Wyoming License Plate Numbers by County

Wyoming license plate numbers begin with a county code, and that leading digit is the most useful piece of information on the tag. The state runs from 1 for Natrona County to 23 for Sublette County, and every one of the twenty three counties holds a permanent place on the list. A plate read as 13-4821 therefore belongs to a vehicle registered in Converse County, while 22-10456 points to Teton County. Learning the list takes a few minutes and pays off every time a used car, a trailer or a work truck changes hands.

Wyoming license plate numbers have followed this county system since 1930, when the state first assigned a prefix to each county. The order has never been redrawn, so the number on a plate from 1968 means the same thing it means today. This page sets out the full list, covers how the codes were assigned, and shows how a five-digit serial sits beside the prefix. It also covers what the number cannot tell you, which matters more than most buyers expect.

How to Read Wyoming Plate Numbers

A Wyoming tag reads from left to right in two parts. The leading one or two digits form the county code, and everything after them is the serial. A dash or a small gap usually separates the two, though older plates vary in spacing. Read the prefix first and the serial second, and never merge the two into a single long number when you write it on a form.

Find the County Code on the Plate

The county code sits at the far left, printed smaller than the serial on most designs. On the current state flag series it appears before the first digit of the serial, sometimes after a short dash. Plates issued to motorcycles, trailers and multipurpose vehicles use the same prefix system, so a small trailer tag carries a county number just like a passenger car. Even the bucking horse and rider in the center of the plate does not interrupt the prefix, which stays in the same position across designs.

Match the Prefix to the County

The official prefix list is published by WYDOT Motor Vehicle Services and covers all twenty three counties. County treasurers use the same list when they assign a new plate, and the number follows the registration rather than the vehicle. That is why the prefix can change when a car is sold to a buyer in another county. The state page is the source to cite when a plate and a registration document appear to disagree.

The Full List of Wyoming Plate Numbers by County

The table below lists the Wyoming county license plate numbers from 1 to 23 with the county and county seat, and it is the quickest way to sort the counties in Wyoming by number. County seats matter for registration work, since the treasurer and clerk offices usually sit in the seat even when a county has other towns. More detail sits on the Wyoming License Plate page. Read the list top to bottom and it doubles as a geography lesson, because the numbering jumps around the state rather than following a straight line.

The First Five Prefixes

Natrona at 1 and Laramie at 2 are the two most frequent prefixes seen on Wyoming roads, and both sit in the southeast quarter of the state. Sheridan at 3 covers the northern Bighorn range, Sweetwater at 4 is the largest county by area and stretches from Green River to the Red Desert, and Albany at 5 contains the city of Laramie and the university. A buyer who sees 2 on a plate knows the vehicle was registered in Cheyenne or somewhere nearby in Laramie County. Seeing 1 points to Casper instead, and the two cities sit less than three hours apart on the same interstate.

Prefixes Six Through Fourteen

This middle band runs from Carbon County at 6 through Niobrara at 14 and covers most of the rural center of the state. Goshen at 7 and Platte at 8 sit along the Nebraska line, Big Horn at 9 and Fremont at 10 cover the Wind River country, and Park at 11 holds Cody and the east gate of Yellowstone. Converse at 13 is the Douglas prefix and Niobrara at 14 is the smallest county by population, with Lusk as its seat.

Prefixes Fifteen Through Twenty Three

The high numbers cover the northeast, the southwest corner and the mountain west. Johnson at 16 and Campbell at 17 anchor the Powder River basin, Crook at 18 and Weston at 21 sit against South Dakota and Montana, and Uinta at 19 is the Evanston prefix on the I-80 corridor. Teton at 22 and Sublette at 23 are the last two on the list, and both sit in the mountainous west where plates are often issued to trucks and trailers as well as cars. Washakie at 20 and Hot Springs at 15 fill the basin between them, which leaves the map looking scattered until the 1930 valuation rule covers it.

Where the County Numbers Came From

The county numbers Wyoming uses today are not alphabetical, not geographic and not based on population. The legislature built the list from property values recorded in 1930, ranking counties by assessed valuation and handing out numbers in that order. Counties with the most taxable property took the low numbers. The rule was administrative rather than symbolic, and it has survived every redistricting and every new plate design since.

