My Cars App › Driving licence

When does your driving licence expire?

The photocard runs out every ten years. Almost nobody knows their own date, and it is the easiest one of all to miss.

Where the date is on your licence

Look at the front of the photocard. The date in field 4b is when the card itself expires. That is the one that matters here.

Field 4b is not the same as field 11, which is when your entitlement to drive each category began, and it is not the same as the expiry of any medical restriction. The photocard is a document with its own ten-year life, quite separate from your right to drive.

Does DVLA remind you?

Yes — and this is worth being straight about, because plenty of sites imply otherwise. GOV.UK states that you will receive a reminder before your current licence ends.

The catch is the same as the tax reminder: it comes in the post, to whatever address DVLA holds for you. Move house and forget to tell them, and the reminder goes to someone else's doormat. Renewal is not automatic either — you have to act on it.

Why ten years is a long time

Ten years is long enough to move house twice, change your name, and forget the card has an expiry date at all. Most people's first hint is being asked for it — hiring a car, starting a job, or being stopped — and discovering it ran out some time ago.

Driving on an expired photocard is an offence and can be fined. We are not going to quote you a figure, because the amounts repeated around the web are not stated on GOV.UK's own renewal page and we would rather say nothing than repeat a number we cannot source. Check GOV.UK for the current position.

Put the date somewhere that will tell you

My Cars App has a driving licence card on the Home screen alongside your vehicles. Take the date from field 4b, type it once, and you get the same reminders as everything else — 30 days, 14 days, 7 days, the day before and on the day.

It is one number, typed once, for a document you will otherwise not think about again for a decade. Nothing about your licence leaves your phone.

Getting a reminder before it expires

DVLA does write to you before a photocard ends, so this is not a case of nobody telling you. The catch is how it reaches you: by post, to whichever address DVLA holds. If you have moved and not told them — which is itself an offence — the letter goes to the last address on file and you hear nothing.

A reminder on your own phone does not depend on your address being right. Put the date from field 4b in once and the app counts down to it, with warnings 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before, and on the day. Renewal itself is still done on GOV.UK — the app does not renew anything for you, it just makes sure you are not surprised.

The same countdown covers MOT, road tax and insurance renewal.