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Disabled Veteran Plate — One Free Plate Every Year

A veteran rated 100%, or paid at the 100% rate on individual unemployability, gets one disabled veteran plate free of charge every year — car or motorcycle. The ex-prisoner of war plate sits in the same free list; the Purple Heart plate does not. The exemption does not apply to a plate issued for a vehicle with a registered weight over 6,000 pounds.

Verified August 27, 2026

What this benefit is

What it's worth: One free plate per person per year — car or motorcycle

The application form states the free allowance as one plate per person per year, and lists a disabled veteran motorcycle plate alongside the car plate.
G.S. 20-79.7 provides the 100% Disabled Veteran and Ex-Prisoner of War plates free of charge.
The exemption does NOT apply to a special registration plate issued for a vehicle with a registered weight greater than 6,000 pounds. A heavier vehicle pays.
A personalised message on the plate is charged separately and annually, whichever plate you hold.

Who is entitled to it

Your service-connected disability is rated 100%.
You are paid at the 100% rate on individual unemployability, which the certifying department accepts for this plate.
You live in North Carolina.

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.

How to claim it

1Get the rating letter or summary of benefits letter first, and check its date. The certifying department will not accept one more than a year old, and your name must appear on the same page as the combined rating.
2Take the MVR-33A to a county veteran service office or a state veterans service centre for certification. Only an accredited service officer can sign section 6 — a careers centre cannot, and the Division will not process the form without that signature.
3Tick "Disabled Veteran" or "Disabled Veteran Motorcycle" in the free-plate block on the form. They sit under the heading "One Free Plate Per Person Per Year", separately from the plates that merely carry no extra fee.
4If your rating is below 100% and you are not paid at the 100% rate, you will be certified for the partially disabled veteran plate instead. That one costs no more than an ordinary plate, but it is not free — the difference is worth knowing before you go.
5Photocopies are fine and the department asks you not to post originals. One set of supporting documents covers several vehicles, but each vehicle needs its own MVR-33A.

Form: MVR-33A, Military/Veteran’s Registration Plate Application
File with: Division of Motor Vehicles — any licence plate agency, after the veterans department certifies section 6
Documents you will need: va benefit summary letter
Annual: Claimed once a year.

CorrectionIndividual unemployability counts. This record previously gated the free plate on a combined rating of 100% alone. The certifying department publishes the gate as a combined rating of 100% OR individual unemployability paid at the 100% rate — so a veteran rated 70% but paid at the 100% rate on unemployability is on the free list, and would have been turned away by the old rule.

CorrectionThe Purple Heart plate is NOT free. This record used to say it sat in the same free-of-charge list as the disabled veteran and ex-prisoner of war plates. The application form puts it under "License Plates Which Require No Additional Fee" — meaning it costs no more than an ordinary plate, not that it costs nothing. The free block holds the disabled veteran plate, the disabled veteran motorcycle plate, ex-prisoner of war, Bronze Star with combat device, the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, Legion of Valor and the Silver Star.

Known gapThe registration-fee waiver is no longer published here, because we could not verify it. This record used to state that a vehicle registered at 6,000 pounds or less pays no regular registration fee either, on the strength of §20-79.7(a) read on a reproduction. Neither the veterans department page nor the application form mentions a weight line or the registration fee at all, and the legislature's own site returns a Cloudflare block page — "Sorry, you have been blocked" — to a real browser as well as to a fetch. Ask the licence plate agency whether the registration fee is charged; it may well not be, but we have not read it anywhere we trust.

Worth knowingA personalised message is charged annually on top, whichever plate you hold, and is limited to four characters with at least one letter. The free plate is free; the vanity on it is not.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.