If your employees drive for work — in company vehicles or their own — you have a legal duty of care to make sure they're licensed to do so. Manual driving licence checks don't scale, and a lapsed or revoked licence you didn't catch is a liability sitting on your books. This guide covers how often to check, what "grey fleet" means for you, and how to automate driving licence checks with an API.
Why licence checking is a duty-of-care issue
Employers are responsible for ensuring anyone who drives on company business holds a valid licence for the vehicle they're using. If a driver accumulates penalty points, is disqualified, or lets a photocard expire and you keep letting them drive, the organisation carries the risk — financial, legal and reputational. Licence checking is the control that closes that gap.
How often should you check driving licences?
There's no single statutory interval, so best practice is risk-based:
- At recruitment / onboarding, before anyone drives on your behalf.
- At least annually for all drivers as a baseline.
- More frequently for higher-risk drivers — typically every 1 to 3 months for anyone with existing endorsements or a history of offences.
The principle is simple: the more points or history a driver has, the more often you re-check. Encoding that as tiers (e.g. clean licence → annual; 1–6 points → quarterly; 7+ → monthly) turns a vague obligation into an auditable schedule.
Don't forget the grey fleet
"Grey fleet" means employees driving their own vehicles for work — the pool-car alternative that's easy to overlook. The duty of care is the same. For grey fleet you should be checking not just the licence but that the vehicle itself is taxed, MOT'd and insured for business use. VehicleMatic lets you check the driver (licence) and the vehicle (MOT and tax status via Vehicle Details and MOT History) from the same integration.
How DVLA licence checks work — and the share code
A modern licence check uses the DVLA's driver data. To check an individual's full record (categories they can drive, endorsements, disqualifications), you need their consent, typically via a DVLA check code (share code):
- The driver generates a one-time code at GOV.UK using their licence number, National Insurance number and postcode.
- The code is time-limited and single-use.
- You pass the code plus the last part of the licence number to retrieve the record.
Collecting and keying share codes by hand for a whole fleet is exactly the manual work that doesn't scale.
Automating it with the API
VehicleMatic's Driving Licence Checking product verifies a UK licence by licence number and DVLA share code and returns, in seconds:
- Licence status and validity
- Photocard expiry
- Entitlement categories (what they're allowed to drive)
- Penalty-point endorsements
POST /products/driving-licence-checking-service/api/live/check
X-API-KEY: your_key_here
{ "licenceNumber": "MORGA657054SM9IJ", "shareCode": "Ab12 34 Cd" }
Wire that into your HR or fleet system and you can schedule re-checks by risk tier, store dated results for audit, and get alerted the moment a driver's status changes — instead of discovering a problem after an incident. It fits the broader fleet & leasing solution, where the same registrations power MOT, tax and valuation monitoring across your asset register.
Cost and billing
Licence checks are billed per successful check on credits — from around £1.10 per check at the best volume tier — with no contract and no minimum. Model your fleet's volume on the pricing page or the cost calculator.
Frequently asked questions
How often must I check employee licences? There's no fixed legal interval; industry best practice is at least annually, and every 1–3 months for higher-risk drivers.
Do I need the driver's consent? Yes — a full DVLA record check uses a driver-generated share code, which is time-limited and single-use.
Does this cover grey fleet drivers? Yes. Check the licence via the API, and the driver's own vehicle's MOT/tax status via the vehicle products.
Start with the Driving Licence Checking product or explore the fleet solution.