My wife surprised me a while back. I had made comments about how it would be neat to have Marine Corps license plates on my truck. ‘Vanity’ plates are not cheap in Texas. The ones my wife wants have the three crosses where the Marine Corps seal is on the example below…but they cost more than we want to spend. She got the Marine Corps plates for me though! You may not guess how much they cost!

platenewThese are the ones I got. Go to the Texas DMV website to see what they have available. Click on the one ya like and it will show you how much it costs and how to get them. Ok, ok, they cost NOTHING! That’s right! The plates themselves are no charge unless you want it to say something special. You pay what you would normally pay for your vehicle registration, then submit this form VTR-424 (this is the form as of the date of this blog post) and show them a copy of your discharge papers, and you are good to go!

vetplatesTexas hooks it’s veterans up. You may or may not know that disabled veterans get an even better deal. They have to pay for their plates…but it’s only $3. You may be thinking, “wait, I thought they got a BETTER deal?” They do. They pay for their plates, but the registration on one vehicle is FREE…yep, FREE. Additional plates for other vehicles are free but they pay whatever registration fee is normally associated with that vehicle. Click on the image to the right and it will open up a PDF file of the Texas DMV brochure regarding veterans license plates. If you are a veteran, go check it out!

I made the mention above that, if you wanted it to say something in particular, there was an additional fee. That fee is $40 per year on the veterans plates. You are limited to six characters and dashes and such count…lol.

Once you submit the application to the tax assessor, they will hand you paper temporary tags like the new car tags. They tell you to put these on your vehicle as the ones that are currently on your vehicle are now ‘expired’. You will get your super cool license plates in a week or two.

ouplateTexas has all kinds of selections for license plates. From bicyclists to animal lovers…they even have the option to the left?????? (I went to the custom plates site and made this plate but it’s already taken…somone already has this on their car folks!…lol). Folks who get these other plates…and pay an additional fee for them I might add…do so because they can’t get the really cool veterans plates for free. Just sayin’.

Other states have veterans plates also but I have not done any homework as to how you go about getting them or what they cost. Your tax assessor’s office will be a good place to start as they are usually who you are dealing with when registering a vehicle.

So, in Texas, if you are aveteran, there is no reason not to go get ya some moto license plates…because they are FREE!