O licensing

An O licence must be held to operate vehicles above 3.5 tonnes gvw (gross vehicle weight) that are used to carry goods on a public road in connection with a trade or business. This covers both ‘own account’ and ‘hire or reward’ operations, however there are a number of exemptions. Please also note that different requirements apply in Northern Ireland.

The O licence must be held by the person - whether an individual or a company – who ‘uses’ the vehicle and this may or may not be the owner of the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle is the user for O licensing purposes if he owns it or if he is leasing, buying on hire purchase terms, hiring or borrowing the vehicle; a typical owner-driver operation. In any other case the user is the person who employs the driver, or who uses self-employed driers as agents, with every aspect of the operation under the licence-holder’s direct control.

There are different categories of licence according to the use to which vehicles are put:

Restricted licence This allows the carriage of goods, but only on own account, within Great Britain and abroad.

Standard licence This allows the carriage of goods for hire or reward in Great Britain (and also permits own account movements in GB and abroad).

Standard international licence This allows the carriage of goods for hire or reward (and on own account) within Great Britain and abroad.

A fully comprehensive Operator Licence Compliance Information Service (OLCIS) to ensure you are totally compliance with your O Licence obligations is available. Please see opposite links.

Additionally, under operator licensing legislation all holders of standard National Operator Licences are required to be professionally competent, or employ someone who is professionally competent. The most popular method of demonstrating this is to hold a National Certificate of Professional Competence. Please see opposite links.

You may also find the following tools useful