In Queensland, whoever buys personalised plates owns that combination of letters and numbers for life, while the physical plates stay the property of the State. When the car is sold, the plates can stay with you, go with the car, or go to someone else, and each route has its own form, fee and trip to a service centre.
General information, not legal advice. The forms and fees belong to the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR); its pages are listed at the foot of this page, and TMR takes questions about plate costs on 13 23 80.
2.1Two kinds of special plate
Personalised plates carry a combination you chose, or a restyle of your existing number, in one of a range of styles and colours; businesses can add their own logo.
Customised plates are standard plates customised so you keep the same number when the plates are replaced, get a slimline version of a current plate, or bring back a standard number issued in the past that is no longer in use.
The two follow different rules when a car is sold, so it helps to know which you have before a buyer arrives.
2.2What you actually own
Every number plate issued to a vehicle, personalised and customised plates included, remains the property of the State of Queensland and must be handed back to TMR if required. The person they were issued to owns the number plate combination itself.
That ownership lasts: TMR says you keep the combination for life, even after moving interstate or no longer using the plates. One catch for anyone who restyled an existing number: the old plates cannot be kept.
2.3Three routes for personalised plates
Keep the plates, sell the car
To keep them, you take the plates off the car at a transport and motoring customer service centre, bringing a completed remove and/or attach plates application (F2964), evidence of identity for one registered operator and every plate owner, and the standard plate fee unless an exemption applies.
You leave with standard plates, which must be on the car within one day.
Sell the plates with the car
The buyer takes everything needed for an in-person registration transfer, plus a personalised number plate transfer application (F2963) signed by every seller and every buyer, evidence of identity, and the plate transfer fee unless an exemption applies.
On the form the seller is called the disposer and the buyer the acquirer.
Sell the plates, keep the car
The plates come off with form F2964, signed by one registered operator and every plate owner, and the car gets standard plates for the standard plate fee.
The person taking the plates then brings form F2963, signed by both sides, with identity documents and the plate transfer fee.
In rural areas, a QGAP office, a Magistrates Court or a police station offering registration services can take these applications; TMR asks you to call before visiting.
2.4Putting kept plates on your next car
Plates kept under route A can go onto another car. Attaching them takes the same form, F2964, and evidence of identity for one registered operator of that car and for every plate owner. Bring the car’s current plates to surrender, but leave them on the car until you reach the service centre.
The personalised plates must be on the car within one day of the application, and keeping them visible is your responsibility. Between cars the combination stays yours: TMR says ownership lasts even while the plates are not in use.
2.5The fees, as at October 2026
| Fee | Amount | When it comes up |
|---|---|---|
| Personalised number plate transfer fee | $122.10 | When ownership of the combination passes to someone else (routes B and C). |
| Standard plate fee | $36.25 | When personalised plates come off a car that stays registered (routes A and C). |
| Vehicle registration transfer fee | $33.65 | On every transfer of the car itself, paid by the buyer. |
The plate transfer fee may not apply when the plates are given to a spouse (married or de facto), a parent or a child of the person giving them, or pass to a beneficiary, administrator or executor of a deceased estate.
2.6Customised plates: keep them or lose them
Customised plates cannot be sold, because their ownership cannot be transferred. They can only sit on a vehicle registered in exactly the same name as the plate’s owner. That leaves a seller two choices:
- keep them, by taking them off and putting them on another vehicle owned by the same person or organisation, with standard plates on the car being sold before it is transferred
- let them go, in which case they become standard plates during the transfer.
2.7How plates change the rest of the sale
The online transfer service is closed to a registration with personalised or customised plates attached, for the seller and the buyer alike. With plates going to the buyer, then, the transfer is done in person, and the in-person transfer page points sellers with such plates to the plate rules before they start.
Two less common cases block or force a plate transfer. Plates on a vehicle under a Queensland Police number plate confiscation notice cannot be transferred until the confiscation period has passed. And when a business that holds personalised plates stops being a legal entity, the plates must be transferred to another person or organisation.
The plate decision sits beside the others a seller makes before the day of sale: the safety certificate, how the money will arrive, and the registration transfer itself.