What year is an 04 plate?
An 04 plate car was first registered between 1 March 2004 and 31 August 2004, which makes it 22 years old.
-
22
years old
Registered March to August 2004
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1 Mar 2004
first issued
The March identifier
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31 Aug 2004
last issued
Then the 54 plate
What an 04 plate tells you about a car
How old is an 04 plate car?
22 years old
The first 04 plate cars turned 22 on 1 March 2026 and the last on 31 August 2026. The V5C gives a car's exact date.
MOT on an 04 plate
All past their first MOT
First MOTs fell due from 1 March 2007. Each car should have an unbroken run of annual tests since, and a gap is the first thing to ask about.
Car tax on an 04 plate
CO₂ bands A to M
Cars first registered from March 2001 to March 2017 are taxed on their official CO₂ figure. Our car tax calculator works out the current figure.
04 plate cars at the MOT and in clean air zones
DVSA's 2025 MOT results for cars and light vans first used in 2004, and where the plate sits against the emissions standards for London's ULEZ and the UK's clean air zones.
MOT results in 2025
42.6% initial fail rate
DVSA's 2025 figure for cars and light vans first used in 2004, the year every 04 plate car was registered: 386,793 tests at around 21 years old and an average of 109,998 miles on the clock. Those figures cover the makes in our MOT statistics: 96.5% of all 2025 tests on cars and light vans first used in 2004. The 42.6% rate is 14.9 points above the 27.7% average in our MOT statistics.
ULEZ and clean air zones
Petrol and diesel generally fall short
An 04 plate petrol car generally falls short of Euro 4, the petrol standard. TfL says compliant petrol cars have been on sale since 2001, so some do meet it. An 04 plate diesel is generally Euro 5 or older, short of Euro 6, the diesel standard. Check one car with our ULEZ checker or TfL's.
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT results for 2025, cars and light vans (class 4 tests). Contains DVSA MOT testing data © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
An area code, the age, three random letters
What the rest of the plate means
The first two letters name the region of first registration. See the area codes, the regions or the free plate decoder.
What the plate cannot tell you
The exact age, or how it has been kept
A private plate hides the age. The V5C has the exact date, and the free MOT history check shows every test.
Looking at an 04 plate car?
Check the car, not just the plate
Cars on this plate are now 22 years old, so the MOT history and mileage tell you most about how one has been kept. From £5.
Every identifier since 2001
Each year has a March plate, which uses the year, and a September plate, which adds 50. The yellow one, the 76 plate, is being issued now. When the next plate change happens.
The 04 plate: common questions
What year is an 04 plate?
An 04 plate was issued between 1 March 2004 and 31 August 2004. March identifiers are simply the last two digits of the year, so 04 means 2004.
How old is an 04 plate car?
An 04 plate car is 22 years old. The first 04 plate cars turned 22 on 1 March 2026 and the last on 31 August 2026.
When does an 04 plate car need its first MOT?
Three years after first registration, so the earliest 04 plate cars needed one from 1 March 2007 and the last of them from 31 August 2007, then one every year.
Does the plate tell me anything else about the car?
The two letters before the numbers are the DVLA memory tag, which DVLA describes as referring to the region where the vehicle was first registered. The three letters after them are random. Neither says anything about where the car is now, and a transferred private plate hides the age entirely.