Understanding Egyptian License Plates

Do you ever wonder what the different colors on Egyptian license plates mean? How about the significance of the letters and numbers? Keep reading to find out everything you should know about Egyptian license plates. 

Wondering where to buy a license plate in Egypt and how to find one with unique numbers? Learn more here: Buying a car license plate in Egypt

The General Directorate of Traffic has designated distinctive colors to indicate the type of the car’s licensed activity as follows:

• Light blue: indicates that this is a privately owned passenger car “malaky”.
• Orange: indicates that the car is a taxi.
• Dark blue: denotes police cars.
• Red: denotes trucks and tractors.
• Brown: denotes commercial vehicles.
• Yellow: denotes cars with unpaid customs.
• Green: denotes diplomatic cars. The plates are painted green at the top, while the bottom half is white and the numbers are written in black.
• Presidential cars carry plates with a green bar at the top, a phosphoric green bar at the bottom and the numbers written in yellow.

Find out everything you need to know about car insurance companies in Egypt  The best car insurance company

What do the letters signify?

Each combination of letters signifies a specific governorate as follows

Alexandria: starts with س

Al-Sharqia: starts with ر

Dakahlia: starts with د

Menofia: starts with م

Beheira: starts with ب

Kafr el-Sheikh: starts with ل

Gharbia: starts with ع

Qualyubia: starts with ق

Fayoum: starts with ف

Beni Suef: starts with و

Minya: starts with ن

Assiut: starts with ى

Sohag: starts with هـ

Matrouh: ج هـ

New Valley: ج ب

Qena: ص أ

Luxor: ص ق

Aswan: ص و  

Canal, Red Sea, North and South Sinai governorates:

These plates always start with the same 1^st letter “ ط” while the 2^nd letter is unique to each governorate

Suez: ط س

Ismailia: ط ص

Port Said: ط ع

Damietta: ط د

North Sinai: ط ا

South Sinai: ط ج

Red Sea: ط ر 

Did you know that some traffic violations cannot be waived? Find out more here: Traffic violations that cannot be reconciled

Restricted letters and numbers:

There are certain letters that are forbidden to use so that there is no confusion because of their similarity with other letters of the alphabet such as:

"ث، ح، خ، ز، ذ، ش، ض، ظ، غ، ك، ت"

It is also forbidden to use the number "zero" due to how similar it looks like one of the license plate fasteners (nails and screws) which provides an opportunity to evade traffic violations.