Pattern · India 🇮🇳

Regex for Electric vehicle plate (green)

EV plates have a green background — same format as regular plates.

The Electric vehicle plate (green) 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

DL01EV1234
KA05E9999
MH12EV4321

What it doesn't match

DL01EV12
XX01EV1234

Notes & gotchas

Electric vehicles in India use the same alphanumeric format as ICE vehicles but have green plates (yellow lettering for commercial, white for private). The regex itself is identical — the difference is visual (plate color) and increasingly the series letters often include "EV" or "E".

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 electric vehicle plate (green) 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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