Category: News

YOM license plates make a great Christmas gift—as long as the recipient knows the tasks and costs involved to have them registered to be street-legal in Ontario. We recommend discussing the idea with your loved one first.

We will never sell plates to a client without first clearly stating those costs. We don’t want our customers to be blindsided, so we will always take the time to inform first, and make a sale second. Above all else, we want you to be glad that you chose Ontplates.com, even if you decide that YOM license plates maybe aren’t what you’re looking for. If you would like to know more about any aspect of the YOM program, please contact us!

We ship via Expresspost, which will get your plates to you, tracked, in two business days on average… Plenty of time to wrap them and put them under the tree!

So, what will it cost to register YOM licence plates in Ontario? You can find pretty much any answer in our comprehensive FAQ section. Here are a couple of common ones that we hear during the lead-up to Christmas:

If you’re getting YOM licence plates this summer, please read this whole article. All of it applies to you.

All Ontario YOM licence plate applications must be processed by the Ministry of Government Services in Kingston.

Summer is when people enjoy booking their vacation time, and summer is also the peak volume period for YOM licence plates. This means that YOM applicants can expect roughly 8 weeks processing time to receive their plates and new ownership slip. This is longer than the 2-4 weeks stated on the Ministry website. This typically happens through July and August.

The registration process requires that you send your original vehicle ownership slip with the plates when you apply. You are legally allowed to drive your vehicle with a photocopy of the ownership in the glove box. If your vehicle currently uses regular plates, you can still drive legally while the YOM application process plays out.

If your vehicle does not yet have any plates, we recommend that you acquire a set of regular plates for it first. Then you can make a photocopy of your ownership and drive around while your YOM plates go through the process. The reason: If your vehicle is unplated, and you send your ownership to Kingston with your YOM plates, your vehicle could be idle for 8 or more weeks through the summer, with no plates to legally drive the vehicle in the meantime.

If you’re concerned about your plates while they’re in Kingston, email pso@ontario.ca or call 1-800-387-3445. If calling, mention that you have a Year of Manufacture licence plate application in progress, and you would like to speak with a person in the Kingston Production & Verification Services Office (Renewals Section), of the Ministry of Government Services. You should be transferred to the Kingston office, where you can ask for an update. Please be respectful. These are good, hard-working people who perform a lot of other tasks behind-the-scenes. They need holiday time, just like you.

To read our FAQ about the overall YOM application process, click here.

2023 marks the 20th year that Jon Upton has been selling Year of Manufacture licence plates in Ontario. Jon is the proprietor behind this business: He paints the plates, designs the web site, answers the mail, buys the supplies, and does the accounting. Occasionally, he writes articles about himself in the third-person.

The first pair of Ontario plates that Jon sold specifically for Year of Manufacture registration was a mint pair of 1969 plates, back on September 3, 2003. Back then, no one knew about the YOM program, so business was very slow. Jon sold YOM pairs from his long-standing hobby website, The Back Bumper. There were no online pictures at first—just a list of plate years and numbers. As business picked up, Jon added images to the website, and made additions to the YOM stock more frequently.

Eventually, competitors surfaced, and it made sense for Jon to give his YOM sales a brand of its own. “OntarioPlates” wasn’t available as a web domain, and it was too long of a name. So Jon chose the domain “Ontplates,” registered his business under the name Ontplates.com, and weirdly started referring to himself as “we,” so he could say things like “We at Ontplates.com believe in client satisfaction.” Jon—the guy typing these words—takes a lot of care to project professionalism through this small business.

Jon set out to design a memorable logo for Ontplates.com. He didn’t want to hire an art company; doing so would cost as much as a year’s business revenue. He went without a logo for a few months (above) while creating and rejecting a few self-made drafts (below):

Eventually, he settled on a blue rectangle. It made sense, since Ontplates.com would sell many blue rectangles over the years. Jon learned how to use WordPress, built a unified website, and unveiled the new brand in late 2013.

Operating costs have ballooned over the past couple of years, but Ontplates.com is still chugging along at its ideal pace. As businesses go, we’re really the smallest of the small. Jon is our only employee; he’s a CEO who also has to sweep the floor. He paints in the summer when the shop is warm enough, and he stops in the winter when it’s too cold. There’s no doubt that our seasonal nature puts the brakes on the volume of business we can conduct. But if we were any more busy, we’d have to hire more employees!

Here’s to twenty years of proud service to classic car owners of Ontario!

The Ontario government has announced that there will be no further licence plate renewal fees for a number of different vehicle types, effective March 13, 2022. It took a week’s worth of asking for us to confirm whether that policy extends to YOM-plated vehicles. No one at the Ministry of Transportation or ServiceOntario seemed to know. But we finally received an answer from the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services: Yes, it does.

This means that YOM-plated vehicles no longer have to pay $120 annually through ServiceOntario to have plates renewed. Vehicle owners will still have to renew their plates each year; it simply won’t cost anything. Furthermore, there will be no more validation stickers for YOM-plated vehicles, as well as most other vehicle types (which unfortunately renders our now-former YOMtab product obsolete).

The new policy also affects users of restricted-use Historic Vehicle plates, which were renewed annually for $18. Historic Vehicle plates were a popular choice because they cost $102 less to validate each year over YOM licence plates. With the fees for both being axed, we are hopeful that there may be an uptick in YOM registrations.

But before we rejoice, we should also be aware: While other jurisdictions (for example, Alberta and Yukon) are doing away with validation stickers, it is a puzzling move for Ontario to discontinue their plate renewal fee structure. With over 8 million vehicles affected at $120 per year, that works out to a billion dollars of annual revenue that the province will no longer be collecting. Provincial spending has risen overall through the pandemic, and the government still needs this revenue. It remains to be seen exactly how the current government will proceed if it is re-elected, or whether this decision may be reversed by another elected party. Another shoe may still drop from somewhere.