Tennessee Disabled Veteran License Plate

Section 55-4-256 issues a disabled veteran memorial plate. The plate carries the words "Disabled Veteran," the prefix DV with a unique number, and a representation of the United States flag. The eligibility test runs on entitlement to veterans' compensation for a named condition rather than on a percentage, with one percentage route bolted on. A disabled veteran is a person who served in the military services of the United States and who is entitled to compensation for loss or permanent loss of use of one or both feet, loss or permanent loss of use of one or both hands, or permanent impairment of vision of both eyes to a prescribed degree, meaning central visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with corrective glasses, or central visual acuity of more than 20/200 where the peripheral field is contracted to such an extent that the widest diameter of the visual field subtends an angle no greater than twenty degrees. Alternatively, a veteran with any service-connected disability that VA has determined to be one hundred percent permanent total disability qualifies. A veteran who lost the use of a hand qualifies at whatever rating VA assigned that loss. The hundred percent route exists for veterans whose disability is not one of the named losses. The first plate is free. A second plate costs the regular registration fee plus half the specialty plate fee, and further plates cost the full production cost. There is no annual fee on the first plate. The plate is also a parking credential, and an earlier version of this entry said the opposite. Section 55-21-106 gives a certificate of identification to an honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected disability equivalent to those in section 1 of Public Law 187 of the 82nd Congress, which is the same loss-of-use and vision list the plate uses, and subsection (b) entitles the holder to "courtesy in the parking of the automobile which shall relieve the veteran ... from liability for any violations with respect to parking", subject only to fire lanes, rush-hour restrictions set by local authorities and the disabled-space rules. Public Chapter 73 of 2025, in force July 1, 2026, rewrote subsections (h) and (i): "certificate" now expressly "includes registration and license plates issued free to disabled veterans under the authority of § 55-4-256", so the DV plate is itself the certificate. The same act lets a veteran who qualifies for the plate take a free distinguishing placard instead of it, displayed for parking in place of the plate, or keep the plate and buy a placard as well for the ordinary passenger vehicle registration fee. That is wider than the ordinary disabled parking certificate, which turns on a medical finding about mobility rather than on service connection. One limit is worth knowing: a veteran who holds the plate only on the one hundred percent permanent and total route, with no named loss, is inside subsection (i)'s words but outside the Public Law 187 test in subsection (a), so expect a county clerk to read the two together. A veteran eligible for both the DV plate and a Purple Heart plate under 55-4-257 chooses between them rather than stacking them on one vehicle. Tennessee issues a broad set of military and memorial plates through the county clerk, with Medal of Honor, Purple Heart and Gold Star Family plates issued free with no annual fee, and the honorably discharged plate carrying an ordinary specialty plate fee.