What the plate code in a listing tells a buyer: the car's region and a check by plate

If a car's plate is visible in a listing's photo or title, its first two digits already tell you something: where the car is registered. This is a practical guide for buyers — how to decode the code, what a mismatch with the listing's city means, and how to use the code together with plate search.

Step 1 — take the plate from the listing and decode the code

A plate can appear in three places: in the photo, in the title and in the “License plate” row on the listing page — in Auto section listings the plate is recognised automatically from the title or photos (spare parts excluded). Type the first two digits into the box on the “Plate codes” page: the answer shows the city or district, the economic region and the other series of the same area. If you type the full plate, the same box offers a direct link to search listings with that plate. We wrote separately about the page itself, the table of 79 codes and the plate types.

The “License plate” row on the listing page leads to the plate page — there, under the heading, you will see a region line such as “Series 01 — Absheron” and a link to the code table. So there is no need to look the code up by hand: listing → plate → region.

Step 2 — compare the code with the listing's city

The code says where the car was registered, not where it is now. So the code and the listing's city can combine in three ways:

• Baku code, Baku listing (10, 77, 88, 90, 99) — the most ordinary case; it raises no extra questions.
• Regional code, Baku listing — the most common mismatch: in our earlier count roughly one in five listings with a regional series was posted from Baku. The reason is usually simple: the owner moved to the capital, the car was bought in a region and is being sold in Baku, or the seller is not the owner. Worth asking: how long has the seller had the car, is the seller the person in the registration certificate, and in which district is it registered.
• Baku code, regional listing — the reverse case; the same questions apply.

The code itself holds a hint too. Codes 17, 18 and 25 look “out of place” in the table — the districts were renamed later (Shabran, Shirvan, Goygol) while the code stayed. 70 and 85 are Nakhchivan's old general series and are not issued for new registrations: such a plate is left over from an old registration. 88 is Baku's newest series. The code says nothing about the car's condition, mileage or accident history — that takes a VIN check and an inspection.

Step 3 — type the plate into search and look at the history

Type the full plate into the search box in any spelling — “77-AA-123”, “77 aa 123” and “77AA123” give the same result; if you only remember part of it, a beginning such as “10-SR” or an ending such as “SR-685” works too. A clear answer appears at the top of the results page: “Found by plate” or “No listings for plate” — in the second case the “Notify me when listed” button puts the plate on your watchlist. There is a separate article about the search itself.

The most useful place for a buyer is the plate page: all active listings with that plate are gathered there, and if there are old listings, a note “N more listings with this plate are no longer active” appears below. As of 6 October, Prayk's active listings carry more than 19,000 different plates, and more than 1,500 of them appear in two or more listings at the same time. That means the car is on offer from two different sellers (for example, the owner and a dealer) at different prices — compare the prices and ask who actually has the car now. If the plate has listings that are no longer active, the car has been put up for sale before: when and at what price — make that your first question to the seller.

The most frequent codes in active listings

According to the open list of plates in active listings (6 October), the Baku series together account for about 78% of plates; the order is 77, 99, 90, 10, 88. Among regional codes the most frequent are 20 Ganja, 50 Sumgayit, 01 Absheron, 44 Masalli, 42 Lankaran, 57 Shamkir, 27 Khachmaz, 40 Guba, 75 Nakhchivan and 55 Shaki. If you are looking for a car with a rare code, browse the whole cars section for comparison — the same model is scarce within one region.

The check chain looks like this: code → region, plate search → other listings of the same car, VIN → the car itself, “Check a phone number” → Prayk's aggregate signals about the seller's phone number, and after the purchase the registration fee calculator. Prayk is an intermediary, not a registration authority — for legally significant matters contact the State Road Police.