New Mexico · sequential passenger map
New Mexico license-plate format
New Mexico passenger plates use three digits, a hyphen, and three letters. In this atlas the pattern string uses A for a letter slot and 9 for a digit slot. Other characters are separators that appear on the metal but do not enlarge the combination space.
- Pattern
- 999-AAA
- Classes
- 3 letters + 3 digits
- Alphabet size
- 26
- Skipped letters
- none modelled
- Combination count
- 17,576,000
- Model year
- 2010
How the map works
Each A slot independently takes one glyph from ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. Each 9 slot takes 0–9. The product of those bases is 17,576,000 — the size of the sequential space taught here. Hyphens, spaces and dots in 999-AAA are display only.
The Zia sun graphic is constant; the serial flipped to digit-first as ABC-123 neared the end of a cycle.
Before this map, New Mexico used AAA-999 yellow-and-red Zia plates. Optional graphics (universities, military, environmental) can look nothing like the sequential passenger die and are not counted in the 17,576,000 figure.
SPR-9932 is letter-first and does not match New Mexico.
Generated versus issued
A string that fits 999-AAA is in-class. It is not automatically an issued plate. Series can skip blocks, retire numbers, or reserve low digits. This essay never queries a motor-vehicle file. See also generated vs issued.