Texans won’t get paper license plates when they purchase a car after June 30th, 2025. Instead, the DMV will issue $10 metal plates that dealers will distribute at the time of the sale. According to authorities, paper plates are a huge issue in Texas and this is a win for law enforcement and safety.
Governor Gregg Abbott signed bill HB718 into law on Tuesday. As a result, dealers will no longer be allowed to distribute temporary paper license plates in the future. Advocates of the bill say that paper plates are easy to fake and are often used by criminals to commit crimes while avoiding detection.
In addition, they say that many individuals copy or fake the paper plates to avoid having to register a vehicle. One investigation by local news station KXAN found that selling fake paper tags has turned into a $200 million business.
That’s a problem across the nation as shady dealers will sometimes simply issue a new paper tag for a price when a customer asks for it. According to one police officer, this is a “mammoth step for law enforcement in Texas.”
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“That’s going to help everybody all the way across the United States, so it’s huge,” said Sgt. Jose Escribano with the Travis County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office. “This is a huge thing, and I’m very, very happy with that. Is it going to end tomorrow? No. We have to wait, and we have to be patient and keep on fighting this fight because we still have another at least a year and a half to two to wait.”
Between now and December 1st, 2024, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles must figure out how to implement this change. That includes working with dealers to figure out how they’ll obtain the plates and how they’ll be tracked to ensure similar problems don’t pop up.