Visit the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) website for detailed current information on all standard vehicle services in Maryland.
Prior to July 1, 2025, if your vehicle was “age 20 years or older” and had not been altered from the manufacturer’s original design, you could register it as an Historic Vehicle. That got you Maryland Permanent Historic Tags and avoided the periodic Emissions Test. Several restrictions on the use of the vehicle applied.
Effective July 1, 2025, the law was changed to require that your vehicle must be “of model year 1999 or older” to be issued a Permanent Historic Tag. Model year 2000-2005 vehicles that currently had Permanent Historic Tags were required to convert them back to Standard Registration Tags and therefore subject to standard vehicle Emission Testing and requirements.
This arbitrary fixed date of model year 1999 or older for a Permanent Historic Tag became a major issue for Maryland vehicle collectors and was the impetus of a concerted effort to modify the wording of the Maryland law into something more reasonable and acceptable.
The Maryland General Assembly addressed the issue in its 2026 session and passed legislation to change the definition of an historic vehicle to the more logical “age 25 years or older”. Unfortunately, the 2026 legislation failed to include a “grandfather clause” to cover those vehicles caught in the years between the old and new regulations. Therefore, though the regulation change was passed in year 2026, its implementation will not be effective until July 1, 2027.
Effective October 2026, MVA will use “Market Prices” only as a basis for determining sales tax and will no longer accept a “Bill of Sale” for such purposes. For many reasons this MVA change could negatively affect the collector car purchaser and will likely initiate a valid legislative challenge.
To display Maryland Vintage Tags, first register it as an Historic Vehicle. The vintage tags must be Maryland-issued, for the same registration year as your vehicle, and be the same quantity required that year for your vehicle.
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Check out the website of the Maryland Collectible Auto Association, an organization created “to ensure Maryland’s car community is informed early, heard clearly, and protected when laws affect the automotive hobby.”
Check out the Rick’s Plates website for an amazing pictorial collection of historic Maryland License Plates from 1910 to the present.