KILLEEN, Texas (KXXV) — As of Tuesday, July 1, 2025, paper license plates are no longer in the state of Texas. Instead, it's all metal from the very start. But how does this impact the auto industry? Killeen Auto Group shares the changes made.
- As of Tuesday, July 1, 2025, Texas is no longer issuing temporary paper license plates for new vehicles, replacing them with metal ones.
- This change is due to paper license plate fraud concerns, looking to combat this issue.
- Have you purchased a car and still have paper license plates? No worries, there is a 60-day grace period that’s put in place. After the 60 days have passed, failure to get metal plates could result in fines or penalties.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Back in March, KXXV spoke with Killeen Auto Group’s Managing Partner Joshua Smith on the change coming from paper license plates to metal ones.
“It makes it very complicated because now we have to have a specific place designated for these tags, we have to protect them under lock and key, it’s going to be more burden on the dealership extensively,” Joshua said.
Now, the time has come for the change to be permanent. KXXV spoke with Joshua to see if his feelings had changed.
“We are having to assign tags to people, hard tags to customers, so whether that's our rental cars, our loaner vehicles, someone we put somebody in a car on an extended test drive, anything like that, now, we're having to put a hard tag on it instead of the temporary paper plate. It's all done basically in the same system, but it's more complicated because now you've got inventory that you have to maintain on those hard tags. So, every plate is a piece of inventory to us, and the state's going to hold us accountable to that,” Joshua said.
KXXV spoke with Joshua Smith, Managing Partner of Killeen Auto Group, on the change from paper license plates to metal.
He tells us the change is a little complicated, but he understands why the state is doing it. The main reason is to combat the issue of paper license plate fraud, which has been linked to several crimes.
“Obviously with the paper tags they're easy to steal, and what it does, it makes us more accountable to giving a tag to somebody, and so, I'm sure that there's plenty of unscrupulous people using tags for things that they shouldn't be using them for, and there's probably dealerships out there that are aiding and abetting in that and so this is to prevent that from happening,” Joshua said.
