Vehicle license plates in the Philippines are issued and regulated by the Land Transportation Office (LTO), a government agency under the Department of Transportation (DOTr). History In January 2013, the Land Transportation Office began a license plate standardization project by issuing plates with modern security features, including holograms and bar codes. They also planned to slowly phase out the old 1981 plate format. In the new format, the LTO will issue LLL-DDDD plates (where L represents a letter and D represents a one-digit number) for four-wheel vehicles and DDD-LLL/L-DDD-LL plates for motorcycles. The new plate format series and design was originally scheduled for release on September or October 2013. However, it was delayed several times primarily due to concerns about the release of funds for the license plate project, as well as the increase in purchases of new cars using temporary license plates bearing the conduction sticker number. Eventually, in May 2014, the first batch of new license plates was released. By January 2015, vehicle owners were required to pay PHP 450 to change their old plates into a modern series plate. In 2016, the LTO issued "virtual plates" as a temporary measure to address the backlog in physical license plates. New vehicles were issued a virtual identification consisting of a combination of alphanumeric symbols, which will make it easier for the LTO to release the permanent license plates once they were available.In August 2017, the Department of Transportation selected the winning bidder under the government's "Moving Forward Program" to reduce the backlog of 3.4 million plates spanning from July 2016 to December 2017. In January 2018, the Supreme Court ordered the release of license plates held due to restraining orders saddling the plate modernization program. It was expected that the distribution of new plates would commence at full swing by mid-February 2018. The machines were delivered to the LTO in February 2018 and were installed in a new plate making facility. The new license plates were released in July 2018 throughout the country. Under this new plate series, the first letter of the license plate will determine where the vehicle is registered. This is the same designation that was implemented during the 1981 series. Current plate design specifications Plate Number Dimension and Font Style The current version of the license plates measure 390 mm wide and 140 mm high, while current motorcycle plates measure 235 mm wide and 135