Driving License

A driving licence (DL) is the authorisation under Section 3 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 to drive specified classes of motor vehicle on a public road in India. It is granted by the licensing authority at a Regional Transport Office (RTO) and recorded in Sarathi, the national licence application built and hosted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). Sarathi is the licence half of Parivahan; Vahan is the vehicle half.

The Act and the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 (CMVR) set the sequence: a learner's licence (six months under Section 14(1)), a test of competence after 30 days, then the permanent licence as a Form 7 smart card. NIC rolled Sarathi out RTO by RTO from the mid-2000s (Tamil Nadu went live at Madurai North on 28 July 2007) and later merged the state databases into the centralised Sarathi 4.0, which is why some paper-era licences cannot be found online.

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, in force from 1 September 2019, rewrote the validity rules in Section 14 and the renewal window in Section 15. The Supreme Court's Constitution Bench in Bajaj Alliance General Insurance v Rambha Devi (6 November 2024) held that an LMV licence covers transport vehicles up to 7,500 kg gross vehicle weight, and on 30 March 2026 the Delhi High Court (Delhi Police v Sudheer Kumar) confirmed that the 2019 amendment removed the 30-day grace period: a licence is invalid from the day after expiry.

Every licence is one record in the central Sarathi database, keyed by its DL number: two letters for the state, two digits for the RTO, four digits for the year of first issue and a seven-digit serial - fifteen characters, printed with a hyphen or space after the RTO code. Additions of class, renewals and endorsements are written against the same number, so the record reflects the current licence rather than the card in your wallet.

This tool reads that record through the Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP), the DPIIT gateway that exposes Sarathi to authorised applications. Its SARATHI/02 endpoint returns the holder's name, the DL status, the two validity dates and the classes of vehicle (COV) - not date of birth, address or photograph - so the result verifies what a card claims rather than copying it.

1. 1

   Learner's licence

   Form 2 plus an online test on road signs and rules; valid six months. Minimum age 18, or 16 for a motorcycle up to 50 cc, 20 for a transport vehicle (Section 4).

2. 2

   Test of competence

   After 30 days on the learner's licence, the driving test at the RTO or an Accredited Driver Training Centre (CMVR rules 31B to 31J, from 1 July 2021). MoRTH clarified on 1 June 2024 that the ADTC certificate does not waive the RTO test.

3. 3

   Issue and record

   The smart card is issued in Form 7 and the Sarathi record created with each class of vehicle and its non-transport or transport validity.

4. 4

   Additions and endorsements

   New classes (₹500 per class) and the hazardous goods endorsement under CMVR rule 9 (a three-day course, licence effective three years) are added to the same record.

5. 5

   Renewal

   Form 9, from one year before expiry to one year after: ₹200 in the window, ₹300 plus ₹1,000 per year or part-year of delay after it. Beyond one year a fresh test is required. A suspension or cancellation under Sections 19 to 22 is written to the same record.

1. 1

   Enter the driving licence number

   Type it as printed on the card, with or without hyphens and spaces - UP9620110001440 - into the Driving Licence Number field. The input is upper-cased and capped at 25 characters.

2. 2

   Check

   The lookup sends the number to Sarathi through ULIP. A malformed number comes back as a field error; a well-formed number with no record shows "No driving licence record found".

3. 3

   Read the result

   The headline card shows the licence holder, the status badge, the class count and a Transport endorsed badge. Below it sit the Non-transport validity and Transport validity tiles, the Classes of vehicle cards, the DL number anatomy card and the Record table. Use the toolbar to download the PDF or share the link.

The headline card, validity tiles and class cards are derived from the fields Sarathi returns; the Record table at the bottom shows the raw values before any colouring or date parsing.

Licence holder

The holder's full name as recorded in Sarathi. Compare it letter for letter with the card and the ID presented.

Status

The DL status from Sarathi. Active shows green; Expired, Cancelled, Revoked, Suspended or Surrendered show red; renewal or pending states show amber.

Transport endorsed

Shown when at least one class is a transport class (LMV-TR, TRANS, MGV, HGMV, HPMV, 3W-TR, e-rickshaw, e-cart). Absent means private vehicles only.

Non-transport validity

The date the non-transport authorisation runs to: green with more than 30 days left, amber inside 30 days, red once expired. Not licensed means the record has no non-transport date.

Transport validity

The date the transport authorisation runs to, same colours. Section 14 fixes it at five years (three for hazardous goods), so it usually expires first. Not licensed means no transport endorsement.

Classes of vehicle

One card per class, grouped under Non-transport and Transport. Each shows the code, a plain-language label and Sarathi's own description when it differs.

MCWOG / MCWG

Motorcycle without gear (scooters, mopeds) and motorcycle with gear. MCWG covers MCWOG vehicles too.

LMV / LMV-NT / LMV-TR

Light motor vehicle - cars, jeeps, vans up to 7,500 kg. NT is the private entry, TR the transport entry for a taxi or light goods carriage; some states print plain LMV for private use.

HGMV / HPMV / HMV

Heavy goods motor vehicle (over 12,000 kg), heavy passenger motor vehicle (buses) and the older combined heavy code; MGV and MPV are the medium equivalents.

DL number anatomy

The DL number split into State, RTO, Year and Serial, echoed as a decoded line under the DL number chip in the headline. Year is flagged unverified if it falls outside 1950 to next year.

Sarathi

NIC's national licence application for MoRTH, covering learner's, driving and conductor licences.

Parivahan

The MoRTH portal fronting Sarathi (licences) and Vahan (vehicles); the digital licence in mParivahan or DigiLocker is valid under CMVR rule 139.

COV

Class of vehicle - the code for each type of vehicle the holder may drive, such as MCWG, LMV or HGMV.

Non-transport

Private classes. Since 1 September 2019: to age 40 if issued before 30, ten years if issued at 30 to 50, to age 60 if issued at 50 to 55, five years after 55. Earlier licences ran 20 years or to age 50.

Transport

Commercial classes - taxis, goods carriages, buses. Five years under Section 14(2)(a), three with a hazardous goods endorsement.

Learner's licence

The provisional licence, valid six months, that must be held for 30 days before the driving test.

ADTC

Accredited Driver Training Centre under CMVR rules 31B to 31J; its certificate supports the application but does not replace the RTO test.

Form 9

The CMVR renewal application. Form 2 is the learner's application, Form 4 the licence application, Form 7 the smart card itself.