West Virginia Banned License Plates

The West Virginia Department of Transportation issues license plates through the Division of Motor Vehicles. There are several banned license plates in West Virginia, about which we will talk in detail in the next part.

Every vehicle should be registered and have license plates on them. Otherwise, it will be illegal to drive like that. There are 3 types of license plates in WV:

• Specialty license plates
• Personalized license plates
• Disability license plates

Specialty license plates include:

• College license plates
• Military license plates
• Special license plates
• Other license plates

A custom one is unique and individual, and a lot of people choose to personalize their license plates.

Disability license plates are for:

• People with disabilities
• Veterans with disabilities
• Transportations that provide people with disabilities

West Virginia Vanity Plates

For ordering a vanity plate in West Virginia, you should know the following:

• The DMV only issues custom plates for class “A” vehicles, such as cars, motorcycles, and trucks under 10000 pounds.
• You should have a regular class “A” plate that is issued for the titled vehicle. The DMV will not accept any requests unless there is a record for the vehicle or the plate.
• You should submit the application together with the fees.

The DMV will issue the vanity plate in case:

• your choice is available,
• it is not offensive and does not include profanity,
• it does not contradict the regular license plate.

You can request a standard or scenic plate with up to 8 characters, a wildlife or motorcycle plate with up to 6 characters. A patriotic vanity plate with up to 5 characters is also available. The minimum number of characters should be 2. Beware that you cannot request a vanity plate with less than two characters. Also, you cannot choose symbols, punctuation marks, and numbers from 1 to 2000.

Costs of Custom Plates in West Virginia

In case you want to order a personalized license plate, here is some information about the costs (West Virginia DMV):

• You should pay a $5.00 transfer fee and a $50 insurance fee:
  1. If you want to transfer the vanity plate from one vehicle to another.
  2. Or you want to change the owner of the plate from husband to wife or the opposite.
• The fees for different types of custom plates are different: from $44.38 to $93.13.
  1. Vehicle registration costs $51.50 for 1 year and $103 for 2 years.
  2. The custom standard license plate costs $66.50.
  3. Replacement of license plate for decals costs $10, and for plates $10.50.

Banned Vanity Plates

West Virginia has a strict policy about custom license plates. If you want the West Virginia DMV to approve your custom plate, then do not choose these words:

• Profanity,
• Vulgar or obscene words,
• Sexually graphic or explicit words,
• About genitals and private parts of the body,
• Promoting and encouraging violence,
• Describing illegal activities.

Here are some examples of banned license plates in West Virginia:

• ON3SHT: this word includes profanity, and thus it is rejected.
• SUCKDIS: the person, who chose this word, should have known the DMV would reject this custom plate since it is a vulgar word.
• FCKTRMP: we can see the combination of letters has political touch in it. Besides, an obscene word is used.
• SWASTI: as we can figure, the actual word is “swastika”, which represents Nazi Germany. This can mean hate towards a race, nation, thus, it was denied.

In summary, we can say that vanity plates in West Virginia can be obtained by ordering them through the DMV office. You should choose the custom plate carefully. If you use vulgar words or words connected with politics, then be prepared for it to be denied.

The DMV is very strict with the choice of custom plates. Meanwhile, many people go against these rules and try their luck with the bad choice of the custom plate. Be wise with your choice.