License plates are issued to every owner of a vehicle in Maryland by the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles. This license plate is placed at the back of a registered vehicle. Information found on the plate includes state name, registration year, and serial number. Maryland vehicle owners are also able to apply for specialty license plates upon request.

Vehicle owners in Maryland must fill out their license plate application in the twenty day period following the purchase of their vehicle. License plate requests can be made in-person at the DMV, online, or by mail. You can also request information about the registered owner of a vehicle with the plate number by similar methods.

Methods of License Plate Owner Lookup

The most convenient way to do a license plate search is using online information databases. These public databases are made available by private companies rather than the government. You can also make a request for license plate information directly through the state, but this method tends to take more time.

You can contact the DMV for information about a license plate using the following ways:

  • Call 301-729-4550 to make a request over the phone
  • Go to the Department of Motor Vehicles in person to request the information
  • Send a mail request

Mail requests should be sent to this address:

Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles
1300 300 East Joppa Road
Towson, MD 21286

Requesting information from the Department of Motor Vehicles isn’t the most efficient way, though. Phone calls tend to have long hold periods, the in-person lines are notoriously long, and online requests can take days to process. If you want to receive information about the vehicle in seconds, using an online public database is your best bet.

To use an online database, simply make an account with that database, pay any fees, and enter the license plate information using their search tools. This website allows you to do license plate checks in seconds, completely for free which may be the answer to your question, how do I find the owner of a car.

You can receive the following information through a license plate check:

  • Vehicle registration information
  • Vehicle VIN number
  • Information about the registered owner of the vehicle

If the information about a registered vehicle owner doesn’t come with adequate contact information, you can often do a second search using the online database to get the owner’s phone number, physical address, or email address. Sometimes the second search will come with additional fees if you use a database that requires payment.

Regardless of the method you use to look up the license plate, there are multiple quick and easy ways such as find the owner of a license plate by name.