If you’ve visiting Cyprus and plan to hire a car, the first thing you’ll likely notice when you arrive at the car hire agent is that the fleet of rental cars all have red number plates. Whilst it may seem odd at first, it’s actually a really useful way to easily identify rental cars out on the roads, which in a tourist destination can be useful for both the renter and other road users.
Red number plates have been used on rental cars in Cyprus since 1973 where they followed the same number plate criteria of 3 letters followed by 3 numbers of regular number plates. Until 2013, all rental cars number plates started with a ‘Z’ however given that most of the major rental companies only run their vehicles for around 12 months, rental fleets will have turned over numerous vehicles in that time and so only the older rental cars will carry the ‘Z’ today, which you’re more likely to see on smaller, local car rental suppliers who run older vehicles.
Cyprus entered the EU in 2004 and since then all number plates (both regular and those on rental cars) carry the EU blue flag with the circle of gold stars above the international country code (CY) on the left hand side. Since 2014, all number plates are made of metal, whereas pre 2014 plastic was the material of choice (metal was used on early number plates pre 1973).
Source: www.rhinocarhire.com
Get 10% discount for our Blue Adventure apartment
Stay one week in our Blue Adventure apartment and get 10% discount on whole stay.