Been waiting for your license plate? Check its availability online

Remember LTO’s announcement earlier this month about the availability of license plates? It’s apparently making progress and you can now check if yours is already available by visiting the LTO website.

Upon entering the portal, you can click on the Motor Vehicle 7-Character Plate Backlog Inquiry to begin. When the page reloads, all you need to do is to enter your 15-digit MV File Number and hit search. Aside from telling you your license plate’s availability, it will also let you know what LTO office you can get your license plates from.

To recall, LTO announced that starting July 5, 2018, the agency will begin releasing the license plates of vehicles that were registered way back in July 2016. These are part of the 231,332 pairs of vehicle license plates produced as of July 4, 2018. Not all are available in an instant, though, as there’s a schedule for the license plates based on the registration date of the vehicle. You can view the schedule here, as segregated by region.

Unfortunately, those who have registered before July 1, 2016 will have to wait further since the license plates for these cars haven't produced as of yet. LTO explained that the license plates for these cars will come from a different supplier as they were under a different contract – the subject of the Commission on Audit (COA) disallowance.

On the other hand, motorcycles with pending vehicle license plates will be issued with their corresponding plates as soon as the bill for the differently-sized plates have been passed, as assured by LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar C. Galvante.