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Your licence and your gender
Post DVLA a form D1 with your licence and one of three originals: a Deed Poll, a statutory declaration or a Gender Recognition Certificate. GOV.UK says the change costs nothing and needs no certificate, and you can drive while the new card is made. It arrives with a different driver number, because the seventh character follows the gender on DVLA’s record.
GOV.UK’s guide is called “Change the name or gender on your driving licence”, and it treats both alike: form D1 from most Post Offices, your current licence and original evidence, posted to DVLA in Swansea, with no fee. For the evidence, DVLA wants at least one of three documents, and a Gender Recognition Certificate is only one of them.
GOV.UK’s identity documents page has a list of its own for anyone whose gender identity has changed. Choose one document from it and send the original.
| Evidence | What it is | Send with it |
|---|---|---|
| A Deed Poll Ours | A deed giving up your former name and taking a new one, signed in front of a witness | One document in your new name, or a UK passport number |
| A statutory declaration | An official statement confirming the change, made before a solicitor, a magistrate or a commissioner of oaths | One document in your new name, or a UK passport number |
| A Gender Recognition Certificate | Legal recognition of your affirmed gender, granted by the Gender Recognition Panel | Nothing further on GOV.UK’s list |
Whichever you choose, GOV.UK also wants the identity document or driving licence that shows your previous name or gender identity, and the licence you are returning does that. The document in your new name has to be valid and issued after both the Deed Poll or declaration and your most recent licence, and a letter, bill or statement must be from the last 12 months. Documents that count.
£0for the change itself
Your originals come back on their own, by second class post. A lorry or bus licence goes on form D2 to SA99 1BR.
Only if you want them. A new photo at the same time costs £17, which drivers over 70 and holders of a medical short period licence do not pay. A lost licence can still be replaced on the same form, for £20. From GOV.UK’s name or gender guide and identity documents page, checked November 2026.
No. GOV.UK’s guide to applying for a certificate names the driving licence first among the records you can update without one. DVLA’s own list agrees, because it asks for any one of three documents, and the other two are a Deed Poll and a statutory declaration.
None of the three is a medical document, and the licence page asks for no medical report. A certificate does change other things, such as a birth certificate registered in the UK, which is a separate application with its own rules.
The Department for Transport said the same to Parliament in September 2025, in the answer quoted alongside.
GOV.UK, on the certificate
“You do not need a certificate to: update your driving licence”
The Department for Transport
Evidence “can include a deed poll, statutory declaration or a gender recognition certificate.”
A DVLA driver number carries your date of birth, and one of its digits is written differently for a man and for a woman. Asked in 2025 how licence numbers show the holder’s sex, the Department for Transport answered:
“The seventh character of the number will be a zero or one if the driver record shows the licence holder is male, and five or six if the record shows the licence holder is female.”
Record shows male
Record shows female
DVLA’s leaflet INS57P takes the number apart. After the five surname letters come six digits from your date of birth: the first and last make the year, the second and third the month, and the fourth and fifth the day. For a woman, it says, 5 is added to the first digit of the month, so October is 60 on her licence and 10 on a man’s. That first digit of the month is the seventh character of the whole number.
So once DVLA records your new gender, that one character moves by five: 0 becomes 5, or 1 becomes 6, and back again the other way. The second digit of the month, the day and the year stay put. The answer ties the digit to what the record shows, not to the day the number was first given out, so the card DVLA sends after the change carries the new one.
Neither the leaflet nor the answer says whether the last three characters, the check digits DVLA’s computer generates, are changed at the same time. The number printed on your new card is the one to use from then on, for a check code, a hire car or an insurer. Who needs the new number.
Choose your month of birth and what DVLA’s record shows now, or let the page read both from your driver number. It follows the leaflet’s rule and DfT’s answer, and says plainly where they stop.
The seventh and eighth characters for every month of birth, on a record showing male and on one showing female:
| Born in | Record shows male | Record shows female |
|---|---|---|
| January | 01 | 51 |
| February | 02 | 52 |
| March | 03 | 53 |
| April | 04 | 54 |
| May | 05 | 55 |
| June | 06 | 56 |
| July | 07 | 57 |
| August | 08 | 58 |
| September | 09 | 59 |
| October | 10 | 60 |
| November | 11 | 61 |
| December | 12 | 62 |
The seventh character is shown in bold. From DVLA’s leaflet INS57P (July 2025) and DfT’s answer HL10124 (12 September 2025), checked November 2026. Your new card has the final word.
One form D1 can carry both, and a Deed Poll can be the evidence for both, since it appears on GOV.UK’s list for a new name and on its list for a change of gender identity. Add one document already in your new name, such as a recent bank statement, or write the number of a UK passport that shows it.
