Wisconsin to issue first seven-digit license plates this month

Wisconsin license plates will soon sport an additional character.

With the supply of six-character license plates rapidly dwindling, the state Department of Transportation expects to begin issuing seven-character plates later this month.

Division of Motor Vehicle offices and third-party vendors will continue issuing the six-character plates until their inventory is exhausted. The plates will still look the same — white with the farm/sailboat scene across the top and "America's Dairyland" across the bottom.

"We're currently in the Z's and we're about to run out in the next week," said Jeremy Krueger, DMV plate room supervisor. "By moving the letters back to the front of the plate and adding four numbers, it opens up a large range of license plates. They'll last us for a long time now."

Department of Corrections prisoners have already started making the seven-character plates.

Wisconsin plates have featured six characters since 1986. The current design reversed from letters first to numbers first in 2000 when the red lettering was phased out because it was difficult to see. The new configuration will return to letters first beginning with AAA and then followed by four numbers.

The six-character plates yielded around 20 million different combinations even when the letters I, O and Q were not used because they resemble numbers. The seven-character plates will provide up to 100 million different combinations.

STINGL:License plate combinations running out

Considering the state's population and the roughly 3.5 million vehicles now traversing roads clad in standard Wisconsin plates, it will take awhile to run out of license plate numbers.

Vehicle owners who already have difficulty remembering their license plate number will probably find it just that much more difficult with another digit.

"We kept the alphas and numerics together separated by a dash to help remember them a little bit," Krueger said. "We didn't want to mix in alphas and numerics because it would be harder to remember that."

For motorists whose license plates are so old the yearly stickers are stacked up on each other like a pastrami sandwich, don't expect a new plate to arrive in the mail anytime soon. There are currently no plans to replace license plates. If their plates become illegible, however, drivers can turn them in for a replacement.

Personalized plates have allowed seven characters for a while, though some specialty plates that feature logos have only allowed six characters because there's not enough room.

"We've always had the real estate for the full seven digits — we just didn't use it for the standardized plates. This is the first time we've had the need to move to something that large," said Krueger.