No More Paper Counterpart Licence

[2020]

Email from my employer.....

Please see below information provided by our travel agent with regards to the new process for hire cars with the recent abolishment of the paper counterpart licence. Hopefully this will be of use to you if you are booking hire cars to travel to work sites etc.

You may already be aware, as of today the UK Government has abolished the paper counterpart to the photo card driving licence and this will therefore have a knock on effect with the process of hiring a vehicle here in the UK.

UK customers will be able to access the DVLA's 'share my licence' website [www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence] to obtain a 'one time passcode' to present at the time of rental. This code will provide rental companies with temporary access to the relevant driver information, including endorsements.

The 'one time passcode' is valid for 72 hours, if you have additional rentals that fall outside of the 72 hours period, you will be required to apply for a further 'one time passcode' closer to the time of hire.

Please be aware that the website is currently crashed and is expected to be back up and running by the end of the day.

As always, the hire car companies expect all UK citizens to have a valid driver's licence in their possession, whether renting in the UK or Internationally.

Regards.

2020

[evadgib]

Related links:

Driving licence changes

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33052251

Feedback elsewhere on this website suggests Thai licences without IDP's are accepted when hiring cars in UK.

Edited June 9, 2015 by evadgib

[Eff1n2ret]

Related links:

Driving licence changes

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33052251

Feedback elsewhere on this website suggests Thai licences without IDP's are accepted when hiring cars in UK.

Indeed, it now looks as if it is less faffing about to use a foreign than a UK licence. Just this morning I booked with Enterprise Rent-a-Car for a trip later in the month. In their terms and conditions they say:- (sorry, the Caps are theirs, not mine)

ALL DRIVERS MUST PRODUCE ALL PARTS OF A VALID DRIVING LICENCE. NON-EU LICENCE HOLDERS ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE AN INTERNATIONAL DRIVING PERMIT IF THE LICENCE IS NOT IN ENGLISH. DOMESTIC RENTERS MUST PRODUCE A PHOTO ID – PASSPORT OR DRIVING LICENCE – AND TWO PROOFS OF ADDRESS SUCH AS A BANK OR CREDIT CARD STATEMENT, WHICH MUST BE LESS THAN THREE MONTHS OLD. INTERNATIONAL TRAVELLERS MUST PRODUCE A PASSPORT, PROOF OF RETURN TRAVEL AND RESIDENCY INFORMATION WHILE IN THE U.K.

My Thai licence is in English, so I don't envisage any problem. The booking was with a UK credit card which has my Thai address. I tried to pre-register the licence details, but failed because I couldn't find an answer to the question "Issuing Authority" that the proforma would accept. "Thailand" and "Ministry of Transport" weren't accepted, even though it had already registered "Thailand" as country of issue. I'm not bothered, the same company told me a few years back that they'd accept a Thai licence.

[theoldgit]

I've often used my Thai licence to rent in the UK, as recently as last month, never been an issue, I've used my Thai credit card, again no problem.

I'm going again next month, the rental company, Enterprise, have already made contact asking that a bring evidence of my flight back to Thailand and my passport, not expecting a problem but fingers crossed.