Nationality prefix
Also: nationality mark, registration prefix, country prefix
Opening letters or digits of a registration that show the country in which an aircraft is registered, such as G for the United Kingdom or N for the United States.
What it is
Nationality marks are drawn from the radio call sign series that the International Telecommunication Union allocates to each country, and ICAO applies them to aircraft through Annex 7. Some prefixes are a single letter, such as N (United States), F (France), G (United Kingdom) or D (Germany); others use two letters, or a digit and a letter, such as EC (Spain), VH (Australia), JA (Japan), HK (Colombia) or 4X (Israel).
A country may hold several prefixes: Brazil uses PP, PR, PS, PT and PU, and Mexico XA, XB and XC. Some territories with registers of their own, such as Bermuda (VP-B and VQ-B), have been widely used by airlines and lessors from elsewhere. Because an aircraft can only be registered in one state at a time, the prefix gives the aircraft's nationality, which is not always that of the airline flying it.
On Vuelopedia
An aircraft record gives its country of registration alongside the current and previous registrations.
Related terms
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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Nationality prefix. Retrieved October 19, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix
MLA
“Nationality prefix.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix. Accessed 19 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “Nationality prefix.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) Nationality prefix. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix (Accessed: 19 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_nationality_prefix,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{Nationality prefix}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-09},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix}},
urldate = {2026-10-19},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-19}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/nationality-prefix |title=Nationality prefix |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-19 |language=en}}