Apply to licence a private hire vehicle or renew your existing licence

Private hire vehicles must be booked in advance through a licensed operator. They can never be hailed in the street and cannot use taxi ranks.

How long is a licence valid for?

Vehicle licences are valid for one year. Once licensed the vehicle may only be driven by a Cheshire West licensed driver.

Before you apply

You need to meet the following requirements:

• if you don't own the vehicle you must provide evidence that you are legally allowed to use it
• the vehicle must hold a valid licensed vehicle test certificate issued by one of our approved testing stations
• provide valid insurance which covers the vehicle for public and private hire
• exchange your expired plates for new ones (renewals only)

The vehicle must be no more than:

• seven years old at the date of first vehicle licence
• 10 years old on licence renewal (15 for wheelchair accessible vehicles)

There are additional conditions relating to vehicle type, specification and associated requirements. These include limited exemptions for novelty vehicles, replacement vehicles following a write off and the none display of plates for executive vehicles. Full details can be found in our statement of licensing policy.

Cost

All fees must be paid at the time of application and will only be refunded in exceptional circumstances. A 12 month licence is £266.

How long will it take?

We aim to process your application within 10 working days, subject to receipt of a valid application, payment and supporting evidence including a DBS certificate.

How to apply

If you have not already done so, you will need to register for an account.

When making your application you must ensure that all the data entered is correct, if data is entered incorrectly the application will be rejected and will need to be resubmitted.

Transferring an existing licence to a new owner

Before making the application a transfer form will need to be completed by the previous and new owner.

• Consent to transfer (PDF, 196KB)

You must complete the transfer application within 14 days of taking ownership of the licensed vehicle. A vehicle licence cannot be transferred to another vehicle.

Vehicle advertising

You can only display advertisements on your vehicle that have been approved in advance by us. We will not approve anything that could cause offence. You need to send the details of the advertisement to our Licensing team: