Driver licence checking software
If a driver has an incident, someone will ask what you checked and when. Orbis keeps that record, starting with 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.
Your first check is free. See the live DVLA result immediately. Activate your free Orbis account to receive the full PDF and retain the check in your compliance record. Or call 0345 369 7105.
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. The annual check starts once you subscribe; during the 30-day trial only your organisation's first check is free.
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.
The first check for a new organisation is free. After that, checks beyond the annual one are £4.99 each, pay on use. 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.
What a completed check looks like
This is the output of a single DVLA check, as it arrives in the driver's record. Sample data, not a real driver.
- Driver
- A. Sample
- Licence status
- Full, valid
- Entitlement
- B, BE, AM, q
- Valid to
- 14 Mar 2031
- Endorsements
- SP30, 3 points, 02 Feb 2025
- Total points
- 3
- Disqualified
- No
- Next check due
- 26 Aug 2027 (annual, 3 points or fewer)
A driver at four to six points moves to a six-monthly schedule automatically, and at seven or more to quarterly. The schedule changes when the points change, not when someone remembers.
To see a check run inside Orbis, from the driver list to an emailed result, watch the 48-second walkthrough.
How often you should be checking
Last verified: 13 August 2026. Check frequencies and tier contents are checked against the live scheduler and the published pricing page.
There is no single statutory frequency. HSE guidance, insurer requirements and court precedent establish that checking should be risk-based, with higher-risk drivers checked more often, but none of them sets a fixed interval.
Orbis grades the schedule on the driver's current points: annually at three points or fewer, twice a year at four to six points, and quarterly at seven or more. New hires are checked at the point of hire. Risk-graded scheduling sits on Intelligence rather than at entry.
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.
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.
Who approves a check before it runs
Either the driver or a nominated administrator, depending on how your organisation is configured. Driver confirmation suits fleets that want minimal admin overhead; administrator approval suits fleets that need a compliance sign-off in the audit trail. Both routes are timestamped and logged, and the driver's consent is captured before any search either way.
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. Once you subscribe, 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. The first check for a new organisation is free, additional checks beyond the annual one are £4.99 each, pay on use, 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?
There is no fixed statutory interval. HSE guidance, insurer requirements and court precedent establish that checking should be risk-based, with higher-risk drivers checked more often. Orbis grades the schedule on the driver's current points: annually at three points or fewer, twice a year at four to six points, and quarterly at seven or more, with new hires checked at the point of hire. Each check reads the live DVLA record, not a photocard that was only ever accurate on the day it was printed. The annual check included in Essentials is the starting position; risk-graded scheduling sits on Intelligence. Run your first check free, or call 0345 369 7105.
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.
Request a free check
One DVLA check on one of your drivers, free: the first check for your organisation costs nothing. No contract, no minimum number of drivers, no card, no software to install and nothing to connect.
Your first check is free. See the live DVLA result immediately. Activate your free Orbis account to receive the full PDF and retain the check in your compliance record.
How it runs. Tell us the driver and their licence number, and give their consent below: DVLA requires the driver's consent, and your declaration on this form is the record of it. We run the check against the live DVLA record as soon as you submit and show you the result here. We also email your work address, from donotreply@covase.co.uk, the link that activates your free Orbis account. Once it is active, we email you the full check as a PDF and it stays in your compliance record.
Your organisation has already had its free check. You can still request this one: further checks are £4.99 each, pay on use. Add your billing details and send the request again.
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