West Virginia Veteran License Plate

West Virginia Code 17A-3-14b is the ordinary military plate. The Division of Motor Vehicles may continue to issue special plates for any plate class that was authorized by enactments of 17A-3-14 before 2023, for active, retired, or honorably discharged military personnel, or for the next of kin of a member of any branch killed in combat. The cost is a $10 initial application fee for each special registration plate, and the statute is explicit that this is in addition to all other fees required by chapter 17A. It is a one-time application fee rather than a recurring surcharge, but the regular registration fee continues every year. The Department of Veterans Assistance describes it as "a one-time fee of $10 over and above the regular license fee." Before buying one, check whether you qualify for an honorary plate under 17A-3-14d instead. Those go to disabled veterans, Purple Heart recipients, Medal of Honor recipients, recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, or Air Force Cross, and Pearl Harbor survivors, and they are exempt from all registration fees rather than costing $10 plus the regular fee. Over a decade the difference is most of the registration cost of the vehicle, and it is not unusual for a veteran to hold the paid plate while qualifying for the free one. The next of kin route is easy to overlook. This section reaches the next of kin of a member of any branch killed in combat, not only the veteran themselves, and the Department of Veterans Assistance separately describes Gold Star family plates for immediate family of a member who died in the line of duty. A surviving spouse may continue to use a deceased spouse's military license plate until the surviving spouse dies, remarries, or does not renew the plate. As with the honorary plates, non-renewal ends it, so a spouse intending to keep the plate should not let the registration lapse. The reference to plate classes authorized before 2023 is a drafting artifact of the rewrite of 17A-3-14 in that year, which stripped the special plate provisions out of that section. It means the existing catalog of military plate designs was preserved rather than reissued. The Division of Motor Vehicles publishes the current designs and the application forms; apply at a regional office or through the DMV's military plates page.