Obsession with ‘luxury’ license plates surges in Uzbekistan

In 2024, license plate sales in Uzbekistan doubled, reaching 800 billion UZS. The most expensive plate to date was sold for 965.3 million UZS.

On May 20, a total of 697 license plates were sold on the Uzbek Commodity Exchange platform — 671 to individuals and 26 to legal entities. The lowest price paid for a plate that day was 1.9 million UZS and the highest – 722.3 million UZS (equivalent to over $56,000 at the Central Bank’s exchange rate).

To finalize their transaction, the buyers must complete payment and register the license plates with the Road Traffic Safety Service under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The most expensive license plate ever sold in Uzbekistan went for 965.3 million UZS on December 24, 2024 (approx. $74,770), surpassing the previous record — set just a day earlier — by over 75%. On December 23, another plate had sold for 551.3 million UZS.

The third-highest price was recorded on March 28, when a Tashkent-based company acquired a license plate for 517.1 million UZS, a two-thirds increase over its starting price.

Other notable high-priced license plate sales include:

July 10 – 508 million UZS
August 6 – 404 million UZS
September 6 – 351 million UZS
November 7 – 408.4 million UZS
December 5 – 474 million UZS
December 18 – 472.9 million UZS

In 2023, a total of 87,000 license plates were sold on the Uzbek Commodity Exchange, generating 396.1 billion UZS. The most expensive plate that year was sold to a legal entity for 450 million UZS, slightly exceeding the previous record set in 2021.

Last year, total sales volume doubled, reaching approximately 800 billion UZS. Of the 195,000 combinations sold, 97% were purchased by individuals.

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