Is Australia's number plate market cooling? What 2026's auction results show
Prices for Australia's rarest number plates have eased in 2026. Plates a step below them have held their value, and in Queensland they have gone up.
Our research into public heritage and Q-plate auctions discovered this when we compared 2026 results, up to 9 September, with 2025. The details are below, including the gaps in the data.
Where the numbers come from
We used three auction series, because all three publish their results:
Lawsons, which runs New South Wales heritage plate auctions, including sales on behalf of Transport for NSW. Lawsons publishes an estimate range next to every result.
VicRoads, which auctions Victorian heritage plates a few times a year.
Personalised Plates Queensland (PPQ), which auctions Q-plates every quarter and lists every sale price.
Lawsons figures in this article are hammer prices: the winning bid, before fees. Lawsons' own headlines add the buyer's premium and GST, which is why you may have seen plate 85 quoted at $1,309,825 rather than $1,210,000.
New South Wales: nothing beat its estimate
Before each sale, the auction house sets an estimate range for every plate. That range is the house's view of that particular plate, so comparing a result with its own estimate is fairer than comparing one plate's price with a different plate's.
Across Lawsons' six heritage plate sales in 2026, 29 plates sold. None went above its top estimate. Fourteen sold below the bottom of their range, and another seven sold at exactly the bottom figure.
We found full results for three of Lawsons' 2025 sales, held in April, May and June. Side by side:
2025 (3 sales) | 2026 (6 sales) | |
|---|---|---|
Plates offered | 18 | 33 |
Sold | 16 | 29 |
Sold above top estimate | 4 | 0 |
Sold below bottom estimate | 6 | 14 |
Passed in (no sale) | 2 | 4 |
The share of plates that failed to sell barely moved: 11 per cent in 2025, 12 per cent in 2026. Buyers are still bidding, but they are no longer going past the estimate. At the May 2025 sale, half the plates sold above their top estimate. So far in 2026, none have.
Two plates were offered in both years. In April 2025, plate 4800 carried an estimate of $180,000 to $200,000 and plate 5224 an estimate of $160,000 to $180,000. Neither sold. Both came back in August 2026 with lower estimates. 4800 sold for $160,000 and 5224 for $147,500.
Three-digit plates, the most common tier at these sales, also came down. The median hammer price for the three-digit NSW heritage plates we could find was $300,000 across nine sales in 2025, and $250,000 across eleven sales in 2026.
Supply is one likely reason. In March, Transport for NSW put 15 heritage plates up for auction in a single night, six of them three-digit. With that many similar plates on offer, buyers could afford to wait.
The year's biggest NSW result fits the same pattern. Plate 85 was sold on 26 August on the instructions of receivers Cor Cordis, with an estimate of $1.2 million to $1.4 million. It sold for $1,210,000, just above the bottom of that range. (For more on the state's plate market, see our NSW custom plates guide.)
Victoria: lower prices at the top
VicRoads' heritage plate auction in September 2025 sold 16 plates for a reported total of more than $3 million. The top two were 488 at $650,000 and 899 at $600,000.
Its August 2026 heritage auction sold 10 plates for a little over $1.64 million. The top result was 620, at $365,000.
These were different plates, so the comparison needs care. Buyers pay extra for eights, and both of 2025's leaders had them. 620 doesn't. The other three-digit plate in the 2026 sale, 825, does, but its price wasn't published. The four-digit plates with published prices point the same way: $150,000 to $210,000 in 2025, and $140,000 to $170,000 this year.
Queensland: the middle got dearer
PPQ publishes every result from every auction, which makes it the most complete record of plate prices we could find. Comparing the February, May and August auctions of each year:
Q-plate type | 2025 median | 2026 median | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
Q + 4 digits (like Q8778) | $54,750 (4 sold) | $35,750 (10 sold) | -35% |
Q + 5 digits (like Q81818) | $17,700 (21 sold) | $21,000 (23 sold) | +19% |
Q + 6 digits (like Q118888) | $12,250 (28 sold) | $16,750 (21 sold) | +37% |
Four-digit Q-plates, the expensive end, fell. Five- and six-digit plates rose. The total rose too: those three auctions raised about $1.24 million from 69 plates in 2025, and about $1.42 million from 59 plates in 2026.
The four-digit figure deserves a caveat. PPQ sold only four of them across those three auctions in 2025, then offered ten in 2026, so more supply is part of the explanation here as well. Our Queensland plates guide covers how Q-plates and other QLD styles work.
The exception: new formats
In May, VicRoads auctioned Victoria's first seven-character plates at an event called Seven Reserve. All 12 sold, for more than $2 million in total. FERRARI made $328,000. PORSCHE and 8888888 made $270,000 each. The Winner's Choice lot, which let the buyer pick any seven-character combination, went for $202,000. (We previewed Seven Reserve in April.)
Those are high prices for plates with no sales history. One reading of 2026 as a whole: buyers at the top end still have money, and they are prepared to pay for something new and one-off, but they bargain harder on plates they can compare with recent sales.
What this means if you own a plate
Auction results show the top of the market. Most plates are sold privately and their prices are never published, so a softer year for heritage plates says little about a typical custom plate. The Queensland results suggest that plates selling for $10,000 to $30,000 have held up well.
If you own a rare plate, the 2026 results are worth knowing. At Lawsons this year, 21 of the 29 plates that sold went at or below the bottom of their estimate.
To work out what your plate might be worth, compare it with recent sales of similar plates. Record prices are a poor guide. Our free valuation tool checks your plate against real Australian auction sales, and our guide to what your number plate is worth explains what moves the price.
What these numbers can't tell you
The samples are small. Lawsons held six heritage plate sales this year, and one sale can move a median.
Most comparisons are between different plates. Only 4800 and 5224 were offered in both years.
We could only find full results for three of Lawsons' 2025 sales, so the 2025 NSW figures come from those three, plus Lawsons' published highlights for its other three-digit sales.
VicRoads didn't publish every price from its August 2026 sale.
These are auction results only. Private sales, including sales on AusPlates, aren't included.
Sources
Lawsons, heritage number plate results and the individual sale catalogues linked from that page
Fleet Auto News, VicRoads' August 2026 heritage auction
The Supercar Blog, August 2026 auction results
Auctions Live, Seven Reserve results
Personalised Plates Queensland, auction results
