What Is DVLA Licence Check and Vehicle Lookup and Why Does It Matter for Car Rental Businesses? 7 Facts You Need to Know
- May 4, 2022
- 7 min read
TL;DR: DVLA licence check and vehicle lookup are how UK rental operators verify a customer is legally allowed to drive, what their licence history is, and that their vehicle records are current. Done manually, the process is slow, error-prone and easily exploited by fraudsters. Done through an integrated software lookup, it takes seconds, removes the customer friction and protects the operator from fraudulent bookings, uninsured rentals and compliance failures.
A customer walks into a rental office on a Friday afternoon. The licence looks genuine. The address checks out on paper. The booking is paid for. Two weeks later the rental operator gets a call from the police. The vehicle was used in a road traffic incident. The driver named on the rental agreement does not exist. The licence was a copy of a real one, lifted from a stolen document. The booking went through because nobody verified the licence against the DVLA database in real time. Scenarios like this are not rare. UK insurers detected £1.16 billion in fraudulent insurance claims in 2024, a 2% rise on the previous year, according to the Association of British Insurers. Motor insurance accounted for the largest share, with 51,700 motor scams worth £576 million representing 53% of all detected fraudulent claims. The same year, insurers prevented an estimated 684,800 fraudulent insurance applications, up 7.4% on 2023. For rental businesses operating in this environment, manual licence checking is no longer a sustainable safeguard. The DVLA driver and vehicle databases are the single source of truth for identifying who can legally drive what vehicle, and whether a particular vehicle is taxed, insured, MOT-valid and roadworthy. Used properly, they protect rental operators from fraudulent bookings, uninsured rentals, compliance breaches and reputational damage. Used manually, they slow down customer onboarding, frustrate genuine renters, and miss the fraud cases that matter most. Below are the seven facts every rental operator needs to know about DVLA licence checks and vehicle lookups, why the manual process is failing under modern fraud pressures, and what an integrated digital lookup actually changes in day-to-day operations.
One of the most important parts of the customer verification process is accessing the DVLA’s driving licence history for all UK drivers. Since 2015, this service has been the gateway for rental companies to verify a customer’s driving history, and for customers to provide the required information on their suitability to drive a rental car, van or any other vehicle.
However, the current process for driving history lookup can be cumbersome for both the customer and the rental operator where the customers have to independently go through a set of processes on the DVLA website to generate a unique code to share with the rental operator who then uses the code to access their driving history on the DVLA website manually.
In addition, rental operators need to ensure DVLA maintains correct information on their vehicles in their database for compliance purposes, which can be a tedious daily manual task.
The advent of digital technologies and innovations enabled by app-based solutions has created an opportunity for Coastr to make these incredibly manual processes of DVLA driver code sharing and driver and vehicle information lookup quicker and more efficient for the rental operators and their customers.
At Coastr, we’ve developed our DVLA licence checking solution and embedded that into our vehicle rental management platform, creating a seamless solution for car rental customers to access their DVLA code, and for rental operators to check on their driving history. In addition, we have also enabled seamless vehicle registration and MOT history lookup of their fleet vehicles and made the data available within the Coastr platform for operational use.
#1 What is the DVLA?
The DVLA is the organisation of the UK government responsible for maintaining a database of drivers in Great Britain, and a database of all cars and light commercial vehicles for the entire United Kingdom.
As well as providing driving licence check codes and information on drivers’ histories, the DVLA is also responsible for issuing driving licences, organising the collection of vehicle excise duty, and the licensing and selling of personalised registrations.
#2 What is the DVLA Driving Licence check code, and why do car rental customers need one?
The DVLA driving licence check code is the digital access code for a customer’s online driving record, which is held on the DVLA database.
This licence check code gives car rental companies access to a driver’s licence information, such as the type of vehicles they are allowed to drive, licence status, licence categories, endorsements, and any penalty points they may have.
Vehicle rental companies require this code to check the validity of a renter's driving licence and make rental decisions based on their driving history.
#3 How long is the licence code check valid for?
The DVLA code check is valid for 21 days, and can only be used once per rental.
#4 What do I need to get a DVLA check code?
To get your check code, you will need the following:
Your driving licence number
Your national insurance number
Your postcode
#5 What is the DVLA Vehicle Enquiry?
The DVLA also provides a vehicle registration enquiry service, which is also accessible online.
On this page, you can find all the information about the tax, Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) and MOT status of any registered vehicle, alongside information on emissions, engine size and fuel type.
#6 How is Coastr utilising their vehicle rental platform to speed up, and safety store, access to DVLA information for car rental customers?
DVLA Driver and Vehicle Lookup: Coastr has developed a DVLA Driver and Vehicle lookup service within their vehicle rental management system, meaning customers and operators can access requisite DVLA driver and car information at pace, thereby enhancing fleet operations, and improving customer relationships and service.
Instant Access: Coastr is solving the end-customer's problem of having to source a licence check code independently for the rental operator every time they want to rent a car. By integrating this service into the Coastr platform, driver licensing information and driving history can be queried from the DVLA database instantly. In addition, our Vehicle lookup service is embedded into the Coastr fleet management processes to allow rental operators to fetch and store up to date vehicle history from the DVLA database and remain compliant using a simple vehicle registration search when loading their vehicle into the Coastr platform.
Process Improvements: This means customers don’t have to repeat the whole process over and over again when making a new booking. Coastr platform safely stores their information on the system (taking appropriate consent) for the rental operator to re-run the checks for future bookings. Similarly, the Vehicle lookup service is only required to be performed once when loading the vehicle into the Coastr system, following which the system periodically queries the DVLA database to keep the data up to date.
Rental companies benefit: In short, Coastr have created a perfect solution for the rental operator to remain compliant while retaining a great customer experience.
#7 What does the Coastr DVLA Lookup feature give you access to?
Coastr offers the following seamless DVLA driver licence check and Vehicle lookup solutions from within our platform -
Verify Driver's licence information
View Driver endorsements
View Driver offences and points
Set business rules to auto-reject bookings
Onboard vehicle information through a simple registration search
Up-to-date MOT history
GDPR compliant
Increased security and customer KYC
Gone are the days when you had to visit multiple sites to generate the DVLA code or search for information on a vehicle’s status. Speed up your rental business with our easy to use DVLA lookup services, and obtain every driver and vehicle information within seconds with Coastr.
Book a demo and see the feature LIVE
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