My licence renewal costs about $50 IIRC (which I probably am not), but registration costs $575ish per year here in Victoria, Australia. I have standard registration plates (standard issue). If I want to personalise my plate, it will cost between 300-600 dollars, the less letters on the plate the more expensive it is.

We can also get euro plates (which I really really want), but to get one that is the next number in the series is $399, while if you want your own combination of 2 letters and 3 numbers you will have to pony up $699 for the privilege. I refuse to get the plates that I want simply because the government has added artificial value to two pieces of metal that are painted in a specific style. Note that this is just to get the plate itself (2 slithers of metal you bolt onto your car), you still need to pay $575 every year (in advance) to drive your car around.

Insurance for my 95 525i is at the $1100 mark, this is because my car has a blue and white badge which in Australia it seems to mean that my car has come from a magical fairy land far far away that requires gold-plated parts and German engineers charging a grand an hour to fix. This despite the fact that if my car gets written off, I will only get $14000 because it is the 'market value' of the car. A year ago the 'market value' was $17500.

When I first bought my car ($15500, yes I know expensive for Aussie market), I was paying $1000 to AAMI (insurance company here in Australia) and the car was valued at $18,500. In one year, AAMI asked $1400 and dropped the value of my car to $14000. So I went to RACV who are better insurance companies anyway and give me ever-so-slightly more value than AAMI.

All part of paying the down-under BMW tax I'm afraid. This is the only thing that shits me off for owning a BMW, and it's not even the car's or company's fault.