Driver licence checking software

A DVLA licence check for every driver on your fleet, once a year, included in Orbis Essentials at £6.95 per vehicle per month. The check arrives inside the driver's duty-of-care record rather than as a separate invoice to file: consent handled, re-checks scheduled, audit trail built as it happens.

What is included at the entry tier

One DVLA licence check per driver per year is part of Orbis Essentials. Not an add-on, not a module, not a line held back for a sales conversation. If you have forty drivers, that is forty checks a year inside the subscription you are already paying.

What each check reads from the DVLA record: the licence number and its status, the categories the driver is entitled to drive, endorsements and the points attached to each, disqualifications past and present, medical conditions notified to the DVLA, and the issue and expiry dates. That is the live record, not a photocopy of a plastic card that was accurate on the day it was taken.

Checks beyond the annual one are billed at an introductory £2.95 per check. Risk-graded schedules, which check higher-risk drivers more often without anyone remembering to, come with Intelligence.

What a licence check actually costs

Licence checking is sold at two very different prices in the UK, and the gap between them is not margin. It is scope.

At one end is the commodity check: an API call against the DVLA record, returned to you, invoiced. Providers in this part of the market publish per-check prices in the low single pounds. If what you need is a bare check and you already have a process around it, that market is cheap and it works.

At the other end is the managed service: consent captured and stored lawfully, re-checks scheduled against a risk cadence, results escalated to someone who acts on them, the audit trail maintained, and a human available when a record comes back wrong. Rates of £5 to £10 per check are billed within our own group in this market today.

Both are honest prices for different products. The reason to say so plainly is that a buyer comparing a managed service against a commodity check on headline price alone is not comparing the same thing, and will find that out later rather than sooner.

Where Orbis sits

The check itself is a commodity. Every provider that does meaningful licence checking, including us, authenticates into the DVLA's ADD (Access to Driver Data) service with the driver's prior consent on file. Employers cannot read the DVLA record directly and nobody in this market has a private line to it. Any provider claiming the check itself is their differentiator is selling you plumbing.

What differs is what surrounds the check. In Orbis the licence check is not a product you buy next to your fleet system; it is a field on the driver record inside it. The consent request goes out from the same platform that holds the driver's allocation, their vehicle, their MOT status and their grey fleet documents. When a check returns new points, the driver's record changes, the escalation fires, and the evidence is dated and kept. There is no export, no re-keying, no second invoice, and no reconciling a spreadsheet from a bureau against a spreadsheet from your fleet system.

That is the argument for the included annual check, and it is a consolidation argument rather than a price one. If you are running licence checks through a separate provider today, the question is not whether their per-check price beats ours. It is what the separate provider costs you in handling once the check comes back.

How often you should be checking

There is no single statutory frequency. There is a settled UK expectation, built from HSE guidance, insurer requirements and court precedent, that checking is risk-based: clean licences every six months, three to six points every three months, six or more points monthly, and new hires at the point of hire and again at thirty days.

Set against that benchmark, an annual check is a floor rather than a target, and we would rather say so than sell the included check as more than it is. The annual check included in Essentials establishes the record and catches the driver whose licence was revoked eleven months ago. A risk-graded schedule is what keeps pace with the drivers who are actually accumulating points, which is why it sits on Intelligence rather than at entry.

The full picture of the legal position, the penalties and the evidence standard is in our guide to driver licence checks for UK fleet operators.

Grey fleet drivers

Employees driving their own cars on business are in scope for the same duty of care as anyone in a company vehicle, and they are where licence checking most often quietly fails. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 draws no distinction based on who owns the car.

Grey fleet drivers sit on the same driver records as everyone else in Orbis, with the same DVLA check, alongside the business-use insurance schedule and MOT status that a grey fleet record also has to carry. See grey fleet duty of care for what the obligation covers in full.

Frequently asked questions

Is driver licence checking included in Orbis Essentials?

Yes. One DVLA licence check per driver per year is included in Essentials at £6.95 per vehicle per month, for every driver on the fleet, with no separate licence-checking invoice. Additional checks beyond the annual one are charged at an introductory £2.95 per check, and risk-graded schedules that check higher-risk drivers more often are part of Intelligence.

How much does a driver licence check cost in the UK?

It depends what you are buying. A bare check from a check-only provider is priced in the low single pounds per check. A managed service, which handles consent, scheduling, escalation and the audit trail around the check, is billed at £5 to £10 per check, rates billed within our own group in this market today. The two are different products at honest prices, and comparing them on headline per-check cost alone is misleading in both directions.

How do employers check a driver's licence with the DVLA?

Employers cannot access the DVLA record directly. They go through a service that authenticates into the DVLA's ADD (Access to Driver Data) infrastructure with the driver's prior consent on file. That is standard across every credible provider in the market, including Orbis. What varies between providers is not the access itself but what happens to the result once it arrives.

How often should fleet operators check driver licences?

The established UK standard is risk-based rather than fixed: clean licences every six months, drivers with three to six points every three months, drivers with six or more points monthly, and new hires checked at the point of hire and again after thirty days. An annual check is below that benchmark, which is why the annual check included in Essentials is a starting position and risk-graded scheduling sits on the tier above.

Do grey fleet drivers need licence checks?

Yes. Anyone driving their own vehicle on business is covered by the same employer duty of care as a company car driver, and the licence check is the most basic part of evidencing it. In Orbis grey fleet drivers carry the same driver record and the same DVLA check as everyone else, alongside their business-use insurance and MOT evidence.