The Texas Department Of Motor Vehicles Believes It Has Solved A Growing Problem With Its Temporary Tags.

The Texas DMV has been dealing with a massive problem involving fraud with the widespread usage of phony tags being used by criminals who gained access to the state's system by registering as dealers and then selling the tags online. The temp tags have also been used to disguise vehicle identification by criminals committing other crimes.

It's been reported that selling fake paper tags is a $200 Million A Year Criminal Industry.

Since then the Texas DMV and the State Legislature passed House Bill 3927 which allowed the department to place limits on the number of temporary tags licensed Texas dealers can create, consistent with the actual sales volume of their business and other business-specific factors, and provided TxDMV authority to immediately deny access to the temporary tag system when fraudulent activity is identified.

To Further Discourage Fraud, The TxDMV Redesigned The Temp Tag With More Security Features.

The redesigned Texas temporary tags are more complex and secure than the existing design and include numerous additional data points and security features to facilitate law enforcement identification of counterfeit tags according to the TxDMV website.

A sample of the tag components include:

• Printed over a Texas flag watermark
• Highlights the expiration date of the tag
• Identifies the specific type of tag issued
• Identifies the vehicle year and make
• Identifies the issuing dealer
• Font selection and size maximizes readability of primary components
• Includes both active and passive security features identifiable by law enforcement
• Includes numerous pieces of embedded data and text, linked to law enforcement databases, that can be created only by internal TxDMV computer systems

You will be seeing these on the roads during the holidays.

The TxDMV says that the newly redesigned tags will be issued to dealers beginning December 9, 2022 so if you find yourself stuck with the old design after that date, you may want to hurry back to your dealer and ask for the new design.