Digital license plates are legal to buy and register for personal vehicles in three states: Arizona, California, and Michigan. Texas allows them too, but only for commercial vehicle fleets.1Reviver. Digital License Plates2Richmond Journal of Law and Technology. Digital License Plates Are Available in Some States, But People Have Concerns If your vehicle is registered in one of those states, you can drive with the plate anywhere in the country. Everywhere else, you’re either waiting on a pilot program or you’re out of luck.
The point that confuses people most: “legal to drive with” and “legal to buy” are not the same thing. A digital plate registered in Arizona is fine on a road trip through all 50 states. But you cannot buy and register one unless your vehicle itself is registered in an authorized state.1Reviver. Digital License Plates If you move to a state that doesn’t authorize them, you’ll switch back to metal at re-registration.
States Moving Toward Authorization
Several states have passed enabling legislation or launched pilot programs, but none of them have opened sales to the general public in the way Arizona, California, and Michigan have.
Colorado passed rules in 2022, and its regulatory framework took effect at the end of 2024.3LII / Legal Information Institute. 1 CCR 204-10-51 – Colorado Digital License Plates Georgia and Illinois have moved legislation through their regulatory processes. North Carolina passed enabling legislation in 2019. Maryland and Pennsylvania have active pilot programs.4Reviver. Digital License Plates: Where We Are, What’s Coming Next New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington have reportedly been considering the idea as well.
If you live in a pilot-program state, call your DMV before you order anything. Pilots often cap participant numbers or restrict the types of vehicles that qualify.
What a Digital Plate Costs
State DMVs don’t sell digital plates. Reviver is the only authorized manufacturer and vendor in every state that permits them, and you order through Reviver’s website or an authorized dealership.
The RPlate costs $899 outright. There’s also a subscription model at roughly $30 to $40 per month with no long-term commitment.5Reviver. RPlate Digital License Plate On top of the hardware, you pay an ongoing service plan to keep the plate’s connected features active. Service tiers run from $35 per year for a basic Essential plan up to $145 per year for a Premium wired plan, with mid-tier Plus plans falling between $75 and $95 depending on whether you have a battery or wired model.6Reviver. Reviver Service Plans Premium is only offered in California. Every purchase includes 60 days of connected service before the annual fee starts.
Battery-powered plates are designed for self-installation and go on without much fuss. Wired models tap into the vehicle’s electrical system and usually need a professional to install them, which adds to the total. Over five years of ownership, you’ll spend meaningfully more than you would on a metal plate, and the gap grows with a higher service tier.
The Screen Is Not Your Only Plate
A dead digital plate does not excuse you from displaying valid registration. Whatever caused the failure, whether a drained battery, a software glitch, an expired subscription, or physical damage, you’re still on the hook for a legible plate.
Colorado’s regulation spells this out most clearly. Drivers there still receive two standard physical plates from the DMV at registration. The digital plate goes on the rear, and one of the metal plates goes on the front. If the digital screen stops working, the driver must put the physical plate back on the rear. Colorado also requires drivers to keep the physical plate in the vehicle at all times, in a spot where an officer can see it on request.3LII / Legal Information Institute. 1 CCR 204-10-51 – Colorado Digital License Plates Other states with programs in place generally take a similar approach.
One practical consequence: your subscription is what keeps the plate functional. If you stop paying, connected features die. In a state like Colorado, that means you revert to your metal plate. In a state without an explicit backup rule, driving with a non-functional digital display could earn you a citation for an unreadable plate.
Privacy and Security Trade-Offs
Digital plates raise questions metal plates never had to answer. They can include GPS, the vendor keeps a database of plate owners, and every plate connects wirelessly to a central system. That combination creates real privacy exposure that’s worth thinking through before you buy.
Location Tracking in California
When California authorized digital plates in 2022, the law prohibited location tracking on personal vehicles and allowed GPS only for commercial fleets and vehicles with occupational licenses.7Assembly Bill Policy Committee. AB 3138 Wilson APCP Analysis That restriction was removed in 2024 when Governor Newsom signed AB 3138, which extended GPS availability to personal vehicles.8LegiScan. Bill Text: CA AB3138 – Chaptered In California, location tracking is now an available feature rather than a prohibited one. How other states will handle location data as they write their own rules remains open.
Cybersecurity
The plates use AES-256 encryption and TLS 1.3 protocols to secure communications.9Nevada Legislature. Digital License Plates FAQ Those are strong, widely used standards. But encryption only protects data in transit. In 2022, security researchers found they could gain full administrative access to Reviver’s back-end systems through software vulnerabilities in the plate. From inside, they could track any plate’s GPS location in real time, view owner account details including home addresses, change what the plate displayed, and flag vehicles as stolen. Reviver patched the vulnerabilities within 24 hours and said no customer data had been compromised.
That incident is the clearest illustration of the trade-off. A metal plate is stamped aluminum and cannot be hacked. A digital plate is a connected device with a SIM card, and connected devices have attack surfaces. The encryption on paper is solid; the security of the full ecosystem, from the vendor’s servers to the app on your phone, determines your actual risk.
The Short Version
If you live in Arizona, California, or Michigan, you can buy a digital plate today through Reviver, budget for both the hardware and an ongoing service plan, and keep a backup plan in mind for the day the screen fails. If you live anywhere else, you’re waiting, and even in a pilot state you should confirm eligibility with your DMV before you order.