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We live in a world with an international aviation industry. Our world's airports are filled with aircraft and airlines from around the globe. Did you ever stand on an airport and wonder from which counties all the planes came? If a particular aircraft belongs to an airline which is a national carrier you have a way to know this from the airline's name. But what if it belongs to a private airline or is owned privately? Well aircraft's registration numbers make things easier. These "aircraft registration numbers" is painted on the back of aircraft near the tail in the same area where you will usually found an aircraft's manufacturer's name and its model if it is a large commercial jet and therefore it is sometimes refer to in the aviation industry as a tail number. You might say that you have seen these tail numbers on aircraft. The first few letters or numbers of a tail number are a prefix or code of the country in which it is registered. Tail numbers form part of an interesting international aviation registration system.
Aircraft registration numbers which contain country prefixes are usually painted very large on aircraft and sometimes you will find the country in which it is registered flag in-frond of it, but it isn't always the case. I've tried my best to list all the countries' prefixes used for aircraft registration. Because of the fact that all such indexes are listed by the country's name in alphabetical order, I have listed these country prefixes in aircraft registration as followed listed with the country's prefixes in alphabetical order, with numerical numbers before alphabetical letters.
Aircraft registration codes or tail numbers which begin with numerical numbers:
3B - Mauritius
3D - Swaziland
4K - Azerbaijan
4R - Sri Lanka
4X - Israel
5A - Libya
5B - Cyprus
5H - Tanzania
5N - Nigeria
5R - Madagascar
5T - Mauritania
5U - Niger
5X - Uganda
5Y - Kenya
6V - Senegal
6y - Jamaica
7O - Yemen
7Q - Malawi
7T - Algeria
8P - Barbados
8Q - Maldives
8R - Guyana
9A - Croatia
9G - Ghana
9H - Malta
9J - Zambia
9K - Kuwait
9L - Sierra Leone
9M - Malaysia
9N - Nepal
9Q - DRC
9V - Singapore
9Y - Trinidad & Tobago
Tail numbers or aircraft registration codes which starts with alphabetical letters:
A2 - Botswana
A40 - Oman
A5 - Bhutan
A6 - UAE
A7 - Qatar
AP - Pakistan
B - China/Taiwan
C - Canada
C2 - Nauru
C5 - Gambia
C6 - Bahamas
CC - Chile
CN - Morocco
CP - Bolivia
CR-M - Macao
CS - Portugal
CU - Cuba
CX - Uruguay
D - Germany
D2 - Angola
D4 - Cape Verde
D6 - Comoros
DM - ex East Germany
DQ - Fiji
EC - Spain
EI - Ireland
EL - Liberia
EP - Iran
ES - Estonia
ET - Ethiopia
EZ - Turkmenistan
F - France
F-O - French West Indies
G - United Kingdom
H4 - Solomon Islands
HA - Hungary
HB - Switzerland
HC - Ecuador
HI - Dominican Republic
HK - Colombia
HL - South Korea
HP - Panama
HR - Honduras
HS - Thailand
HZ - Saudi Arabia
I - Italy
J2 - Djibouti
JA - Japan
JY - Jordan
LN - Norway
LV - Argentina
LX - Luxembourg
LY - Lithuania
LZ - Bulgaria
N - USA
OB - Peru
OD - Lebanon
OE - Austria
OH - Finland
OK - Czech Republic
OM - Slovakia
OO - Belgium
OY - Denmark
P2 - Papua New Guinea
P4 - Aruba
PH - Netherlands
PJ - Netherlands Antilles
PK - Indonesia
PP - Brazil
PZ - Suriname
RA - CIS Includes Russia and some other countries which formed part of the USSR
RP - Philippines
S2 - Bangladesh
S5 - Slovenia
S7 - Seychelles
S9 - Sao Tome
SE - Sweden
SP - Poland
ST - Sudan
SU - Egypt
SX - Greece
TC - Turkey
TF - Iceland
TG - Guatemala
TI - Costa Rica
TJ - Cameroon
TN - Congo
TR - Gabon
TS - Tunisia
TU - Ivory Coast
UK - Uzbekistan
UR - Ukraine
V2 - Antigua
V5 - Namibia
V7 - Marshall Islands
V8 - Brunei
VH - Australia
VN - Vietnam
VP-F - Falklands
VR-B - Bermuda
VR-C - Cayman Islands
VR-H - Hong Kong
VT - India
XA - Mexico
YA - Afghanistan
