PCO Driver FAQs: Licensing, Renting and Uber Rules in London

TfL's own worked example comes to £531 excluding the medical. That covers the £138 application fee, the £205 grant fee, a £52 enhanced DBS check, £16 for the DBS Update Service and three assessments at £40 each. The medical is priced by the examining doctor rather than TfL and runs from roughly £45 to £150, so a realistic all in budget is £580 to £680 if you pass everything first time. Add £30 for every resit. Any guide quoting a total near £400 is working from the pre June 2026 fee schedule. See the full 2026 fee breakdown.

TfL publishes no end to end timescale, so any site quoting a confident "12 to 16 weeks" made it up. What TfL does publish, in TPH Notice 06/26 from March 2026, is that initial review of a new application happens within 10 working days, assessment bookings are available without delay, and a backlog sits at the final review stage, worked through in date order of assessment results. GP availability and DBS processing are outside TfL's control and can add weeks. Plan in months, request your medical records on day one, and do not hand in your notice against a promised start date. The full process, in order.

You must be at least 21, with no upper age limit, and hold a full DVLA, Northern Ireland or EEA driving licence that is at least three years old. Time spent driving on a non UK licence before you exchanged it does not count towards those three years, which catches out experienced drivers who moved here recently. You also need the right to live and work in the UK, proved with an online share code or original documents, and if your permission to stay is time limited your licence cannot outlast it. Then an enhanced DBS check, a Group 2 medical, three assessments and an HMRC step. A licence normally lasts three years. Every requirement in order.

No. The driver licence and the vehicle licence are separate, and you can complete the whole application without owning or renting anything. Sort the car as the badge gets close, because the vehicle rules push hard against buying: any car licensed as a London PHV for the first time must be zero emission capable and Euro 6, and a buyer then adds hire and reward insurance at roughly £1,500 to £3,000 a year, £84 to apply for the vehicle licence, £56 on grant, an MOT issued within 14 days of inspection and all the servicing. Renting puts the lot into one weekly payment. See what is on the fleet now.

TfL publishes no fixed points threshold and assesses every applicant case by case under its good character policy. The enhanced DBS check, which must go through TfL's authorised provider rather than a certificate you bring yourself, reveals spent and unspent convictions, cautions and relevant police intelligence. Approval is unlikely with serious violent or sexual offences, a place on a barred list, or touting convictions. Declare everything honestly, because undeclared history damages an application far more than the history itself. Once licensed, you must tell TfL within 48 hours if you are arrested and released, charged, cautioned or convicted of anything, motoring offences included. More on the DBS step.

TfL assesses you against the DVLA Group 2 standard, the same bar as bus and lorry drivers, on the TPH/204 medical declaration. It has to be completed after an in person examination by a doctor with access to your full medical records, usually your own GP. Every page needs the doctor's signature, a surgery stamp and a date, and every question must be answered or the form is invalid. Private clinics will only sign it if you supply the full GP record, and most will not accept summary printouts or app screenshots, so request your records early. Fees run roughly £45 to £150. If you already hold a valid DVLA Group 2 bus or lorry licence, the form is not needed at all. More detail here.

No. As of 2026 the TfL topographical skills assessment is still required for a new London private hire driver licence. The confusion has two sources. Some councils outside London dropped their own topographical tests, which has nothing to do with TfL, and TfL added the English language and SERU assessments around 2021 to 2023, which sit alongside the topographical test rather than replacing it. It is also a separate and far smaller thing from the black cab Knowledge of London, so do not let anyone conflate the two. What the assessment actually involves.

It is scored out of 100. The three route planning questions carry 66 marks, the multiple choice carries 34, and the pass mark is 60. Do the arithmetic and the message is blunt: the routes decide it, because a perfect multiple choice score cannot reach 60 on its own. TfL spells out the four ways route marks are lost: not starting or ending on the correct marker, planning the route in reverse, not taking the most direct legal route, and making a turn the map symbols prohibit. Spend your preparation time drawing accurate routes, not memorising trivia. The pass first time checklist.

