Vehicle registration plates of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina vehicle registration plates have held their current form since 2 February 1998. Currently the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) vehicle registration plate format consists of seven characters: five numbers and two letters arranged in the following order: X00-X-000 (taxis: TA-000000). The plates are uniform across the country and do not denote the place (town, municipality, canton, or entity) where the vehicle is registered, as was the case prior to 1998. Likewise the plates do not contain any heraldic symbols. The plates use only letters which are represented equally in Latin and Cyrillic script (A, E, O, J, K, M, T).

Special plates

 * Working road machine plates had the regional letters at the top, followed by numbers. These plates were black-on-white.
 * Temporary plates had the letters "TT" (standing for Testne Tablice) followed by 6 numbers (e.g. TT-000000). The letters were colored red.
 * Military plates had a Euro strip, like from previous series, but without a blue background. These plates consisted of 5 numbers and then one letter (e.g. 00000-X).
 * Diplomatic plates had a blue background and yellow font. Unlike previous series, the first group of numbers contained only two digits, and the only letters that could be used were A, C, M and E (e.g. 00-A-000).
 * EUPM plates used a yellow background and the prefix "EUPM" followed by numbers.
 * Export plates had blue-on-white plates and used the civilian format.
 * Foreign-owned plates were white-on-blue with a blue font.
 * UNHCR plates used a blue font and had the prefix "UNHCR" followed by numbers.
 * Agricultural vehicles were white-on-green and had regional letters at the top, followed by numbers.
 * UNSF plates were black-on-blue and had the prefix "SFOR".
 * NATO plates were black-on-light-green and had the prefix "NATO" (with the NATO emblem as the divider).
 * UN Trailers had the style of "UN 1234T".

History
The revised registration plates were introduced as an initiative of the International High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carlos Westendorp. In a report from the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina prior to the decision, it had been noted that police conduct around the Inter-Entity Boundary Line separating the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, had been the "greatest obstacle to freedom of movement", including intimidation and arbitrary fines.

Elsewhere it has been noted that vehicles which bore licence plates from one entity would be subject to vandalism in the other entity. The development of licence plates which would not serve as proxy identifiers of driver ethnicity was a partial solution to these problems.

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
On the territory controlled by Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 were used new license plates. They wore a blue strip on the left side with the "BIH" script and the coat of arms above the script (1992 is no blue stripe). On the white background the form was XX-nnnnLL or XX-nnnnnL, where "XX" was the code of the city, "nnnn"/"nnnnn" were digits, and "LL" two letters (previously one letter), where the first letter denoted the municipality where it was issued (before this is not at all). Towns are given in following table:

Republika Srpska


On territory of the Republika Srpska entity, license plates were used similar to those before the war, with difference that instead of red star, the Serb four-S coat of arms was used. Letters on plates were usually in Cyrillic script, but the license plates with Latin versions of codes are also used.

Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia


On the territory of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, license plates were used similar to those of Croatia, with difference in the shape of shield in Croat coat of arms ("checkerboard"-"šahovnica").

Diplomatic, consular and foreign mission plate prefixes
These prefixes were also valid for Croatia from 1991 to 1994.