Deactivate or reactivate your motor industry licence

Deactivate your licence

To deactivate your licence:

You must cease trading immediately. When we get your written request and payment, we will:

  • deactivate your licence
  • issue you a receipt
  • send you an ‘inactive’ licence.

Please note: even though you can’t trade, your licence is not cancelled. For this reason, we do not refund any of your licence fee.

Renewing as inactive

You will need to renew your licence, even if it is inactive. If you don’t, you cannot reactivate it at a later date. We will send you a renewal notice 4–6 weeks before the expiry date. If you don’t receive the form, please contact us and ask for a new one.

If you miss the expiry date, you have 3 months to restore your inactive licence. After this, you will need to apply for a new licence.

Requirements

You will need to:

  • complete the renewal or restoration form
  • tell us whether you’re renewing for 1 or 3 years
  • give us the names and addresses of any business associates.

Make sure to check that all the details on the form are correct.

You may only submit your form:

If your licence has been inactive for 5 years or more, you must:

  • do all the current training
  • meet all other requirements.

Fees

Renew as inactive

Renewal fees apply.

Restore as inactive

To restore an expired licence, you will need to pay a late fee. Your restoration fee will include the late fee.

To reactivate your licence:

Renewal or restoration fees

You can reactivate your licence after you renew or restore it as inactive. However, you will need to pay the activation fee plus the difference between the active and inactive renewal fees for the remaining term of the licence. You will also be required to pay the criminal history check fee.

To calculate your fee, we will:

  • work out how much time your licence will be active (as a percentage of your licensed period)
  • subtract the amount you paid to renew or restore as inactive.

Processing time

The processing time is 4–6 weeks. This can take longer if your application is not complete. This might be because of:

  • missing information
  • unpaid fees.

We will contact you if you submitted an incomplete application. You will need to complete it before we can proceed. Otherwise, we may cancel your application.