What year is a 12 plate?
A 12 plate car was first registered between 1 March 2012 and 31 August 2012, which makes it 14 years old.
-
14
years old
Registered March to August 2012
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1 Mar 2012
first issued
The March identifier
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31 Aug 2012
last issued
Then the 62 plate
What a 12 plate tells you about a car
How old is a 12 plate car?
14 years old
The first 12 plate cars turned 14 on 1 March 2026 and the last on 31 August 2026. The V5C gives a car's exact date.
MOT on a 12 plate
All past their first MOT
First MOTs fell due from 1 March 2015. Each car should have an unbroken run of annual tests since, and a gap is the first thing to ask about.
Car tax on a 12 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.
12 plate cars at the MOT and in clean air zones
DVSA's 2025 MOT results for cars and light vans first used in 2012, and where the plate sits against the emissions standards for London's ULEZ and the UK's clean air zones.
MOT results in 2025
36.6% initial fail rate
DVSA's 2025 figure for cars and light vans first used in 2012, the year every 12 plate car was registered: 1,694,314 tests at around 13 years old and an average of 96,644 miles on the clock. Those figures cover the makes in our MOT statistics: 98.8% of all 2025 tests on cars and light vans first used in 2012. The 36.6% rate is 8.9 points above the 27.7% average in our MOT statistics.
ULEZ and clean air zones
Petrol generally complies, diesel generally does not
A 12 plate petrol car was registered after 2005, so it generally meets Euro 4, the petrol standard. A 12 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 a 12 plate car?
Check the car, not just the plate
Cars on this plate are now 14 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 12 plate: common questions
What year is a 12 plate?
A 12 plate was issued between 1 March 2012 and 31 August 2012. March identifiers are simply the last two digits of the year, so 12 means 2012.
How old is a 12 plate car?
A 12 plate car is 14 years old. The first 12 plate cars turned 14 on 1 March 2026 and the last on 31 August 2026.
When does a 12 plate car need its first MOT?
Three years after first registration, so the earliest 12 plate cars needed one from 1 March 2015 and the last of them from 31 August 2015, 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.