Merging provinces, changing administrative names: Do people need to change license plates and registration papers?

In recent days, information about many provinces and cities merging and changing their administrative names has attracted great attention from people, especially car and motorbike owners.

Most of the questions revolve around the question: "If the province changes its name, do old license plates have to be changed accordingly? If not, will I be fined or have difficulty in traffic or transactions?"

Police force issues license plates to people. Photo: Dinh Hieu.

Lawyer Le Hang - TAT Law Office affirmed: "The merger and change of province name does not invalidate the current license plates and vehicle registration papers. People can completely rest assured to continue using the issued papers and license plates without having to renew them just for administrative reasons."

This regulation is based on Circular 79/2024/TT-BCA dated November 15, 2024 of the Ministry of Public Security, regulating the issuance and revocation of vehicle registration certificates, license plates of motor vehicles and specialized vehicles (effective from January 1, 2025). This Circular has removed the mandatory regulation of changing vehicle registration when changing the address of residence between provinces. Therefore, changing the name of a province or merging localities does not affect the validity of vehicle registration papers.

Although not mandatory, in some specific cases, vehicle owners may still consider changing their vehicle registration. For example, when transferring or selling a vehicle to a new owner, the name change procedure is still carried out as usual and the registration will then be updated to the new address.

Police inspect vehicles to issue license plates to people. Photo: Dinh Hieu.

People can also voluntarily change their vehicle registration if they want to update their residential address for convenience in future transactions. In cases where the vehicle owner's information changes (ID card number, full name...) or when the license plate or registration is blurred or damaged; or the purpose of use changes from non-business to business (or vice versa), changing the documents is necessary.

In particular, for vehicles used for transport business, vehicle owners must still change their white license plates to yellow license plates according to the regulations of the transport sector, which is completely unrelated to the province merger.

Lawyer Le Hang also said that the procedure for changing documents is very simple. People only need to prepare the old vehicle documents, ID card and documents proving information changes (if any), submit them to the vehicle registration office or do it online via the Ministry of Public Security's Public Service Portal.

Notably, during the administrative transition period, many localities are having policies to support fee exemption and reduction to create favorable conditions for people.

Lawyer Le Hang emphasized: Old license plates and vehicle registration papers are still legally recognized nationwide. When circulating, buying and selling, registering, etc., the authorities use electronic data to verify information, regardless of the place name on the license plate or vehicle registration papers.

Therefore, the lawyer recommends that people should stay calm and not redo documents just because they “heard” or have unfounded concerns. Follow official announcements from the authorities and only change documents when absolutely necessary.

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Source: https://baonghean.vn/sap-nhap-tinh-doi-ten-hanh-chinh-nguoi-dan-co-can-doi-bien-so-xe-giay-dang-ky-10295728.html