The Kosovo Police for the northern region announced that starting November 1, owners of vehicles with foreign license plates will no longer be allowed to circulate in Kosovo for more than three months.
This decision is expected to primarily affect members of the Serbian community in Kosovo, who often use vehicles with Serbian license plates.
Following the Kosovo government’s decision to ban Serbian plates with Kosovo city abbreviations—such as KM (Mitrovica), PR (Pristina), and others—some citizens re-registered their vehicles in Serbian cities and continued to drive with temporary authorization.
However, according to Veton Elshani, Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police for the northern region, this practice will no longer be permitted, as it violates the law.
“Cars from Serbia will no longer be allowed to circulate just with temporary authorization,” Elshani said, emphasizing that this applies to vehicles that have been used with Kosovar documents.
In Serbia, vehicle authorizations are issued based on the holder’s ID card and vehicle registration, but in practice, Serbs in Kosovo who have not updated their residence in the Serbian system and drive vehicles registered in Serbian cities are recorded under Serbian IDs for Kosovo cities—documents that are not recognized by Kosovar authorities.
This measure is part of broader efforts by Kosovo authorities to regulate vehicle registration and ensure compliance with the law, particularly in the northern region where cross-border vehicle use has been widespread.