Milei’s cuts have Argentines driving new cars with paper licence plates

Mariela Mailhe sells imported cars in one of Argentina’s flashiest neighbourhoods. They come with electronically adjustable leather seats and panoramic sun-roofs, but thanks in part to Javier Milei’s austerity campaign they roll off the lot with paper licence plates.

Since the libertarian president took office in December 2023, more than 655,000 cars have been registered with temporary credentials, according to local news outlet Chequeado. Instead of pressed aluminium plates bolted to the bumper, the paper licences are taped to the windshield or held in place with plastic covers.

“I’ve worked through record-breaking years of car registrations and nothing ever came close to this,” Mailhe, 48, said from her office at a Jeep, Hyundai, and Honda dealership in Puerto Madero, next to the financial district in downtown Buenos Aires. “We’ve been limited to just 50 temporary paper plates per month.”

Though the problem began under the previous administration, which allowed the use of paper licence plates due to supply chain issues, it worsened as Milei pushed to drastically reduce the size of the state. As part of this strategy, his administration is downsizing the national mint, known as Casa de Moneda, including cutting nearly 40 percent of its staff. In addition to outsourcing the printing of money, private companies have been tapped to take over licence-plate production.

Officials at Argentina’s Economy Ministry, Deregulation & State Transformation Ministry and Justice Ministry declined to comment, as did Casa de Moneda.

Under state ownership, the cost of producing each metal plate had spiralled to around US$19, according to people with direct knowledge of the operations. The mint also faced a raft of complaints over the poor quality of its plates in recent years.

One was from Ignacio Marcó, 25, an accountant who commutes from Buenos Aires every week to Junín, 175 miles west of the capital. The licence plate on his Audi A4, which he bought in 2023, began to deteriorate with each car wash. In December, he requested a replacement from the motor vehicle registry. “They charged me 10,000 pesos and gave me a paper licence plate that expired in a month,” he said. “After three months, I got tired of waiting and asked them to extend it.”

Temporary plates are also creating practical problems. Some Argentines have run into difficulty travelling abroad, as the paper tags aren’t valid for international use. The paper licence plates aren’t always recognised by automatic toll readers, causing delays and confusion at highway checkpoints. They’re also not readable by traffic enforcement cameras, which impedes the ability of municipal governments to issue fines and collect revenue.

And it’s not limited to licence plates. Car ownership certificates, traditionally issued in credit-card-sized plastic, have been replaced by sheets of paper with QR codes. Some companies have even had to get powers of attorney signed before a notary to allow employees to use their vehicles.

The government has also decided to reduce the cost of printing banknotes. It’s signing a contract with China Banknote Printing and Minting Corp to import one billion 20,000-peso notes, to replace smaller-denomination bills either printed by Casa de Moneda or imported from Europe or Brazil, according to La Nación.

Milei cut the mint’s headcount to 881 employees by the end of March, from 1,400 at the start of his term, according to the INDEC national statistics bureau. The libertarian is determined to reduce public spending and outsource state functions to the private sector wherever possible.

The government would like to sell Casa de Moneda and has interested buyers, according to a person familiar with the plans, but Congress excluded the mint from the list of companies Milei is authorised to privatize. While no more bills will be printed, the person said, plate pressing is starting back up as supply chain issues are resolved.

In October, Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni announced a 180-day government intervention of Casa de Moneda. He said its newly appointed administrator would focus on reviewing and renegotiating contracts signed by the agency.

“As part of the restructuring of Casa de Moneda, the mint will stop printing 2,000-peso bills – a senseless decision inherited from the previous administration, which refused to issue higher-denomination banknotes in line with the inflation they left us,” Adorni said.

On top of outsourcing banknotes, the government has awarded a contract to resume making metal licence plates that were traditionally produced domestically to a private company that currently sources aluminium from abroad.

Tonnjes Sudamericana SA, jointly owned by Argentina’s Boldt Impresores SA and Tonnjes International GmbH of Germany, will press more than 300,000 aluminium licence plates. The first batch began being distributed this month, but the backlog will take time to clear.

At the same time, demand for cars is growing again in the country – led this time by imports, especially from Brazil. The revival is being driven by the recovery of wages in dollar terms, the rapid growth of bank credit, trade liberalisation under Milei and his government’s decision to allow access to the foreign exchange market for vehicle imports.

Argentina’s automotive sector has seen its best start to the year since 2018. Some 54,001 new vehicles were registered in April, up nearly 64 percent from the same month in 2024, according to auto industry consultancy SIOMAA. The motorcycle market is also booming, with 51,984 new bikes registered last month – an increase of more than 47 percent. The jump in demand is only exacerbating woes in the country’s already shaky licence-plate production system.

For car dealers like Mailhe, who began working in the industry when she was 18, the transition has brought headaches, delays and a literal paper trail. For drivers, meanwhile, the current problems do come with a silver lining: a free pass for traffic violations, given the camera-detection issue.