New Brunswick·NewIf approved by the legislature, New Brunswick will join most other Canadian provinces and territories in eliminating licence plate renewal stickers. Drivers will still have to renew registrations as usualSam Farley · CBC News · Posted: Nov 05, 2025 4:04 PM EST | Last Updated: 26 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesNext year, New Brunswickers may no longer receive licence plate renewal stickers, but will still have to renewonline or in person. (Sam Farley/CBC)With a new licence plate change, New Brunswick will no longer be stuck in the past.If approved by the legislature, New Brunswick will join most other Canadian provinces and territories in eliminating licence plate renewal stickers. The stickers, which buy every year to renew their vehicle registration, would go by the wayside.This is hardly new in Canada. Out of the country’s 13 provinces and territories, only New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Nunavut are still using stickers.“We’re really catching up with the rest of Canada right now,” said Aaron Kennedy, minister responsible for Service New Brunswick, which oversees vehicle registrations. “It’s 2025. We live in a digital age and stickers seem a little antiquated.”Even without the stickers, New Brunswick drivers would still need to renew their registrations online or in person, and would have the option to print out a proof of registration document to keep in their vehicle when they renew.Aaron Kennedy, the minister for Service New Brunswick, says getting rid of the stickers is simply reflects an effort to keep up with the times. (Silas Brown/CBC)Renewal reminders for vehicle owners will be available by mail or text, a news release said.While Kennedy admitted that the ability to visually see that a vehicle is expired will be lost, he said police still have the ability to run licence plates to check they’re up to date.He brushed off the idea that people would be less likely to renew now.“I think New Brunswickers are generally law-abiding citizens, and I think they want to do the right thing and registering one’s vehicle is part of that,” Kennedy said.WATCH | New Brunswick ‘catching up’ with rest of Canada, minister says:N.B. government confident vehicle owners will adapt to digital stickers for registrationA bill introduced in the legislature would eliminate the need for stickers on licence plates next spring as the province switches to an electronic registration system.The move away from stickers will apply to licence plates for all types of vehicles in the province, including off-road and commercial vehicles.The licence plate stickers are not to be confused with motor vehicle inspection stickers that go on windshields, which are not affected at all by the announcement. When the Northwest Territories stopped issuing stickers in 2015, it sent drivers a blank, white sticker to cover the dated sticker, so police in other provinces or states wouldn’t think a plate was expired after the change happened.CBC News tried to ask Service New Brunswick whether it planned a similar move but has not received a response. This isn’t the first time New Brunswick has made changes to licence plates in recent years. In 2019, the Progressive Conservative government removed the requirement for front licence plates.If passed by the legislature, the requirement for stickers would be removed in the spring, the government said. New Brunswick licence plates have used stickers since 1963, when ‘Picture Province’ was still used as a promotional slogan. (Sam Farley/CBC)Stickers have been part of New Brunswick licence plates for over 60 years. The province began issuing licence plates in 1911 and, until the 1960s, motorists needed to get a brand new plate each year.Stickers were introduced in 1963, when the plate still bore Picture Province as a slogan, and have been used ever since. The change is likely to have little impact on police operations, according to the RCMP.Spokesperson Matthew LeBlanc-Smith said RCMP view it as more of an administrative change than an operational one.“It does not impact how RCMP officers conduct their duties, as our members have long been managing out-of-province vehicles without issue,” LeBlanc-Smith said in an email. “It’s very much business as usual.”He went on to say that all RCMP vehicles in the province are equipped with onboard computers to allow officers to verify registrations in real time. ABOUT THE AUTHORSam Farley is a Fredericton-based reporter at CBC New Brunswick. Originally from Boston, he is a journalism graduate of the University of King’s College in Halifax. He can be reached at sam.farley@cbc.ca
New Brunswick moves to eliminate renewal stickers on licence plates