A new surname or new first names move other characters of the number as well: the surname letters at the start, and the two initials after the date of birth. Compare your old and new names.
A title such as Mx. GOV.UK handles a new title on the same form D1, asking for proof only when the title is inherited. Which titles DVLA’s records can show is not published anywhere we have looked, and we have found no DVLA statement either way on Mx, so we cannot tell you whether it records or prints one. Our checkout offers Mx beside Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms and Dr, or lets you type a title of your own, and your Deed Poll prints the one you choose in front of your new name, though GOV.UK’s deed poll guide is clear that a deed poll cannot itself change a title.
DfT’s answer gives the seventh character two patterns, one for a record that shows male and one for a record that shows female, and describes no third. GOV.UK’s certificate guide says plainly that UK law does not recognise non-binary genders.
The seventh character is 0 for a birthday from January to September, and 1 for October to December.
The same month with 5 added to its first digit: 5 from January to September, 6 from October to December.
Not mentioned in the answer, the leaflet or GOV.UK’s licence pages. A title is a separate matter, changed on form D1 in the same way as a name.
For the wider picture, from passports to HMRC and banks, the Deed Polls Online handbook, our sister site, has a guide to changing your name and gender identity, another on what each record can show for a non-binary person, and one on applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate. A passport is applied for direct, on GOV.UK or at a Post Office.
A new name must go on it too, GOV.UK says, usually free, by post, with proof such as your Deed Poll, and the new log book can take up to 6 weeks. Its log book pages speak only of names and addresses: we found nothing on them about gender. Your V5C and a new name.
An insurer that keeps your licence number needs the new one once the card comes, and a new name in any case. Finance, breakdown cover and parking permits are on our list for your car, in the order to do them.
GOV.UK’s view or share service opens with your licence number, National Insurance number and postcode, and makes the 21-day check code a hire firm asks for. Once the new card comes, use the number printed on it. Car hire and a new licence.
Licences issued in Northern Ireland come from the Driver & Vehicle Agency, not DVLA. nidirect’s page on proof of identity for a licence carries the same three choices for a change of gender identity, a Deed Poll, a statutory declaration or a Gender Recognition Certificate, with the document that shows your previous name or gender.
A new name cannot be reported to the DVA online, so it goes on form DL1 by post, and nidirect’s fee table prices a change of name at nothing. Neither that table nor the DL1 notes mention a change of gender. DfT’s answer is about DVLA’s numbers, too: nidirect asks for the eight characters of a DVA licence number, and does not say whether any of them records gender.
Posta name never goes online
From nidirect on proof of identity, keeping a licence up to date and licence fees, and the Department for Infrastructure, checked November 2026.
Fill in form D1 from a Post Office and post it to DVLA, Swansea, SA99 1BN with your licence and one original: a Deed Poll, a statutory declaration or a Gender Recognition Certificate. With a Deed Poll or declaration, add one document in your new name. There is no fee. What to send.
No. GOV.UK lists the driving licence among the records you can update without a certificate, and DVLA accepts a Deed Poll or a statutory declaration instead. The Department for Transport told Parliament the same in September 2025. The certificate question.
Yes, by one character. The seventh is 0 or 1 when DVLA’s record shows male and 5 or 6 when it shows female, according to DfT’s written answer HL10124, so a new recorded gender gives a new number. The rest of your date of birth stays the same. See your digit change.
Yes, on one form D1. A Deed Poll is on GOV.UK’s list for both changes, so it can cover the two together, with one document in your new name. The surname letters and initials in your licence number may change as well. Name and gender together.
GOV.UK gives no online route for it. Its guide sends you to form D1 by post, the same as a new name, and its renewal service closes once your name or title has changed. What DVLA does let you do online.
DfT’s answer describes a licence number for a record showing male or female, and nothing else, and GOV.UK states that UK law does not recognise non-binary genders. A new title goes on form D1 without evidence, but we have found no DVLA statement on whether it holds Mx. Non-binary and the licence.
Not on GOV.UK’s licence pages as we read them in November 2026, which still list a Deed Poll, a statutory declaration or a certificate. The ruling, For Women Scotland, was given on 16 April 2025 and concerned the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010. DfT’s answer on licence numbers came after it, on 12 September 2025.
Through the Driver & Vehicle Agency rather than DVLA. nidirect lists the same three documents for a change of gender identity, a Deed Poll, a statutory declaration or a Gender Recognition Certificate, and a new name there goes on form DL1, by post. Northern Ireland.
Something else? Ask a paralegal and we will answer, usually the same working day.
Apply online in about five minutes. A paralegal drafts your Deed Poll with the title you choose, Mx included, every spelling is checked against your order, and it is posted the same working day.
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