The back of a UK driving licence

A guide for fleet managers and employers.

The front of a photocard is mostly identification. The back is the part that says what the holder may actually drive, and it is where the answer is when a question comes up about whether somebody can take a particular vehicle out.

It is a table with four columns.

The four columns

Column 9 — the category. A letter or letter-and-number code for a class of vehicle: B for a car, C for a large goods vehicle, D for a bus. A category with E after it — BE, C1E, CE — adds the right to tow a trailer of the relevant weight.

Columns 10 and 11 — valid from, valid to. Each category carries its own pair of dates. They are not all the same, and this is the most useful thing on the back of a licence.

Column 12 — information codes. Numbers recording a restriction or condition attached to that entitlement.

Understanding vehicle categories

AM, A1, A2, A — mopeds and motorcycles, increasing in power.
B — cars and small vans up to 3,500kg, with up to eight passenger seats.
BE — category B with a trailer.
C1 — medium goods vehicles between 3,500kg and 7,500kg. C1E adds a trailer.
C — large goods vehicles over 3,500kg. CE adds a trailer.
D1 — minibuses, 9 to 16 passenger seats. D1E adds a trailer.
D — buses and coaches with more than eight passenger seats. DE adds a trailer.

There are others, mostly agricultural and specialist. DVLA publishes the complete list on GOV.UK, and it is worth going to the source rather than to a copy of it, including this one.

Why the dates are the important part

The photocard and the entitlement expire separately, and people conflate them constantly.

The date on the front of the card, in field 4b, is when the photocard expires. That is a document renewal — a new photograph, essentially — falling due every ten years. It says nothing about whether the holder may drive.

The dates in columns 10 and 11 on the back are when each entitlement runs from and to. An ordinary category B entitlement typically runs until the holder is 70. The vocational categories — C, CE, D, DE and their variants — are renewed considerably more often as a driver ages, with medical requirements attached.

So a licence can be out of date while the driver remains perfectly entitled to drive, and a driver can lose an entitlement while holding a photocard valid for years yet. Checking the front of the card answers the less important of the two questions.

Common codes and their implications

Column 12 carries numeric information codes. These are the ones that come up most often and are worth knowing by sight:

01 — the driver must wear glasses or contact lenses.
78 — restricted to vehicles with automatic transmission.
101 — not for hire or reward. The holder may not use that entitlement to carry passengers or goods for payment.
122 — valid on successful completion of compulsory basic training.

Code 101 is the one that catches employers out. A driver can hold exactly the right category, with dates that have not passed, and still be restricted from using it for the work you are asking them to do. It is a common code on minibus entitlements in particular.

Other codes cover vehicle modifications for drivers with disabilities, weight and length restrictions, and entitlements exchanged from a licence issued elsewhere. There are enough of them, and they matter enough, that reading an unfamiliar one off DVLA’s published list rather than guessing at it is the right instinct.

Codes are not endorsements

Worth separating, because the two get muddled.

Information codes are the numbers in column 12. They describe a condition or restriction: glasses, automatic only, not for hire or reward. They are not a penalty and they carry no points.

Endorsement codes are things like SP30 or DR10. They record an offence, they carry penalty points, and they are not printed on the card at all — they live on the driving record held by the DVLA.

That second point is the whole reason a photograph of a licence is a weak check. A card shows categories, dates and restrictions as they were when the card was issued. It cannot show you points, and it does not change when its holder is convicted of something.

What this means in practice

If you are checking a licence by looking at it, the back is where to look, and you are checking three things: that the category needed for the vehicle is present, that the dates beside it have not passed, and that no code in column 12 rules out the use you have in mind.

Then you are left with the part a card cannot answer, which is what has happened since it was printed.

A DVLA licence check reads the driving record itself, which is where the current position lives — entitlements, endorsements, points, disqualifications and expiry dates, on the day you ask. It needs the driver’s consent, which is what the D906 is for.