License plate decals may be delayed for some customers

September 09, 2022

Due to a shortage of the type of paper used for vehicle registrations, South Carolinians who have paid their property taxes to the county in which they reside may notice that it takes longer to receive their vehicle registration cards and decals for their license plates in the mail.

“We’ve been in constant communication with our contracted vendor, but with an extremely limited amount of companies that offer this product, we’ve been forced to slow production of registration cards until we can get the next shipment delivered,” Executive Director Kevin Shwedo said.

Registrations and the accompanying decals are produced using two different types of stock — one that is formatted to enter the mail stream and one that is meant to be handed to a customer over the counter. The type of stock used for mailing was exhausted by the SCDMV's printing vendor on September 2, 2022. If a customer paid their property taxes on September 1, or later, the mailing of their registration will be delayed.

“The vendor has told us to expect the shipment for the order we placed several months ago at the end of September, and we expect that the backlog will be caught up in no more than three weeks,” Shwedo said.

The SCDMV advises customers who have paid their property taxes (but who are awaiting their registration) to keep their paid property tax receipts in their cars until their registrations arrive in the mail. Law Enforcement Officers are able to see whether or not a customer’s registration is current via a query to SCDMV’s record database, even if the registration has not been printed yet.

Customers whose registrations have been delayed do not need to request a duplicate registration. As soon as the registration is in stock, it will be printed and mailed out.

“We greatly appreciate everyone’s patience as we quickly close the gap caused by this supply-chain issue,” Shwedo said.

The SCDMV alerted law enforcement via a Law Enforcement Bulletin from the agency on September 9, 2022.