TfL publishes neither figure. When a third party site tells you it is "25 questions in 90 minutes", that number has no official source, and nobody selling you a course knows TfL's numbers either. What TfL does describe is the format: computer based, mouse operated, taken under exam conditions at a driver assessment centre, with three route planning questions on a digital map plus multiple choice on symbols, streets, road numbers and compass points. Some multiple choice questions want one answer and some want two, and each says which. The paper A to Z master atlas is long gone. What to expect on the day.

No, and we would rather you did not. Everything you need is free on tfl.gov.uk: the topographical assessment page, the Topographical Assessment Guidelines PDF, TfL's own "what to expect" video, and for SERU the free PHV Driver's Handbook, which is where every SERU question comes from. Watch for the pattern: sites that dangle the word free as a hook then push a paid product, branding dressed up to look like TfL, and outdated claims about a paper atlas or invented question counts. Book and pay only through the TfL portal. Your free study kit.

SERU covers safety, equality and regulatory understanding, and it doubles as your reading and writing test. It is computer based, delivered by TfL staff at TfL offices, using multiple choice questions plus sentences with missing words. Every question comes from one free document, the PHV Driver's Handbook, so read it properly instead of cramming practice questions written by somebody else. TfL also expects you to complete its free online Safeguarding Awareness training first. TfL has said SERU was never intended as a memory test and has announced a trial of an open book format aimed at existing drivers, so prepare as though it is closed book unless TfL tells you otherwise when you book. Where SERU fits in the application.

You book and pay for a resit at £30, against £40 for a first attempt, on all three assessments. On SERU, TfL's live pages publish no attempt limit, but the licence will not be granted until you pass. On the topographical assessment, TfL guidance indicates two attempts per application, the second at the reduced fee, with the application withdrawn if you fail both, meaning you would reapply to sit again. That detail can change, so confirm it with TfL when you book rather than taking any article's word for it, this one included. More on retakes.

Yes. What we take at collection is an authorised hold on your payment card, not a charge. Our contract calls it a temporary freeze of available credit to secure potential liability during the rental period, so no cash leaves your account, the balance is reserved and then released. On return you are entitled to the deposit less deductions for charges, damage or outstanding fees. The exact amount is set per rental and printed on your contract before you sign, so the figure cannot surprise you afterwards. How the hold works, start to finish.

Because of the late charge window, not slow admin. PCNs, bus lane tickets, congestion and ULEZ charges and tolls from your final days of hire often do not reach the registered keeper until weeks after you hand the car back. Throughout the hire you carry liability for those charges, and where a ticket cannot be transferred to you the renter remains liable for the full amount. So the hold stays in place until that window clears, then the balance is released. It is your money the whole time, and none of it is sitting with us. The full explanation.

The amount is set per rental and printed on your contract before you sign. Figures you find quoted online belong to other companies, other cars and other terms, so they will not tell you what yours is. For the deposit on the car you actually want, along with the excess mileage rate and the handover fuel level, look at the car on our fleet page and call us on 0203 740 9188. Whatever the figure, it is a hold on your card rather than money we take, and it comes back less only what you genuinely owe. What a deposit is and is not.

Three things only: customer caused damage you are responsible for, outstanding charges such as fuel, fines and tolls, and unpaid fees from the hire. Deductions are evidenced rather than asserted. At handover we complete a Vehicle Damage Sheet and photograph the car's condition and its fuel level, which gives both sides a baseline neither can argue with later, and every deduction is itemised against that sheet. Fair wear and tear is never charged: we follow the BVRLA guidelines, so light scuffs and everyday marks on a working PCO car are ours, not yours. The deduction rules in full.

Fully comprehensive insurance is provided with the car, along with servicing, MOT and 24/7 RAC cover, on one weekly price. If you have an accident the excess is £750, payable immediately regardless of fault, and where you are not at fault we pursue the insurer to recover it. Significant damage you did not report carries a £3,000 excess. Windscreen work is capped at £250. Report every incident straight away, because reporting it is what keeps you on the £750 figure. Insurance is not a market standard inclusion, so two weekly prices are not comparable until you know what each covers. The full fee list.

