 | Feb 2026 | Not assigned |
| 87 | UMR 4H | £20,160 | Nov 2025 | Not assigned |
| 88 | JSK 8 | £20,120 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 89 | 8 KSK | £20,110 | Mar 2026 | Not assigned |
| 90 | 11 PKS | £20,100 | Jul 2025 | Porsche 911, White |
| 91 | 18 UY | £20,030 | Jan 2025 | Ford Transit, Grey |
| 92 | 450 M | £20,030 | May 2026 | Porsche 911, Grey |
| 93 | 599 A | £20,030 | Jul 2025 | Ferrari Sa, Red |
| 94 | HO75 PUR | £20,020 | Oct 2025 | Not assigned |
| 95 | VAR 4N | £20,020 | Feb 2026 | Mercedes-Benz G, Black |
| 96 | 112 B | £20,010 | Mar 2025 | Aston Martin Vantage, Grey |
| 97 | 365 TOW | £20,010 | Feb 2026 | Mercedes-Benz Arocs, Red |
| 98 | 520 BB | £20,010 | Oct 2025 | Porsche Cayenne, Blue |
| 99 | 5 HSK | £20,010 | Sep 2025 | Land Rover Range Rover, Black |
| 100 | 5 ULE | £20,010 | Sep 2025 | Toyota Yaris, White |
What car is it on now?
The pattern at the top of the market is the one you would expect. The most common makes among plates selling for £20,000 or more are Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche. Buy a plate at this level and the odds are heavily on you owning something German, Italian or Solihull-built.
The exceptions are the interesting part. 1 LRV sold for £21,510 and now sits on a Mini Cooper, Silver. Somewhere in that fact is a better story about British car ownership than any amount of supercar photography.
Highest value unassigned plates
Here is the thing the listicles miss.
15 LAM, the most expensive plate in this dataset at £156,010, is not on a car. Neither is BEA 5T at £111,120.
Of the ten highest prices on this page, 6 have never been assigned to a vehicle. The pattern reverses as prices fall. Among lots selling between £20,000 and £30,000, 49% are on a car. Above £50,000, only 44% are.
The likely explanation is not complicated. A registration held on a retention certificate is an asset. It can be sold on, gifted, or simply sat on while the market moves, and none of that requires a car. Buyers at the top of this market appear to be treating plates the way they treat watches and art, and the DVLA data shows it plainly. Across the fixed-price market we track, roughly a quarter to a third of all plates sold are never assigned to a vehicle at all.
Price by plate type
Dateless plates are the ones without a year identifier, the format that predates the 1963 suffix system. They are finite, no more are ever issued, and the market prices them accordingly. The average dateless lot goes for £4,497 against £1,008 for a prefix plate, and 8 of the ten most expensive plates on this page are dateless.
Suffix plates sit in between at £1,993, helped along by their usefulness for names. Current-style plates average £1,839, which tells you most of what you need to know about scarcity.
If the format interests you, we have a fuller explanation of dateless number plates and what makes them different.
View the table
| Plate type | Lots sold | Average price | Highest price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dateless | 8,872 | £4,497 | £156,010 |
| Suffix | 10,508 | £1,993 | £111,120 |
| New | 1,298 | £1,839 | £31,010 |
| Prefix | 6,978 | £1,008 | £19,280 |
The letter that dominates the top 100
Scan the table above and one letter does a lot of work. 19 of the hundred most expensive plates end in O or OO, the highest of them at £102,010.
The mechanics explain some of it. Short dateless plates ending in a single letter are among the rarest formats in circulation, and O is the cleanest of them visually. The rest is demand, and the prices suggest it is not short of it.
Records by year
The average hammer price rose from £2,495 in 2025 to £2,623 in 2026. The record for the period stands at £156,010, set by 15 LAM in January 2026.
One caveat on the table. The 2026 figure covers auctions to June only, so the lot count is not comparable with a full year. The average price is.
Historic records
The plates above are the current market. They are not the biggest numbers ever paid for a British registration, and it is worth being clear about the difference.
The all-time records belong to private sales and historic DVLA lots that sit outside this dataset. 25 O, F1 and the rest were sold years ago, in different circumstances, and the figures reported for them come from DVLA announcements and press coverage rather than from our monitoring.
We have written those stories up separately in the ten most expensive number plates ever sold.
Every figure on this page comes from DVLA's published timed online auction results, covering auctions from January 2025 onwards. The most recent auction included is June 2026. Prices are hammer prices and include VAT and the assignment fee.
Vehicle matches are made by checking each registration against official vehicle enquiry and MOT records. A plate shown as not assigned had no vehicle recorded against it at the time of the last check, which usually means it is held on a retention certificate. Plates are rechecked on a rolling basis, so a registration can move from not assigned to a vehicle over time.
The data is refreshed nightly and after each auction closes. Free to cite with a link. Data cuts are available to journalists on request.