The registration mark takes the form of three groups of digits separated by a space (early plates were separated with a hyphen[2]). Since the late-1990s,[3] the first group of numbers is composed of 5 digits (including leading zeroes – earlier plates have up to three digits with no leading zeroes), which make up the vehicle's actual registration/serial number. The next group is formed of 3 digits, and is used to identify the vehicle class and year of manufacture (e.g. 198 denotes a private vehicle manufactured in 1998).