What the 27 plate will mean
Nothing wears a 27 plate yet. From 1 March 2027 it becomes the identifier on every newly registered car in Great Britain until 31 August 2027, at which point the 77 plate takes over.
The weeks before a change are usually the better time to buy. Dealers are trying to shift cars on the current identifier, so there is more movement on price, and the car itself is no different from the one that arrives a fortnight later. The trade off is that it looks a plate older from day one, which costs a little at resale.
MOT and car tax on a 27 plate
A car needs its first MOT three years after it is registered, so 27 plate cars start needing one from 1 March 2030, and the last of them from 31 August 2030. None of them has needed a test yet, so there is no MOT history to read on one.
For car tax, a 27 plate falls under the system introduced in April 2017: a one-off first-year rate based on CO₂, then the same flat standard rate for everything afterwards, with an extra supplement for five years on cars that cost over the expensive-car threshold when new. Our car tax calculator works out the current figure either way.
What the rest of the plate means
The two letters in front of the numbers are the area code, and they record the DVLA office that first issued the registration rather than where the car lives now. In KF27 XYZ the KF is that code, the 27 is the age identifier, and the last three letters are random. Our area code index covers all nineteen regions, and the free plate decoder reads any registration back in full.
None of that tells you how the car has actually been treated. The MOT record does, and it is free to read: our MOT history check shows every test, every advisory and every recorded mileage for any registration. When you want the whole picture, the £5.00 report adds the tax status, spec, keeper changes and a photo.