The assigning of Vehicle Keeper Marking (VKM)
Prior to the first vehicle registration in the National Vehicle Register, the keeper is obliged to obtain a unique letter-code identifier, referred to as Vehicle Keeper Marking (VKM). This is a code which consists of 2 to 5 letters. It is not permitted to use digits or other signs, such as hyphens, semicolons or slashes. The VKM should represent the full or abbreviated name of the vehicle keeper, which should be easy to decipher.
Vehicle Keeper Marking must be unique in the whole of the European Union and in all Member States of the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF). In order to avoid the appearance of repetitive codes in various countries, the VKM assignment process for the EU and OTIF Member States is coordinated by the European Railway Agency (ERA). In order to verify whether the code proposed by an entity applying for the VKM has not been used before, reference can be made to the VKM register, published regularly on the European Railway Agency's website. A corresponding list of the VKM used by Polish entities is available on the UTK website.
Additional information regarding vehicle registration is provided in the ERA and OTIF's document entitled "Vehicle Keeper Marking Registration Principles" (ref. No ERA: IU-VKM-061128).
Required documents
Under § 7 of the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure and Construction of 23 June 2016 on the National Vehicle Register (Journal of Laws of 2016, item 988), applications for assigning VKM shall be submitted to the President of the Office of Rail Transport. To this end, the following documents need to be supplied:
- Applications using the template given.
- The document confirming the power of attorney, signed in accordance with the principles applicable to entity representation (in the case of appointing an attorney) or commercial representation, i.e. an extract or printout from the National Court Register system, operated by the Ministry of Justice.
- The confirmation of payment of the stamp duty in respect of submitting the document confirming the power of attorney or commercial representation.