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Your Disabled Veteran Plate Will Not Park You in a Disability Space — the Placard Will, and It Is Free
The Secretary of State states on both Disabled Veteran plate entries that a disability placard is required to use the plate to park in a disability space. The placard is free to obtain and free to renew, is issued on a medical certification with seven listed conditions, and runs four years for a permanent disability. A yellow sticker added to a permanent blue placard gives free parking at public meters and ramps.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
The Secretary of State states on both Disabled Veteran plate entries that a disability placard is required to use the plate to park in a disability space. The placard is free to obtain and free to renew, is issued on a medical certification with seven listed conditions, and runs four years for a permanent disability. A yellow sticker added to a permanent blue placard gives free parking at public meters and ramps.
What it's worth: Placard free to obtain and to renew; $10 to replace a lost or stolen one; free metered parking with the yellow sticker
- The medical test is a disability test, not a service-connection test. This record is listed for everyone because a veteran reaches it through the condition rather than through service.
- The free-parking sticker is a separate approval on the same application and is only issued with a permanent blue placard.
Who is entitled to it
- You live in this state.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
From what you have told us so far, you appear to qualify.
How to claim it
- 1Do not rely on the plate. The department states for BOTH the permanent and the standard Disabled Veteran plate that a disability placard is required to use that plate to park in a disability parking space.
- 2Check the medical test, which is the department’s statement of what Michigan law requires: blindness; inability to walk more than 200 feet without stopping to rest; inability both to use one or both legs or feet and to walk without a wheelchair, walker, crutch, brace, prosthetic or other device or another person’s help; a lung disease giving a one-second forced expiratory volume under one litre or arterial oxygen tension under 60 mm/Hg on room air at rest; a cardiovascular condition measuring between 3 and 4 on the New York heart classification; an arthritic, neurological or orthopedic condition severely limiting walking; or persistent reliance on an oxygen source other than ordinary air.
- 3Have a physician, physician assistant or optometrist complete and sign the certification. The optometrist route exists for blindness and is easy to miss.
- 4Send form BFS-108 to the Michigan Department of State, Internal Services Section, P.O. Box 30764, Lansing MI 48918-8264, or bring it to a Secretary of State office. It is not an online transaction for a first application.
- 5Pay nothing. The first placard is free, renewals are free, and a damaged placard is replaced free. Only a lost or stolen placard costs $10.
- 6Know which colour you are getting: blue for a permanent disability, renewed every four years and renewable up to six months before it expires; red for a temporary disability, valid six months at most and not renewable, with a fresh BFS-108 needed each time; green for organisations that transport people with disabilities.
- 7Ask for the yellow free-parking sticker on the same form. It goes on a permanent blue placard, allows free parking at public meters and ramps, and needs the medical professional to sign the free parking section of the BFS-108.
- 8The free-parking test is its own test, not the placard test: an inability to insert coins or take a ticket for lack of fine motor control in both hands, an inability to reach 42 inches above the ground for lack of finger, hand or upper extremity strength or mobility, an inability to approach a meter because of a wheelchair or other ambulatory device, or an inability to walk more than 20 feet because of an orthopedic, cardiovascular or lung condition.
- 9Hang the placard from the rearview mirror when parked and take it down when driving.
- Form
- Disability Parking Placard Application, form BFS-108
- File with
- Michigan Department of State, Internal Services Section, Lansing — or any Secretary of State office
- Documents you will need
- va benefit summary letter
- Periodic
- Re-confirmed from time to time.
CorrectionThe commonest mistake here costs a parking ticket. A Disabled Veteran plate is a recognition plate; it is not a disability parking credential. The department says on both Disabled Veteran plate entries that a placard is required to park in a disability space.
CorrectionA service-connected rating is not the placard test. The seven conditions the department lists are medical and say nothing about service connection — so a veteran rated 100% for a condition that leaves walking unaffected is outside them, and a veteran rated 30% who cannot walk 200 feet is inside them.
Worth knowingThe yellow free-parking sticker is the quietest money in this record. It is free, it goes on a placard you already hold, and it means public meters and ramps cost nothing — but it has its own medical test and only the permanent blue placard can carry it.
Worth knowingA disability plate can be held by a household member: the department issues it for a vehicle owned or leased by the person with a permanent ambulatory disability, or by someone living in the same household as that person.
Known gapThe statute behind the seven-part test could not be read: legislature.mi.gov is unreachable from this network, so the department’s statement of what Michigan law says is the source here and the record is tier B.
Sources
- authority · published policySecretary of State — Disability parking: the three placard colours and their terms, the four-year permanent placard with no fee for original or renewal, the six-month non-renewable temporary placard, the $10 lost-stolen-damaged replacement, form BFS-108, the yellow free parking sticker for public meters and ramps with its four-part test, and the note that veteran plates carry the disability emblem silk-screened rather than embossed
- operating · published policySecretary of State — Disability parking placard: the application and renewal routes, the Lansing postal address, and the placard costs — first placard free, renewals free, damaged replacements free, $10 to replace a lost or stolen placard — together with the seven-part statutory disability test and the physician, physician assistant or optometrist certification
- operating · published policySecretary of State — Military and veteran plate options: for the permanent Disabled Veteran plate and for the standard Disabled Veteran plate alike, "A disability placard is required to use a Disabled Veteran plate to park in a disability parking space"; the permanent plate at a total or permanently total rating with an honorable discharge, and the standard plate at a 50%-90% rating
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