Historic or classic license plates can be a great thing. If you own a car that’s old enough, usually somewhere between 20 and 30 years, you can get a plate that offers cheaper registration and, in some places, lets you skip vehicle inspections. Maryland is one of those states, but soon the threshold will be much older. Sorry, 2006 Honda Civic owner. That car isn’t a classic. At least not yet.
Maryland Says The 2000s Aren’t Classic
In Maryland, registration for a passenger car costs up to $191.50 per year. For vehicles that are older (and therefore less likely to be driven regularly), there was the option of a Historic Vehicles plate. For that one, you only paid $55.50 per year. Not a bad deal, and it applied to anything on the road more than 20 years old.
That made sense in, say, 1990. Until the year 2000 or so, cars just didn’t last as long. If you had a classic, it really was a classic. Today, a 20-year-old car might still have a loan on it.
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In 2025, the Wall Street Journal reports, nearly one third of the state’s 190,000 historic plates were on cars built after the year 2000. Those cars are almost certainly daily drivers. Cars that still feel modern, or at least close to it.
Maryland law already said that you were only supposed to use a car with Historic plates only for special activities. Going to shows, parades, tours, and occasional drives. But that wasn’t stopping people, so the government has said.
The new law has just gone into effect, and it says that a vehicle has to be model year 1999 or older. You also have to certify on the application document that you will only use it under the conditions listed, which includes no “general daily transportation.”
New Law Sets A Hard Line, Not A Rolling Target
It’s tough to justify a vehicle built in the 2000s as historic or a “classic” even to us. Yes, there are definitely exceptions, but unless the state decides to set up a show and display style list like the EPA, then it does seem like a good place to draw the line.
The problem is that Maryland legislators have made it a permanent bar, not a rolling one. So it’s not a “25 year” rule. It’s nothing after model year 1999 until they pass new legislation. Is a 2001 car a classic now? Absolutely not. Could it be in, say, 2040? Absolutely. But not in Maryland.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
