ANKENY, Iowa – July 1, 2019 – There’s a cool new specialty license plate available to Iowans today (Monday). The latest addition to the Iowa Department of Transportation’s options is the “blackout” plate — an all-black plate with white lettering authorized last legislative session.

You can order the new plate starting today. It’s offered as both a standard alpha-numeric plate and a personalized plate, and you can order both online, or by completing this form and mailing it to the Iowa DOT’s Vehicle & Motor Carrier Services Bureau. Iowa Prison Industries will make the plates and ship them to your county treasurer’s office, who will let you know when they are ready to pick up. Please remember to bring the plates you are replacing into your county treasurer’s office to turn them in when you pick up your new plates.

The new plate will cost $35 for a standard alpha-numeric plate and an additional $25 (for a total of $60) for a personalized plate. Funds collected for the blackout plate will go to the Road Use Tax Fund, which funds state, county, and city road and bridge projects throughout Iowa.

License plates are an important tool used by law enforcement and others to help identify a vehicle. This identification has many practical purposes and can be life-saving in the case of criminal activity or a situation like an Amber Alert. As a reminder, you should never use a license plate frame that obscures or blocks the numbers and letters on the plate.  It can hinder this identification and violates state law.