Most tags are the old nnAn... format, with the first number designating the county.  

I'm seeing more car tags with something like a nnnnAn... format.  What does that format mean?  Leased car?  Company owned?  

There is a choice. One is the old style with the county identified. The other is newer style and doesn't signify county. Your choice when you buy

These are the designs you'll see with county numbers on them (older on top, current on bottom):








 

<<<<<  Been collecting Alabama plates for 25 years.


You're probably seeing the new God Bless America plates because, for whatever reason, the state didn't code them by county.  The year decals are still county coded until the county runs out of their allotment of decals, at which time they're issued "80" coded decals.  "80" is the code that's been used for 40+ years for overruns or supplemental tags.  Here in Madison county we usually start seeing the "80" decals around August or September when they've finally run out of the "47" coded decals.  If you've seen a Sweet Home Alabama or the new baseplate with a ####AA## format it's a vanity plate.


FWIW, "70" was the code you were issued if you lost your original plate and "68" was the county code for undercover vehicles 40 years ago...

Alabama does not like reusing tag numbers and they ran out of new numbers in Jefferson county a long time ago so they had to go to a new numbering system.

Years ago, wasn't it the county number was determined by revenue.
That's why Madison was "2", Calhoun "11" etc.
How much revenue each county generated. The most revenue got No. 1

No, county coding started in 1942 with the first three being done by population.  In '42 Jefferson, Mobile and Montgomery counties had the highest populations so they got numbers 1, 2 and 3, then they started with alphabetical order for 4 through 67.  4 is Autauga, 5 is Baldwin and it ended with 67 being Winston.


ETA:  Madison has always been #47, right between Macon (46)  and Marengo (48) counties.  It's always been assumed that the three counties with the highest populations got the first three numbers because they needed the extra digit for the higher number of registrations anticipated.  That gave 999,999 possible tag numbers instead of the 99,999 that the two digit county numbers had available, which worked OK for the first few years until Jefferson surpassed 1 million registrations in 1955.  That's when they went to the "1A" for the second million.

Thank you, sir.

I have found a stupid rule with vanity plates here. You can't use the standard format when personalizing. AAA### is not allowed and kicks back an error on the state website when checking availability.
I was going to get an university of Alabama plate and personalize with BLY362 so with the A on the tag it would be close to my username that I have here and many other forums. ..... but that's a no go, so I have a nice new 47 plate.

Btw, when I got my tags I wasn't asked which tag I wanted. .... the lady just handed me 3 of the new style county numbered tags.

Basically, a vanity plate can't have a number sequence that falls into any of the pre-numbered sequences of any of the other plate types in order to avoid duplicate plate numbers being issued.  I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that the "BLY###" plates were issued as standard University of Alabama plates (I have a "BMC###" in my collection, which would be only a few thousand after the "BLY" series) so somebody has probably been issued that number already.  If you have any friends in law enforcement they can run that plate number and see.  My dad tried to get "F250" on a plate several years ago but they wouldn't let him have it because the firefighter plates all begin with "F".

As for you getting the standard Madison county plates, you can thank people like the ACLU.  Apparently it would infringe on somebody's fragile little snowflake rights for a state to issue a plate that has the word "God" on it as a standard issue plate, so the only way to get around it was to make the "God Bless America" plates optional.  You actually have to request them if you want one, or else it could be misconstrued as the state forcing religion onto you.  It just so happens that they're a "no cost" optional plate so you don't have to pay the additional $50 that you do for the other optionals.

 

I got asked which one I wanted and told them the non-religious one please.