Pattern · India 🇮🇳

Regex for Bharat (BH) series vehicle

New Bharat series — portable across states. Format: YY BH NNNN LL.

The Bharat (BH) series vehicle regex is ^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$ — copy it below, or open it in the explainer for a token-by-token breakdown.

The pattern

^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$

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What it matches

24BH1234AB
24-BH-9999-CD
23 BH 5678 EF

What it doesn't match

BH241234AB
24BH123AB
24XX1234AB

Notes & gotchas

Bharat (BH) series plates were introduced in 2021 for vehicles owned by central government, state government, defense, PSU employees and private sector employees with offices in 4+ states. Format: 2-digit year + BH + 4 digits + 2 letters. Eliminates the need to re-register when moving between states.

Code in your language

Use the explainer's Code tab to generate ready-to-paste snippets in JavaScript, Python, Java, .NET, Go, Ruby, and PHP for this pattern.

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Token-by-token breakdown

Every part of the pattern, left to right:

Token	Meaning
`^`	start of string (or line in multiline mode)
`\d{2}`	exactly 2 times: digit (0–9)
`[\s\-]?`	optional (zero or one): any of: whitespace, “-”
`BH`	literal text “BH”
`[\s\-]?`	optional (zero or one): any of: whitespace, “-”
`\d{4}`	exactly 4 times: digit (0–9)
`[\s\-]?`	optional (zero or one): any of: whitespace, “-”
`[A-Z]{2}`	exactly 2 times: any of: uppercase letters
`$`	end of string (or line in multiline mode)

About this pattern

India-specific identifiers are governed by various authorities (UIDAI for Aadhaar, Income Tax Dept for PAN, RBI for IFSC, GSTN for GSTIN, etc.). Regex confirms format; for definitive validation, integrate with the issuing authority's verification API.

Quick usage in different languages

This exact pattern — with the correct escaping and idioms for each language:

JavaScript: /^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$/.test(value)
Python: re.match(r"^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$", value)
Java: Pattern.compile("^\\d{2}[\\s\\-]?BH[\\s\\-]?\\d{4}[\\s\\-]?[A-Z]{2}$").matcher(value).matches()
C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, @"^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$")
Go: regexp.MustCompile(`^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$`).MatchString(value)
Ruby: /^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$/.match?(value)
PHP: preg_match('~^\d{2}[\s\-]?BH[\s\-]?\d{4}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{2}$~', $value)

The explainer’s Code tab regenerates these for any pattern you paste, and the downloadable cheat sheet bundles the breakdown, all seven snippets, and the pitfalls below onto one printable page.

Common pitfalls

Anchored to the whole string. This pattern uses ^ and $, so it requires the entire input to match. To find it inside a longer text, drop the anchors and use the global (g) flag.
Uppercase only. Ranges like [A-Z] won't match lowercase. Add a-z (or the i flag) if lowercase input should be accepted.
Escape it correctly per language. In Java and JavaScript strings each backslash must be doubled (\\d); in Python, Go, and C# use raw/verbatim strings so the backslashes survive.
Validate beyond format. Matching the format doesn't guarantee the value is real. Confirm the bharat (bh) series vehicle against a source of truth (database, API, or checksum) where it matters.

Standards & sources

This pattern is based on the following authoritative specification(s) and issuing authorities. Formats can change — always confirm against the primary source.

Ministry of Road Transport & Highways — Parivahan

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