Waste Watch viewer asks how many millions Texas could save with rear-only license plates

A viewer in Silsbee asked KFDM’s Waste Watch to “look into the savings to the state by eliminating the second license plate on cars and trucks.”

Joe’s question goes to the heart of a longstanding Texas rule: Most passenger cars and light trucks must display one license plate on the front and another on the rear.

Twenty-two states require only a rear plate. Texas is not one of them.

Millions of Texas plates made at one factory

Texas license plates are made at the Wynne Unit prison in Huntsville through Texas Correctional Industries, a department within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Manufacturing, Agribusiness and Logistics Division.

In a video posted online last year by TDCJ, Wynne Unit Assistant Plant Manager James Stewart says the facility produces “more plates than anywhere in the world.”

That scale matters in the debate over front plates.

Every second plate requires aluminum, printing, handling, inventory and delivery. It also raises the question posed by the viewer: What could Texas save if it stopped issuing one of them?

The state’s one-plate savings estimate

Rep. Will Metcalf, R-Montgomery, filed House Bill 1199 in 2021. The bill said the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles “shall issue only one license plate for attachment at the rear of a passenger car or light truck.”

It was a true one-plate proposal. It was not enacted.

But the bill produced the clearest state estimate of the potential savings.

The Legislative Budget Board projected Texas would issue about 18.3 million fewer plates during the bill’s five-year forecast — an average of roughly 3.7 million fewer plates a year.

The Legislative Budget Board fiscal note projected savings to the TxDMV Fund of:

$5.3 million in the first full year$5.4 million in the following year$5.6 million by fiscal year 2026

The budget office estimated a one-time systems cost of about $287,800.

Those are 2021 projections, not a current audit of the state’s plate-manufacturing costs. The analysis does not attempt to measure any cost associated with changing tolling or law enforcement technology.

Metcalf’s 2025 bill would have kept both plates

Metcalf returned to the subject during the 2025 legislative session with House Bill 1607.

That bill passed the Texas House before being left pending in a Senate committee. But it would not have reduced the number of plates Texas issued.

HB 1607 said TxDMV would still issue “a set of two plates” to a passenger car or light truck. It would have allowed a driver to display only a rear plate if a vehicle was not “equipped by the manufacturer with an exterior front feature” where a plate could be attached without drilling through the vehicle.

The tradeoff: The vehicle would have needed a license plate windshield insignia. The driver also would have had to keep the unmounted plate in the vehicle and produce it for a peace officer upon request.

The House committee analysis said the bill sought to address vehicles built without a front mounting point while “maintaining the requirement that a vehicle display two forms of identification.”

Unlike the 2021 one-plate proposal, the 2025 bill came with projected startup costs. The Legislative Budget Board estimated one-time technology costs of $641,500 from the TxDMV Fund and $286,125 in general revenue — a combined $927,625. HB 1607’s fiscal note

The 22 states that require only a rear plate

A KFDM Waste Watch review found these states require only a rear plate for standard passenger vehicles:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.

Texas law requires two plates on most passenger cars and light trucks. Motorcycles, trailers, semitrailers and road tractors are among the Texas vehicle types that receive one plate.

Two-plate states with front-plate exceptions

The 22 states listed above are true rear-plate-only states for standard passenger vehicles.

A separate group of states still generally requires two plates but allows some drivers to leave the front plate off because of how a vehicle was built. In those states, the exception is about displaying a plate — not necessarily whether the state still makes and issues two of them.

Nevada: A vehicle may display only a rear plate if it was not manufactured with a front bracket or another secure way to mount one. Nevada still issues two plates; the driver must keep the unmounted plate and return both when required. Nevada DMVIdaho: A front plate is required only when the vehicle was manufactured with a front mounting bracket. A vehicle without that factory bracket may display only the rear plate.Wyoming: A vehicle originally manufactured without a front bracket, device or other means to secure a plate is exempt from displaying one on the front. The rear plate is still required.Washington: The Washington State Patrol may grant an exception when a vehicle’s body construction makes it impossible to properly mount a front plate. It is a case-by-case exception, not an automatic rear-only rule. Washington law

Those exceptions help explain why some drivers in two-plate states remember running only a rear plate. They do not make Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming or Washington one-plate states.

Why front plates remain part of the debate

Supporters of keeping two plates say a front plate gives law enforcement, toll cameras and automatic license-plate reader systems another chance to identify a vehicle approaching from the front.

Supporters of a one-plate system point to the manufacturing cost, the millions of extra plates Texas produces and the increasing number of vehicles sold without a front mounting bracket.

For now, Texas remains a two-plate state. But the state’s last official estimate of a true one-plate system projected savings of more than $5 million a year.