Yes. A valid TfL private hire driver licence is the first item on every provider's eligibility list, ours included. Alongside it you will generally need a full driving licence held for a minimum period, usually one to three years, a minimum age, proof that you are actively working on a platform and proof of address. If your badge is still with TfL, that is the moment to choose the car rather than sign for it: read how to get your PCO licence in London, then talk to us about availability so something is ready when the badge lands. Current cars.

Four vehicle rules stack on Uber's baseline. Brand: Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Jaguar or Lexus only. Colour: black, grey, blue, dark blue or dark grey in London. Body: sedans only, and Uber does not accept any estate on Exec. Age: five years or newer, applied on a rolling basis, which works out at 2021 or later in 2026. The driver needs a 4.85 rating. The model must also appear on Uber's eligible vehicle list, but where that list and the requirements page disagree, the requirements page governs by Uber's own clause. The new rules against the old ones.

Both, at different times, which is why the internet cannot agree. Six years was Uber's own published London figure and it was still on the requirements page in the 25 May 2026 capture. Five years is the figure on the live page today. Coverage quoting six was accurate when it was written. Six now survives only for Exec outside London, Manchester and Birmingham, for Comfort in London, and for Exec XXL. The worked example "2020 or later" that keeps getting attached to Exec belongs to Exec XXL and to a six year rule. Under a five year cap the figure is 2021. The whole comparison.

No. That threshold belongs to Lux. Exec asks for a 4.85 driver rating and says nothing about trip count. Lux asks for over 1,000 completed trips and a 4.9 rating, on top of a much shorter car list. The 1,000 trip claim attached to Exec appears on an insurer's blog and several rental sites, and it is wrong. Two others worth binning while you are here: leather interior is a rule for Uber Black in the United States and appears nowhere on the UK page, and brown is not an accepted Exec colour in London. Claims that are not Uber rules.

Nineteen models in Uber's own London data, each needing a 2021 or later model year: Audi A8 and A8 L, Bentley Flying Spur and Mulsanne, BMW 7 Series and i7, Jaguar XJ and XJ L, Land Rover Range Rover and Range Rover Vogue, Lotus Eletre and Emeya, Mercedes-Benz EQS and S-Class, and Rolls-Royce Flying Spur, Ghost, Phantom, Silver Cloud and Silver Shadow. Lux is London only and the narrowest tier in the city. On top of the model list the car must be an approved dark colour and a sedan, and the driver needs over 1,000 trips and a 4.9 rating. The full Uber approved car list.

Comfort yes, Exec and Lux no. In Uber's own London data the Model 3 carries Comfort from model year 2020 and Electric from 2008, although the real floor for Electric here is 2016 because TfL will not licence a PHV more than 10 years old. It carries no Exec and no Lux tag, which is consistent with Uber's published brand rule of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Jaguar and Lexus only. Model S, X and Y sit the same way, with Model X adding UberXL. Several third party guides name the Model 3 as Exec qualifying. Uber's London data does not. Every car Uber accepts here.

Two limits stack and the tightest one wins. TfL's is 10 years from first registration, applied at first licensing and at every re-licensing, which puts the real floor at 2016 in 2026 and makes a 2016 car close to its last licensable year. Uber's varies by tier: 2008 or later for UberX, six years for Comfort and Exec XXL, and for Exec and Lux a five year rolling cap plus a registration date test of 1 January 2020 or later. Uber publishes global minimum model years and plenty are older than London allows, so read anything before 2016 as 2016. The tier by tier breakdown.

Read Uber's own wording twice. Eligibility is based on the vehicle, and Uber tells renters to confirm product eligibility with the fleet operator before signing or renewing an agreement. A grandfathered date belongs to the car, not to you, so it does not travel with you when you hand that car back, and Uber says each vehicle is assessed separately. Three mechanics matter to renters: you cannot edit the vehicle record yourself, changes can take up to 72 hours to appear in the app, and drivers who committed to a car before the change can raise it through the Help section with the dated agreement. What is known and what is not.

