In the United States, you’ll find a license plate on just about every vehicle on the road, or at least there should be. This is because state laws require vehicles to have automotive insurance, which is what your license plate represents. Failing to have a license plate can result in fines, penalties, and a lot of other problems.
While you see license plates on most vehicles, you might be wondering: Are license plates public records? And if so, what information can you source from a license plate? We answer these questions and more below.
What Is a License Plate?
Before we get into the information you can source from a license plate, it’s important to understand what a license plate is and what it represents. Physically, license plates are metal or plastic plates with numbers and letters on them, along with the state they come from.
The purpose of a license plate is more than being a rectangle on your bumper, though – it shows that your vehicle has been registered with a state. This helps police and other drivers identify a vehicle, which is important for insurance claims and to reflect that the driver is permitted to operate the vehicle.
Are License Plates Public Record?
Yes, license plates are public records. If you look at any vehicle on the road, there’s a good chance that it will have one, and you’re allowed to write that number down in case you need to file an insurance claim. While the number on a license plate is public record, this isn’t the case for the owner’s personal information.
Ultimately, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) limits the information you can source from a license plate number without approval from the police or federal government.
What Information Can You Source from a License Plate?
You can source a few things from a license plate, but not a ton of information. This is because the DMV shields the personal information of license plate holders to protect their privacy. Therefore, you can’t find their name, phone number, or address. The only time you can is if the police are looking into something or if there is a court order, lawsuit, or insurance claim.
That said, you won’t come up empty-handed when sourcing information from a license plate. For example, you can learn everything you need to know about a vehicle from it, including the make, model, and vehicle identification number (VIN).
You may also be able to find out if the car is registered to an individual or a business from the license plate.
How to Find Information from a License Plate
While license plates aren’t public records in the traditional sense, that doesn’t mean you can’t find information about them. That said, you will have to get a little creative in how you find what you’re looking for. Learn more about how you can find information from a license plate below.
Use a Public Records Search Tool
The best way to find information about someone is to leverage a public records search tool. These are simple tools that allow you to enter someone’s information and run a search. While you can’t enter a license plate number directly into the search tool, you can get creative with the information you do have.
Let’s say you were involved in an accident. Typically, information is exchanged, and people will give you their name and contact information. You can then take this information and run it through our people search tool and search with their name, phone number, or address.
Once you enter this information into our tool, your search ends and ours begins as we comb through millions of public records to help you find all available public records associated with someone.
Once the search is complete, you can open the full report and learn the following:
- Full name
- Address
- Phone number
- Business associations
- Email addresses
- Social media accounts
- Dating profiles
- Criminal records
- Court records
- Marriage records
- Divorce records
This is only some of what you can find, so feel free to explore the full report for even more details. Also, if you don’t exchange information with someone but see the vehicle parked outside someone’s home or at a place of business, you may be able to run that address and find the information you’re searching for.
Hire a Private Investigator
Another great way to find information from a license plate is to hire a private investigator (PI). Doing so is expensive, but the results are often top-notch because they have access to tools that you don’t. This is because many PIs are ex-law enforcement and know how to navigate state and federal databases.
In fact, licensed investigators may still have access to the tools they used to explore public databases.
When working with a PI, make sure you provide them with all the information you have. If you know where a car is parked every day, for example, make sure you let them know, as this can speed up the search process and save you some money. What’s more, it’s a good idea to let them know why you need to look up the plate because it can help them in their search.
Private investigators are a great option, but if you know where a car regularly parks, you may be better off entering that address into our search tool first. Even if we can’t help you find everything, we can at least point you in the right direction and provide you with more information to give the PI.
Google Search
When in doubt, run a Google search. Simply enter the license plate number into Google’s search bar and see what you can find. While you’re unlikely to find much, you may get lucky and reveal information about the person who owns that license plate with a quick search.
This tends to yield better results if you’re searching for a company license plate or a high-profile individual. Otherwise, you’ll likely come up empty-handed unless you refine your search.
Thankfully, Google has tools that can help you refine your search. For example, you can take a picture of the license plate and run it through Google Lens. From there, Google will provide you with search results that match the image. The only problem is that this will likely just show you an image of the license plate, but you may get lucky and find something else that can identify the driver.
Another tool that Google offers is Advanced Search. This tool lets you add more keywords to your search, which is great for narrowing down the search results. For example, you can add the license plate number, the state, or a business that the car is parked near often.
While these tools are a great way to look up a license plate, you’re better off starting with our people search tools.
Contact Law Enforcement
If you have someone’s license plate number, you can contact law enforcement to learn more about it, especially if you were involved in an accident. Law enforcement may not disclose personal information about the person who owns the license plate.
That doesn’t mean they can’t help you find the person or assist you in resolving things like a hit-and-run or another type of accident.
In fact, you should always contact law enforcement in these situations because they have the tools necessary to find someone via their license plate. Therefore, if all you care about is finding someone with a license plate number, this is one of the best options.
That said, law enforcement will only provide you with a little bit of information, so you may need to dig deeper with the information they offer you. For example, if they give you a name or phone number, you can run it through one of our people search tools to learn more about the person or business.
VIN Decoder
If you want to learn more about a vehicle associated with a license plate, you can find the vehicle identification number using the license plate number. Once you have the VIN, you can use a VIN Decoder to learn more about the make and model of the vehicle.
Furthermore, you can learn about when the vehicle was made, the year it was made, and sometimes the trim level. If you’re trying to track down a specific vehicle and only have a license plate number, this is a great way to get started and learn more about the car; this will eventually get you closer to learning more about the driver as well.
Find the Information You Need from a License Plate Today
At the end of the day, license plates are public records in the sense that you can see the number on the back of the car. Aside from being able to view the number, you can’t find a lot of information from just that number alone because the DMV keeps that information private unless it’s involved in an insurance claim, lawsuit, or law enforcement situation.
That said, there are plenty of other ways to find information about people. For example, if you find an address where the vehicle is parked or if you see it in the parking lot of a corporate office, you can use that information to run a more extensive search to find what you’re looking for.
