An independent open data project for Uganda · All data free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Skip to content

Ministry of Works and Transport: The Traffic and Road Safety (Registration Plates) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations, 2024, Schedule VI (public notice in Luganda, posted on the Ministry's X account)

Government and diplomatic number plate codes of Uganda

The owner codes on the number plates of government ministries, agencies, district and municipal local governments and diplomatic missions, from the 2024 Ministry of Works and Transport schedule, with the older letter codes they replaced. Look up any plate to see whose vehicle it is.

Download Explore places Look up a plate
246
records
Nov 15, 2026
last updated
2025-01-01
source date
CC BY 4.0
free to use, share and adapt

About this data

Digital government plates read UG, a two-digit code for the ministry or agency, then the vehicle number (UG 38 00012). Police plates start UP and prisons plates UU. District and municipal local governments use LG and a three-digit code (LG 139 0001). Parastatals use UA and the code of their parent ministry (UA 12 025AA).

Before the digital plates, government plates read UG, the vehicle number and a letter for the ministry (UG 0785 W). These letter codes are included, each with the code the same body uses now.

Owners of private and commercial vehicles are not public: the lookup only says that such a plate is private.

What the plates look like

The digital plates issued from January 2025 and the older plates they replace.

Digital plates (2024)

  • Government ministry or agency

    UG · ministry or agency code (38 = Works and Transport) · vehicle number

  • Government trailer

    UG · ministry code · T for trailer and its number

  • Local government

    LG · district or municipality code (139 = Kira Municipality) · vehicle number

  • Uganda Police Force

    UP · vehicle number

  • Uganda Prisons Service

    UU · vehicle number

  • Parastatal or authority under a ministry

    UA · code of the parent ministry (12 = Agriculture) · number and letters

  • Diplomatic mission

    CD (corps diplomatique) · mission number · vehicle number and U for Uganda

  • Honorary consul

    HC · country number · vehicle number

  • United Nations agency

    UN · agency · vehicle number

  • Private or commercial vehicle

    UA · number and letters; owners are not public

  • Motorcycle

    UMA · number and letters; owners are not public

Older plates

  • Government (old plate)

    UG · vehicle number · ministry letter (W = Works and Transport)

  • Diplomatic mission (old plate)

    CD · mission number (28 = Norway) · vehicle number · U for Uganda

  • Private or commercial vehicle (old plate)

    U and two letters · number · letter; owners are not public

Plates are drawn from the descriptions in the sources; no openly licensed photographs of Ugandan digital plates exist yet. Pick a plate to look it up.

Get the data

Every list below can be read one page at a time (API), or taken whole as CSV or JSON.

  • Whose vehicle UG 38 00012 is
    /api/v1/vehicle-enquiry?registrationNumber=UG3800012
    API CSV JSON
  • Every municipality code
    /api/v1/registration-plate-codes?filter[category]=municipality
    API CSV JSON 
# Whose vehicle UG 38 00012 is
curl -g 'https://opendata.ssmusoke.dev/api/v1/vehicle-enquiry?registrationNumber=UG3800012&format=json'
// Whose vehicle UG 38 00012 is
$rows = json_decode(file_get_contents(
    'https://opendata.ssmusoke.dev/api/v1/vehicle-enquiry?registrationNumber=UG3800012&format=json'
), true);
// Whose vehicle UG 38 00012 is
$rows = Http::get('https://opendata.ssmusoke.dev/api/v1/vehicle-enquiry', [
    'registrationNumber' => 'UG3800012',
    'format' => 'json',
])->json();
# Whose vehicle UG 38 00012 is
import requests

rows = requests.get(
    "https://opendata.ssmusoke.dev/api/v1/vehicle-enquiry",
    params={"registrationNumber": "UG3800012", "format": "json"},
).json()
// Whose vehicle UG 38 00012 is
const rows = await fetch(
  "https://opendata.ssmusoke.dev/api/v1/vehicle-enquiry?registrationNumber=UG3800012&format=json"
).then((r) => r.json());

Files

Files have not been generated yet; use the API meanwhile.

Cite as

Uganda OpenData Playground (2026). Government and diplomatic number plate codes of Uganda. https://opendata.ssmusoke.dev/public/datasets. Licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Source

Ministry of Works and Transport: The Traffic and Road Safety (Registration Plates) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations, 2024, Schedule VI (public notice in Luganda, posted on the Ministry's X account) (2025-01-01) · archived copy

Based on

Known issues

  • The schedule was published in Luganda. English names follow the English lists in the press; UG 28 (East African Community Affairs) is in the schedule but missing from those lists, so its English name is a translation.
  • Spellings in the notice are kept in publishedName (e.g. Oyama, Kasanda, Karenge, Bunyangabo); name uses the official spelling.
  • Ten of the municipalities in the schedule (Arua, Fort Portal, Gulu, Hoima, Jinja, Lira, Masaka, Mbale, Mbarara, Soroti) became cities in 2020; they are linked to the city.
  • No official list of diplomatic mission numbers is published. Only the missions named in press reports or by plate collectors are included; other CD plates are recognised as diplomatic without naming the mission.
  • Websites were checked on 13 November 2026 and only those that answered with the owner's own site are listed. The Public Service Commission, the Prisons Service and 20 local governments have none that works; one municipal domain (Sheema) now belongs to an unrelated shop and is left out.
  • Embassies carry the flag and website of their country's mission in Uganda.
  • The old letter codes come from Wikipedia, not a gazette. Letters P and V are not listed. The colours of old diplomatic plates on the number plates page are indicative.
Report an error

Changelog

  1. 2026-11-13 · First publication: 39 government, 176 local government and 3 diplomatic codes from the 2024 schedule, and 28 older codes, with the website of each owner and the country of each diplomatic mission.