A long fixed term weekly hire agreement on a car already licensed for private hire, usually two to five years. The provider keeps legal title throughout and normally stays the DVLA registered keeper, which is why the private hire vehicle licence sits in its name. Ownership passes to you only after every contracted payment, and normally after a separate transfer or option fee on top, which is not in the advertised weekly figure. Rent to buy is a marketing label rather than a legal category, so your rights are decided by the document type, not the phrase on the front page. The seven steps in full.

No, and that is the sharpest published difference between the two products. A rental deposit is a security hold and it comes back. A rent to buy down payment is a capital contribution towards the purchase price, plus consideration for the provider taking that car off the market for a multi year term. Because the money is applied to the car rather than held against damage, if you exit early it is gone. One major operator publishes exactly that distinction itself, listing a returnable deposit on its hire product and a non refundable down payment on its rent to buy product. Rent and rent to buy, side by side.

Only on the terms your contract gives you. There is no equity balance and no capital account you can draw against, so a driver exiting at week 200 of 208 is in the same legal position as one exiting at week 10: a bailee handing back the owner's car. The voluntary termination right that caps liability at half the total price applies to regulated agreements, and these are normally written to sit outside regulation. Published exit terms in this market run from four weeks' notice and a modest fee at one end to 16 weeks of vehicle payments plus a £750 remarketing fee at the other. Get the exit terms in writing first.

Because of how the paperwork is built, not because anyone is being generous. The FCA creditworthiness and affordability duty in CONC 5.2A applies to regulated consumer credit lending, and an agreement deliberately written to fall outside the regulated perimeter is outside that duty, so there is nothing to comply with and nothing gets checked. On the pure hire version the duty never applied at all, because hire is not lending. The practical consequence is the part that matters: nobody has assessed whether you can carry this commitment for four years, so that assessment is yours to do. What the exemption removes.

If you want the car to be yours at the end and you can arrange finance in your own name, do that. It is regulated, you own the asset, and you are not depending on a rental company still trading in 2030. If you cannot get finance yet, rent. Rent a good car, earn at the top of the market, fix your credit position and buy properly when you can. Renting is not the lesser option, it is the one that keeps you flexible while your circumstances change. We do not offer rent to buy at the moment, which is a deliberate choice and it costs us business. Our reasoning in full.

Yes. PHVs are not exempt. The charge is £18 per day if you pay in advance or on the day, rising to £21 if you pay late. An electric car registered for Auto Pay gets 25 per cent off and pays around £13.50, which across a full working week is a real difference between an electric car and a hybrid. Budget it as a running cost from your first week rather than treating it as an occasional expense, and set up Auto Pay before you start so you never pay the late rate. Running costs alongside the licence fees.

In practice, no to both. TfL's rule is zero emission capable, which is not the same as fully electric: TfL defines ZEC as 50g/km CO2 or less with at least 10 miles of zero emission range, or 75g/km or less with at least 20 miles, so plug-in hybrids qualify and electric cars pass automatically. Any ZEC compliant car already meets ULEZ standards, so the £12.50 charge will not touch you. ZEC applies only at first licensing: a car already licensed re-licenses under the 10 year age rule. On Uber's side, only the Electric tier requires a fully electric car. How the rules stack.

You do. The ticket lands with the registered keeper, which is us, and our admin fee is £15 per PCN, fully refunded if you appeal successfully and send us the issuing authority's written confirmation that it was cancelled. One point nobody else explains: the statutory route that lets a hire company transfer PCN liability to the driver requires a hiring agreement of under six months, so a multi year rent to buy cannot use it. Those agreements pass the charge to you by indemnity instead, with a handling fee per ticket. Ask what that fee is before you sign anything long. The rest of the fee list.

Today, yes, through TfL's own gateway. Salvage is a coded pass or fail item at licensing inspection, structural salvage noted on the V5C is referred to TfL's Vehicle Policy Team, and the licensee may be required to submit an independent engineer's report on the repairs before licensing can proceed. That may change. TfL is consulting on issuing no new licences for salvage vehicles from autumn 2026, and asking how quickly the 3,555 already licensed should leave the fleet. The consultation closes on 13 September 2026 and any driver can respond. Our response, made against our own commercial interest.