Registration marks were introduced following the implementation of the Motor Car Act 1903, on January 1st 1904. The Act was introduced as a measure to allow the tracing of vehicles involved in illegal activities or accidents. Registration plates were a means of identifying individual vehicles. This act also set in law the dimensions of all UK registration plates and the size and spacing of their lettering.

Registration marks are a means of differentiating and identifying vehicles. They are assigned to vehicles, not their registered keeper. The registration mark remains with the vehicle to which it is assigned, unless an application is made for retention or transfer, until the vehicle is scrapped, written off, destroyed or permanently leaves the country.

However, despite the ability to purchase and/or retain registration marks, they are not actually owned in their own right. The Secretary of State oversees the process of registration marks and while they can be assigned to different vehicles, he also has the power to withdraw them.

The entitlement to a registration mark is acquired when you become the registered keeper of a vehicle. If you then sell it on to someone else, the entitlement to its registration mark passes on to the new registered keeper. However, special rules and processes have been developed, which give registered keepers the opportunity to retain or transfer a registration mark while they still have entitlement to it. This is known as the Retention and Cherished Transfer Scheme.