How to replace a lost MOT certificate online

As you know, driving a vehicle without an up to date MOT certificate is illegal, so if you damage or even lose your original, you’re going to want a replacement pretty sharpish!

Did you know that over 636,000 duplicate MOT certificates were issued to motorists in the UK last year? That’s roughly 2% of all MOT tests done every year, and the number is growing.

Since you can't renew your road tax without one (again, very illegal to drive without road tax) and with such an increasing demand for replacement MOT certificates, the government launched a new service on 8 May, making the replacement of your MOT certificate much easier.

The new MOT certificate replacement service can be used 24-hours a day, 7 days a week and allows users to:

• view and save their MOT certificate as a PDF
• print their MOT certificate

Limitations of the service

For now, people can only use the service to get duplicate certificates for:

• motorcycles (class 1 & 2 vehicles)
• cars and passenger vehicles (class 3, 4, 5 & 7 vehicles)

All certificates issued since 20 May 2018 will be available on the service – this includes both pass and fails.

As it stands, you won’t be able to get certificates for lorries, buses and trailers yet.

You’ll also need to make sure you have either of these handy:

• the vehicle registration and 11-digit reference number from the latest vehicle log book (V5C)
• the test number from the original certificate (you won’t have this if you’ve lost your certificate so best note it down!)

Don’t forget your local garage

Whilst you can get a duplicate of your MOT certificate online, any of our approved garages will still be able to provide this service for those who need it.

Any approved garage can provide MOT certificate duplicates to any customer with a right to have one, though you might want to go to the garage that provided the MOT if for some reason you don’t have access to the information mentioned above.

An approved garage will also have none of the limitations that the online service has.

Beware unofficial websites

There are several websites out there that charge people for unofficial MOT certificates.

None of these companies have a licence or any other form of permission from the government to produce these fake certificates.
The safest place to get a replacement MOT certificate is the official government site or one of our approved garages.

Need a replacement MOT certificate?

You can check out the new service for yourself by entering your own vehicle’s registration and 11-digit reference number from the latest vehicle log book (V5C).

Just head on over to www.gov.uk/replace-mot-certificate

Or if you prefer to have another MOT certificate provided by an approved garage, you can always find your nearest garage right here on approvedgarages.co.uk!