Sept. 2026 DVLA auction: the results
The DVLA’s Sept. auction sold 1,949 of its 2,000 registrations for £5,308,980.00 in final bids. The top lot, 242 A, made £34,010.00 from a starting price of £2,500.00. Half of everything that sold went for £1,520.00 or less.
The auction ran online from 2 to 8 Sept. 2026, and the busiest lots, with their end times pushed back by late bids, closed in the small hours of 9 Sept. Every published result is counted here. One lot was withdrawn and 50 went unsold. The prices below are the final bids as the auction site shows them. A buyer then pays 20 per cent VAT, a 3 per cent premium with VAT on it and the £80.00 fee, so 242 A cost its buyer about £42,116.00. Our guide to DVLA auctions explains the charges.
The ten highest prices
| Registration mark | Final bid |
|---|---|
| 242 A | £34,010.00 |
| 440 O | £26,550.00 |
| 296 CS | £25,260.00 |
| 26 OD | £25,010.00 |
| VFF 1 | £25,010.00 |
| 244 AR | £22,810.00 |
| 1 OJO | £20,210.00 |
| 180 M | £20,010.00 |
| 99 SV | £19,310.00 |
| 2222 L | £18,810.00 |
Every one of the ten is short and carries no year. The fewer the characters, the more people want a registration, and one that fits any car has more buyers than one that does not.
What each style made
| Style | Lots | Sold | Total final bids | Median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No year (dateless and Northern Irish) | 620 | 615 | £3,040,480.00 | £4,010.00 |
| Suffix | 743 | 732 | £1,534,570.00 | £1,410.00 |
| Prefix | 522 | 491 | £549,080.00 | £630.00 |
| Current style | 114 | 111 | £184,850.00 | £1,010.00 |
Registrations with no year were under a third of the lots and made well over half the money. Prefix registrations were the most affordable: their median was £630.00, and the best of them, H80 RSE, made £14,210.00. The best current-style registration was MA25 HAL at £11,510.00, a name that reads without a second look.
What it tells a buyer
- Most lots are not expensive. 620 of the 1,949 that sold went for under £1,000 in final bids.
- The starting price is a floor, not a guide. AAD 4L started at £350.00and made £17,000.00.
- A name sells. The highest current-style and prefix prices went to registrations that read as names or words.
Check any registration fits your car before you bid: the number plate years chart gives the date behind every year letter and identifier. To see what a registration like yours might fetch, read what a private plate is worth, or ask us for a free valuation.
The next auctions
The Oct. auction closes from 20 Oct., and the Nov. auction opens on 18 Nov.
Figures counted from the published results on the DVLA auction site, 18 Oct. 2026. Search our private plates at fixed prices.