The sale of number plates can be a surprisingly lucrative source of revenue for the Road Transport Department (JPJ). To that end, the department says that it is developing an online system known as “ebaki”. This is meant to sell expired vehicle registration numbers, though it’s not expected to go online any time soon. In fact, it’s only expected to be online in October of 2026.
This comes from the Auditor-General’s Report on the government’s financial statements for 2024, as reported by Bernama. The report claims that revenue collected by JPJ through the sale of vehicle registration numbers from 2022 to 2024 added up to RM1.648 billion. It’s unclear if the figure includes bids on special number plates, which brought in RM110,069,150.
With that in mind, the report estimates that at least RM115.96 million in additional revenue can be collected if blocked or inactive plate numbers are offered at a “minimum price”. This can be anywhere between RM300 and RM20,000 based on the Current, Popular, Interesting and Premium categories of plate numbers. An additional RM10 service fee is also imposed for each number offered.
And as of 2024, there were 375,792 expired registration numbers unsold and 134 blocked registration numbers. These are estimated to be able to generate at least RM112.73 million and RM795,150 in revenue, respectively.
(Source: Bernama)
