Aircraft registration prefix lookup

How a registration is built

Every civil aircraft carries a registration, a bit like a car's number plate. It has two parts. The first is the nationality mark, which says which country the aircraft is registered in. The second is the registration mark, which picks out that one aircraft. Usually a hyphen sits between them, so in G-EUUU the G is the nationality mark and EUUU is the aircraft.

The nationality marks are shared out through ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and every country tells ICAO which ones it uses. This lookup uses ICAO's own list, dated 1 June 2025.

The UK and its neighbours

UK aircraft start with G. The Isle of Man uses M, Guernsey uses 2 and Jersey uses ZJ. The overseas territories have their own marks too: VP-B and VQ-B for Bermuda, VP-C and VQ-C for the Cayman Islands, VP-G for Gibraltar and VP-F for the Falkland Islands. Ireland uses EI and EJ.

Why some have no hyphen

A few countries write the registration without a hyphen. American aircraft are N followed by numbers and letters, like N123AB, and Japanese ones are JA followed by four characters. When you type a registration without a hyphen, the lookup finds the longest nationality mark the text starts with and tells you it's less certain. Add the hyphen if you know where it goes.

Shared and long marks

Switzerland and Liechtenstein both use HB, so a national emblem on the aircraft tells them apart. Some marks are three letters, like A9C for Bahrain and 9XR for Rwanda. Military aircraft usually carry serials rather than civil registrations, so they won't be on this list.

Spotted something special?

Once you know the registration, you can say it on the radio with our phonetic alphabet translator, keep a record with the printable spotter's log, or put the aircraft on the wall with an aircraft photo print.