YI - Iraq
YJ - Vanuatu
YK - Syria
YL - Latvia
YR - Romania
YS - El Salvador
YU - Serbia
YV - Venezuela
Z - Zimbabwe
Z3 - Macedonia
ZA - Albania
ZK - New Zealand
ZP - Paraguay
ZS - South Africa
Aircraft registration by country:
You might say that you have some money in your piggy-bank and that you want to buy an aircraft. You live in county-X and want to know with which prefix your aircraft's registration number is going to start with? So here is this index the other way around, with the country prefixes in these registration numbers, listed with the country in alphabetical order:
Afghanistan - YA
Albania - ZA
Algeria - 7T
Angola - D2
Antigua - V2
Argentina - LV
Aruba - P4
Australia - VH
Austria - OE
Azerbaijan - 4K
Bahamas - C6
Bangladesh 2S
Barbados - 8P
Belgium - OO
Bermuda - VR-B
Bhutan - A5
Bolivia - CP
Botswana - A2
Brazil - PP
Brunei - V8
Bulgaria - LZ
Cameroon - TJ
Canada - C
Cape Verde - D4
Cayman Islands - VR-C
Chile - CC
China/Taiwan - B
CIS - RA
Colombia - HK
Comoros - D6
Congo - TN
Costa Rica - TI
Croatia - 9A
Cuba - CU
Cyprus - 5B
Czech Republic - OK
Denmark - OY
Djibouti - J2
Dominican Republic - HI
DRC - 9Q
Ecuador - HC
Egypt - SU
El Salvador - YS
Estonia - ES
Ethiopia - ET
ex East Germany - DM
Falklands - VP-F
Fiji - DQ
Finland - OH
France - F
French West Indies - F-O
Gabon - TR
Gambia - C5
Germany - D
Ghana - 9G
Greece - SX
Guatemala - TG
Guyana - 8R
Honduras - HR
Hong Kong - VR-H
Hungary - HA
Iceland - TF
India - VT
Indonesia - PK
Iran - EP
Iraq - YI
Ireland - EI
Israel - 4X
Italy - I
Ivory Coast - TU
Jamaica - 6Y
Japan - JA
Jordan - JY
Kenya - 5Y
Kuwait - 9K
Latvia - YL
Lebanon - OD
Liberia - EL
Libya - 5A
Lithuania - LY
Luxembourg - LX
Macao - CR-M
Macedonia - Z3
Madagascar - 5R
Malawi - 7Q
Malaysia - 9M
Maldives - 8Q
Malta - 9H
Marshall Islands - V7
Mauritania - 5T
Mauritius - 3B
Mexico - XA
Morocco - CN
Namibia - V5
Nauru - C2
Nepal - 9N
Netherlands - PH
Netherlands Antilles - PJ
New Zealand - ZK
Niger - 5U
Nigeria - 5N
Norway - LN
Oman - A4
Pakistan - AP
Panama - HP
Papua New Guinea - P2
Paraguay - ZP
Peru - OB
Philippines - RP
Poland - SP
Portugal - CS
Qatar - A7
Romania - YR
Russia - see CIS
Sao Tome - S9
Saudi Arabia - HZ
Senegal - 6V
Serbia - YU
Seychelles - S7
Sierra Leone - 9L
Singapore - 9V
Slovakia - OM
Slovenia - S5
Solomon Islands - H4
South Africa - ZS
South Korea - HL
Spain - EC
Sri Lanka - 4R
Sudan - ST
Suriname - PZ
Swaziland - 3D
Sweden - SE
Switzerland - HB
Syria - YK
Taiwan - B
Tanzania - 5H
Thailand - HS
Trinidad and Tobago - 9Y
Tunisia - TS
Turkey - TC
Turkmenistan - EZ
UAE - A6
Uganda - 5X
Ukraine - UR
United Kingdom - G
Uruguay - CX
USA - N
Uzbekistan - UK
Vanuatu - YJ
Venezuela - YV
Vietnam - VN
Yemen - 7O
Zambia - 9J
Zimbabwe - Z
So there you have it! I bet you will now look differently to aircraft and their registration or aviation tail numbers which contain a country prefix in their registration. There is only one thing that I am not sure about in terms of these country prefixes and that is that the world had change a lot politically around 1991 with the downfall of communism. New countries were born while others were no more. Did aircraft which were build before this time and are still in service in the areas of the world that had gone though these changes held on to their original aircraft registration numbers or did they get new ones? I see for instance that Russia don't has its own country prefix but shares one with the whole CIS which consist out of most of the area of the formal USSR. Was the "RA" country prefix used in the past by the USSR's aircraft registration registry? At the other hand you will also see that the aircraft registration, country prefix "DM" was used by East Germany, are there still aircraft in service which registration begin with this prefix?
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