Texas says goodbye to temporary paper license plates in July
DALLAS - Beginning in July, Texas car buyers will no longer receive paper license plates when they purchase a new vehicle.
The state Department of Motor Vehicles will no longer issue paper tags and, instead, dealers will give most car buyers a permanent metal license plate beginning July 1.
New metal license plates
Why you should care:
The biggest change comes from a dealer's ability to issue a permanent license plate to a vehicle at the time of purchase.
In most cases, those plates will be registered to the buyer of the vehicle and the window sticker will be mailed to the buyer.
If someone buys or sells a vehicle to a dealer, the dealer will be required to remove the existing plates from that vehicle. They can then be transferred to another vehicle of the same class that's sold within 10 days.
If the seller has a personalized or specialty license plate, then that plate is returned to them and can be transferred to the new vehicle or to another vehicle.
What if I'm a dealer?
When the state legislature voted to end paper license plates in 2023, they created new temporary metal plates for dealers to use.
The law created four new temporary plates that will be used in certain situations.
A purple plate, known as a buyer provisional plate, will be used when a dealer doesn't have a specific plate available for a sale.
A green plate for cars sold to buyers who are registering the car outside of Texas.
A blue plate, or dealer temporary plate, will be used for test drives and loaner cards and for transferring cars between dealers or to an auction.
A red plate will be issued by the Texas DMV or county tax offices for temporary registration.
What if I sell my car privately?
For people who are selling their vehicles privately, nothing changes.
The seller will still be required to remove the vehicle's plates and registration sticker and submit a vehicle transfer notification within 30 days.
Buyers will submit a title and registration application to their county tax assessor's office for new plates.
Why the change from paper license tags?
The backstory:
During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers passed House Bill 718 requiring paper license plates to be phased out by July 1, 2025.
Lawmakers pushed for the change because paper tags were easy to counterfeit and were being used in crimes.
Officials estimated 1.8 million fraudulent paper plates were on the roads in Texas in 2021.
Law enforcement officers from across the state testified in favor of the change.
Grand Prairie Police Chief Daniel Scesney was a big supporter of the legislation because he said paper tags caused the death of one of his officers.
Officer Brandon Tsia died while attempting to pull over a Chevy Malibu with a fake paper license plate. He lost control of his squad car and crashed into a utility pole.
At the time, Scesney said that the same fictitious tag had been swapped to different vehicles at least 200 times.
The Source: Information on the changes coming for car buyers on July 1 comes from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Backstory on House Bill 718 and testimony surrounding the bill comes from previous FOX 4 coverage.