The 1930 Assessed Valuation

In 1930 the state needed a way to route registration revenue and track plates by county, and assessed valuation was the figure every county already reported. Ranking by that number produced a list that favored the cattle, oil and railroad counties of the time. Natrona took first place on the strength of the Casper oil field, and Laramie followed with the capital city and the Union Pacific shops. A county that has since grown or shrunk keeps its original rank, because the list was frozen once the plates were printed.

Why the Order Has Never Changed

Reordering twenty three prefixes would mean reissuing every plate in the state, reprinting every form and retraining every counter clerk. No legislature has seen a reason to carry that cost. The result is a numbering system that looks arbitrary on a map but stays stable across decades, which is exactly what a registration system needs. A prefix from a 1950s plate still means the same county today, and that continuity is the reason the list is worth memorizing. Newcomers often assume the numbers follow population, and the 1930 valuation rule is the correction that makes the whole table make sense.

What a Specific Number Tells You

Most searches arrive as a single question about one prefix. The answers below cover the counties that come up most often, and each one follows the same logic. The number identifies the registration county, and the county seat tells you which office holds the paper record. Nothing in the prefix identifies a person, and that limit is worth repeating because so many lookup websites imply otherwise.

• The prefix shows the registration county, not the driver’s home address.
• It does not show the owner name, which federal privacy law protects.
• It does not show the model year, the purchase price or the vehicle class.
• It does not prove that the plate is still attached to the same car.

County 3 Wyoming Means Sheridan

County 3 Wyoming is Sheridan County, and the county seat is the city of Sheridan. The prefix appears on plates from Sheridan, Dayton, Ranchester and the surrounding ranch country. Sheridan County sits in the north central part of the state at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains, and the local economy mixes cattle, coal and tourism. A plate with a 3 on it was registered by a treasurer in Sheridan, which is where a title question would be directed.

County 4 and County 5 Wyoming

County 4 Wyoming is Sweetwater County, the largest county in the state by land area, with Green River as its seat and Rock Springs as its biggest city. County 5 Wyoming is Albany County, seated in the city of Laramie, home to the University of Wyoming. The Wyoming license plate lookup guide covers that part. The two prefixes look similar on a tag but sit at opposite corners of the southern half of the state, one on the I-80 west corridor and one on the I-80 east corridor.

County 11 and County 22 Wyoming

County 11 Wyoming is Park County, seated in Cody, and it holds the eastern approach to Yellowstone National Park. County 22 Wyoming is Teton County, seated in Jackson, the smallest county by area and the wealthiest by property value per person. Both prefixes appear on a large number of out of state vehicles during the summer tourist season, which is one reason plate spotting along the highways is unreliable as a census of local drivers. Rental fleets add to the effect, since a car hired at the Jackson airport may carry a 22 plate for only a few weeks before it is sold into another county.

The Bucking Horse Beside the Number

The prefix is not the only fixed element on a Wyoming plate. The bucking horse and rider has held the center of the design since 1936, and state law requires a new base every eight years while keeping that emblem in place. The result is a plate that changes its background, its lettering and its slogan while the horse stays exactly where drivers expect to find it.

Allen T. True and the 1936 Design

Secretary of State Lester Hunt commissioned a new design in 1935 to make counterfeiting harder, and Denver artist Allen T. The emblem itself dates to a 1935 commission and has been redrawn several times since. The horse is often linked to Steamboat, a celebrated bucking horse of the early 1900s, though historians have argued about the exact animal for decades. Whatever the model, the image proved durable enough to outlast every administration that has tried to replace it.

Nine Decades of Base Designs

Each new base keeps the horse and rider near the center and changes everything around it. The 1975 base carried the Spirit of 76 theme for the national bicentennial, the 1988 base marked the state centennial, and later bases turned to Devils Tower, the Teton Range and the Green River Lakes with Squaretop Mountain. The current series carries the state flag and the words That’s WY, and it will hold the road until the eight year cycle turns again.

• 1975 base with the Spirit of 76 bicentennial theme.
• 1988 base for the state centennial.
• 2000 base featuring Devils Tower.
• 2008 base showing the Teton Range.
• 2016 base with Green River Lakes and Squaretop Mountain.
• 2024 and 2025 state flag series with That’s WY.

