How do I tell which country an aircraft is registered in?

Read the characters before the hyphen — or the leading letter on marks written without one, such as N, JA and HL. That block is the nationality mark assigned to the state by ICAO, and it identifies the register the aircraft sits on, not necessarily where it is based or who owns it.

Why do so many private jets carry M-, T7- or VP-B marks?

The Isle of Man, San Marino, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands run registers built for privately owned business aircraft, with straightforward foreign-ownership rules and English-language oversight. A jet on one of those registers can be operated and based anywhere.

Does the registration change when an aircraft is sold?

Usually yes if it moves to another country's register: the old mark is cancelled and a new one issued. The ICAO 24-bit hex address changes with it, which is why searching on both the mark and the hex code gives the fuller history.

Can two aircraft share the same registration?

Not at the same time. A mark is unique on its register while it is active, though a cancelled mark can be reassigned to a different airframe years later.

Reference

Aircraft registration prefixes by country

Every civil aircraft carries a nationality mark issued to its state of registry under ICAO Annex 7, followed by characters the national authority allocates. This table covers the marks you will meet most often, and how each register formats the rest.

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Reading a tail number

A registration has two parts. The prefix is the nationality mark — VT- for India, G- for the United Kingdom, N for the United States. What follows is the registration mark itself, allocated by that country's civil aviation authority. Some states write the two with a hyphen, others run them together.

The prefix tells you which register holds the certificate. It does not tell you where the aircraft is based, who flies it, or the nationality of the owner — offshore registers exist precisely because those can all differ.

Nationality marks (61 entries)

Prefix	Country / register	Format
N	United States	N + up to 5 characters; the letters I and O are never used.
C-	Canada	C-F… and C-G… for aeroplanes, C-I… for ultralights.
XA- / XB- / XC-	Mexico	XA commercial, XB private, XC government.
G-	United Kingdom	G- plus four letters; historic marks such as G-ABCD survive.
M-	Isle of Man	M- plus four characters; a common register for business jets.
EI- / EJ-	Ireland	EI- plus three letters; large leasing fleets are based here.
D-	Germany	D-A/B/C for airliners by weight class, D-E/F/G/H for lighter types.
F-	France	F-G and F-H for current civil aircraft, F-W for test registrations.
I-	Italy	I- plus four letters.
EC-	Spain	EC- plus three letters, or EC-nnn while temporary.
CS-	Portugal	CS- plus three letters; large business-jet operator base.
PH-	Netherlands	PH- plus three letters.
OO-	Belgium	OO- plus three letters.
HB-	Switzerland	HB- plus three letters; a long-standing business aviation register.
OE-	Austria	OE-I/L for jets and airliners, OE-A/C/D/K for lighter aircraft.
LX-	Luxembourg	LX- plus three letters.
SE-	Sweden	SE- plus three letters.
LN-	Norway	LN- plus three letters.
OY-	Denmark	OY- plus three letters.
OH-	Finland	OH- plus three letters.
SP-	Poland	SP- plus three letters or a letter-digit block.
OK-	Czechia	OK- plus three letters.
HA-	Hungary	HA- plus three letters.
YR-	Romania	YR- plus three letters.
LZ-	Bulgaria	LZ- plus three letters.
SX-	Greece	SX- plus three letters.
TC-	Türkiye	TC- plus three letters.
RA- / RF-	Russia	RA- plus five digits for civil, RF- for state aircraft.
UR-	Ukraine	UR- plus five digits or three letters.
VT-	India	VT- plus three letters; VT is the Indian nationality mark.
AP-	Pakistan	AP- plus three letters.
S2-	Bangladesh	S2- plus three letters.
4R-	Sri Lanka	4R- plus three letters.
9N-	Nepal	9N- plus three letters.
B-	China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan	B- plus digits (mainland), B-K/H/L (Hong Kong), B-M (Macau), B-nnnnn (Taiwan).
JA	Japan	JA plus four characters, written without a hyphen.
HL	South Korea	HL plus four digits, written without a hyphen.
VH-	Australia	VH- plus three letters.
ZK-	New Zealand	ZK- plus three letters.
9V-	Singapore	9V- plus three letters.
9M-	Malaysia	9M- plus three letters.
HS-	Thailand	HS- plus three letters.
PK-	Indonesia	PK- plus three letters.
RP-C	Philippines	RP-C plus four digits for civil aircraft.
VN-	Vietnam	VN- plus a letter and three digits.
A6-	United Arab Emirates	A6- plus three letters.
HZ-	Saudi Arabia	HZ- plus two or three characters.
A7-	Qatar	A7- plus three letters.
9K-	Kuwait	9K- plus three letters.
A9C-	Bahrain	A9C- plus two or three letters.
A4O-	Oman	A4O- plus two or three letters.
4X-	Israel	4X- plus three letters.
SU-	Egypt	SU- plus three letters.
ZS- / ZT- / ZU-	South Africa	ZS- civil, ZT- state, ZU- non-type-certificated.
5N-	Nigeria	5N- plus three letters.
5Y-	Kenya	5Y- plus three letters.
PP- / PR- / PS- / PT- / PU-	Brazil	Five civil blocks, each followed by three letters.
LV-	Argentina	LV- plus three letters.
CC-	Chile	CC- plus three letters.
HK-	Colombia	HK- plus four digits and an optional suffix letter.
XT- / T7- / VP-B / VP-C	Offshore registers	San Marino (T7-), Bermuda (VP-B) and Cayman (VP-C) are widely used by business jets.

Allocations follow the ITU international call-sign series and ICAO Annex 7. National authorities publish the definitive current formats.

Look up a specific aircraft

Have a mark in hand? Run it through the aircraft registration lookup for type, owner and ICAO hex code, or the N-number lookup for US marks. To start from a person instead, see the celebrity and billionaire jet ledger.

Questions people ask

How do I tell which country an aircraft is registered in?: Read the characters before the hyphen — or the leading letter on marks written without one, such as N, JA and HL. That block is the nationality mark assigned to the state by ICAO, and it identifies the register the aircraft sits on, not necessarily where it is based or who owns it.
Why do so many private jets carry M-, T7- or VP-B marks?: The Isle of Man, San Marino, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands run registers built for privately owned business aircraft, with straightforward foreign-ownership rules and English-language oversight. A jet on one of those registers can be operated and based anywhere.
Does the registration change when an aircraft is sold?: Usually yes if it moves to another country's register: the old mark is cancelled and a new one issued. The ICAO 24-bit hex address changes with it, which is why searching on both the mark and the hex code gives the fuller history.
Can two aircraft share the same registration?: Not at the same time. A mark is unique on its register while it is active, though a cancelled mark can be reassigned to a different airframe years later.