Pattern

Regex for Indian vehicle registration

State code + RTO + series + number.

The pattern

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

Try in explainer →

What it matches

MH12AB1234
DL01C5678
KA-05-MJ-9999
TN 22 BX 4321
UP14L4567

What it doesn't match

MH12AB12
XX12AB1234
MH123AB1234
mh12ab1234

Notes & gotchas

Format: 2-letter state code + 1-2 digit RTO number + 1-3 letter series + 4-digit number. State codes: MH (Maharashtra), DL (Delhi), KA (Karnataka), TN (Tamil Nadu), UP (UP), GJ (Gujarat), AP/TG (Andhra/Telangana), etc. Separators (space/hyphen) are optional.

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.

Open in explainer →

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

Once you've validated a candidate value matches this pattern, you'll typically use it inside your application code. Each language has its own regex syntax:

JavaScript: new RegExp(pattern).test(value)
Python: re.match(pattern, value) with raw strings: r"pattern"
Java: Pattern.compile(pattern).matcher(value).matches()
C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, pattern)
Go: regexp.MustCompile(pattern).MatchString(value) — Go uses RE2 so some advanced features aren't available
Ruby: value =~ /pattern/ or pattern.match?(value)
PHP: preg_match('/pattern/', $value)

The explainer's Code tab generates these for any pattern you paste — including the right escaping and idioms for each language.

Common pitfalls

Anchors matter. If the pattern uses ^ and $ it expects the entire input to match. To find this pattern inside a longer text, remove the anchors and use the /g flag.
Case sensitivity. Letter ranges like [A-Z] only match uppercase. Use the i flag or [A-Za-z] for case-insensitive matching.
Escape user input. If you're building a regex from a string variable, escape regex metacharacters first to avoid bugs or injection.
Performance. For this specific pattern the risk is low, but be cautious of nested quantifiers when adapting it — they can cause exponential backtracking on adversarial input.