Vehicle registration, plates & vignette

The vehicle registration document

The vehicle registration document must be carried on every journey and produced to the police on request.

It records the vehicle data: keeper, permitted weights, number of seats, towable load and approved equipment. Significant changes – a move, a change of keeper, technical modifications – must be reported to the road traffic office.

Number plates

• White: ordinary cars and motorcycles.
• Yellow: mopeds.
• Green: agricultural and forestry vehicles.
• Blue: works vehicles.
• Brown: special vehicles with a permit.

Plates are allocated to the keeper, remain state property and must be returned when the vehicle is taken off the road. They must be legible and clean – a plate covered in snow or mud is an offence.

Exhaust emissions check

Motor vehicles must be in order as regards emissions. Modern ones are monitored by on-board diagnostics; older ones require a periodic check.

An emissions warning light is not just an environmental problem: it usually points to a fault that increases consumption and wear.

The motorway vignette

On motorways and semi-motorways (signed in green) the vignette is compulsory – for motorcycles and trailers too.

• It costs 40 francs.
• It is valid from the preceding 1 December to the following 31 January.
• A trailer needs its own vignette.
• The adhesive vignette must be stuck directly to the windscreen; tucked behind the glass it is not valid. An electronic vignette linked to the plate also exists.