Five-Digit Serial and the Plate Format

The serial sits to the right of the county code and carries five characters on current passenger plates. Formats such as 1-12345 and 1A-1234 both appear, and the letter occupies a position that the state can shift as numbers run out. The five-digit serial gives each county a large pool of combinations without changing the prefix, which is what keeps the county system workable after ninety years of registrations. A county with a small population will cycle through the pool slowly, while Natrona and Laramie use up combinations at a faster rate.

Why the Serial Format Changes

When a county exhausts one pattern, the state moves to the next rather than adding a digit to the prefix. That is why a plate can look older or newer than the car it sits on, and why two vehicles from the same county may show different layouts. The serial is unique within the county at the time of issue, but it can be reused later, so a serial alone never proves that two records describe the same vehicle.

Reading an Older Plate

Plates from the 1990s and earlier often carry four characters after the prefix. Motorcycle and trailer plates use shorter serials as well. If a form rejects the number you typed, check the character count and the position of any letter before assuming the record is missing. A clerk searching a four-character serial in a five-character field will find nothing, and the error is easy to repeat.

• Count the characters after the prefix before you type.
• Keep any dash shown on the plate in the same place.
• Note whether a letter sits in the first or second position.
• Compare the plate with the registration certificate, not with a photo.

Registration County and the County Seat

A prefix records the registration county, and the registration county follows the owner’s residence. Move from Casper to Cheyenne and the new plate begins with 2 rather than 1. Compare it with the county treasurer offices page before filing. The county seat matters because that is where the treasurer and clerk offices normally sit, so a plate lookup that ends in a county name usually ends in a town as well. Both facts come from the same list and neither one reveals who owns the vehicle.

Moving Between Counties

New residents register within 120 days of establishing residency, or immediately if they start working in the state, and the plate issued after that registration carries the prefix of the new county. A vehicle bought from a dealer or a private seller is registered within 45 days. The old plate comes off at that point, and any prestige or specialty design has to be requested again through the new county office.

County Seat Is Not Always the Biggest Town

Sweetwater County keeps its seat in Green River while Rock Springs holds more people, and Park County is seated in Cody while Powell runs it close. The prefix still points to the county rather than to the town, so a plate from either place carries the same number. When you need an office address, use the county name and confirm the town before making the drive. In the smallest counties the treasurer may keep limited hours, and a wasted trip across two hundred miles of sagebrush is a poor way to learn that lesson.

Cost by Plate Class

The prefix does not change the bill. The plate class does. A prefix is a small piece of evidence, and small evidence is worth collecting before a purchase. Read the number, name the county, then compare that county with the address on the title and the story the seller tells. When all three line up, the plate has done its job.

Frequently Asked Questions

Readers usually arrive with a plate in hand and one question about the number in front of it.

How many counties are in Wyoming

Wyoming has twenty three counties, and each one holds a permanent prefix from 1 to 23. Natrona is 1, Laramie is 2, and Sublette is 23. The list has not been renumbered since the codes were assigned in 1930, so a prefix read from an old plate still matches the same county today.

What does the first number on a Wyoming plate mean

It identifies the county where the vehicle is registered. The number is a county code rather than a class code, and it appears before the serial on every standard plate. A leading 1 means Natrona County, a 17 means Campbell County, and the rest follow the same list in prefix order through to 23.

Why is Natrona County number 1

The prefixes were assigned in 1930 by assessed property valuation, and Natrona County ranked first on the strength of the Casper oil field. Laramie County took second place with the capital and the railroad shops. The order reflects taxable value in 1930 rather than population, land area or any current ranking.

Do Wyoming plates always show five digits

Current passenger plates carry five characters after the prefix, in patterns such as 1-12345 or 1A-1234. Older plates and some motorcycle or trailer tags use fewer characters. The serial can also be reused after a lapse, so the same prefix and serial pair may appear on two unrelated vehicles years apart.

Does the county number change when I move

Yes. Registration follows your county of residence, so a move to a new county produces a plate with that county’s prefix. New residents register within 120 days of establishing residency, or immediately when they begin working in the state, and a vehicle bought from a dealer or a private party is registered within 45 days.