Policy

All vehicle registration expiry dates are calculated in accordance with the approved Staggered Registration Program except those vehicles that are registered under the Permanent Fleet, Quarterly Licensing, and Prorate Programs.

Expiry Month

The expiry month of a registration is established by associating the first and sometimes second character of a client's last name or company name, with a specified calendar month.  See QR 4.6 Registration Expiry Month Chart (pdf).

The prefix The in a company name will be ignored when determining a registration expiry month (e.g., The XYZ Company of Alberta will be assigned an expiry month based on the first character after the word The – in this case “X”).

All numerical named companies will be assigned the expiry month of January.

All registrations expire on the last day of a month.

Note:
A registry agent must never change the expiry month of a client's registration as outlined in the QR 4.6 Registration Expiry Month Chart unless the client/company has changed their name, qualifies for the 4.50.02 Quarterly Licensing Program  or 4.50.04 Permanent Fleet Program.  When a name is changed the current registration will maintain the existing expiry month until the next vehicle renewal is processed.

Registration Terms

The number of months in a registration term is calculated in accordance with QR 4.7 Registration Term Calculation Chart (pdf).

Note:
No vehicle registrations, including quarterly registrations, can be issued for less than one full quarter (three month term).  A portion of a month that exceeds 15 calendar days will be considered a full month.

Registration terms are normally no longer than 18 months. However, for the following plate classes, registration terms must be a minimum of three months and can be extended to a maximum of 30 months:

• (2-58) farm vehicles;
• (3-pass) private passenger vehicles;
• (3-nmc/3-mc) motorcycles, scooters, mopeds, nopeds;
• (3-noh/3-ohv) off-highway vehicles; and
• (3-56n/3-56) off-highway / motorcycle rental vehicles.

Date Originally Issued: Nov 14, 1989
Date Last Revised: May 25, 2021