Pattern · India 🇮🇳

Regex for Commercial vehicle (yellow plate)

Commercial vehicles have yellow plates — same regex as regular.

The Commercial vehicle (yellow plate) regex is ^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$ — copy it below, or open it in the explainer for a token-by-token breakdown.

The pattern

^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$

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What it matches

MH01T1234
KA05AB6789
DL1CA9876

What it doesn't match

MH01T12
XX01T1234

Notes & gotchas

Commercial vehicles (taxis, trucks, buses) have yellow license plates with black lettering. The plate format is identical to private vehicles; the difference is the plate color (visual) and the registration class. Taxi RTO codes often include T (Tourist) or C (Commercial) in the series letters.

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)
`[A-Z]{2}`	exactly 2 times: any of: uppercase letters
`[\s\-]?`	optional (zero or one): any of: whitespace, “-”
`\d{1,2}`	between 1 and 2 times: digit (0–9)
`[\s\-]?`	optional (zero or one): any of: whitespace, “-”
`[A-Z]{1,3}`	between 1 and 3 times: any of: uppercase letters
`[\s\-]?`	optional (zero or one): any of: whitespace, “-”
`\d{4}`	exactly 4 times: digit (0–9)
`$`	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: /^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$/.test(value)
Python: re.match(r"^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$", value)
Java: Pattern.compile("^[A-Z]{2}[\\s\\-]?\\d{1,2}[\\s\\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\\s\\-]?\\d{4}$").matcher(value).matches()
C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, @"^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$")
Go: regexp.MustCompile(`^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$`).MatchString(value)
Ruby: /^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$/.match?(value)
PHP: preg_match('~^[A-Z]{2}[\s\-]?\d{1,2}[\s\-]?[A-Z]{1,3}[\s\-]?\d{4}$~', $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 commercial vehicle (yellow plate) 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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