WoF expiry check
The same free NZTA expiry check returns both rego and WoF status from a plate number. There is no grace period, and the infringement fee for an expired WoF is $200. The windscreen label is the quickest check of all, but the NZTA record is the one that counts if the two disagree. We never ask for your plate — the lookup is yours to run.
There are two ways to check a Warrant of Fitness expiry and one of them is free and takes ten seconds. The label sits on the inside of the windscreen, usually top left or behind the rear view mirror, and shows the month and year the current warrant runs out. That is enough for most purposes.
If the label is missing, unreadable, or belongs to a car you no longer recognise, use NZTA's expiry check instead. It takes a plate and returns both the WoF and the licensing status.
Open the NZTA rego and WoF expiry check
The record is authoritative and the sticker is a copy of it. When they disagree, the record wins, and disagreements happen more often than you would think after a vehicle changes hands or a windscreen is replaced. We do not run this lookup and never ask you for a plate number.
What the date obliges you to do
There is no grace period. The day after the expiry date the vehicle no longer has a current warrant, and Police can issue an infringement notice with a $200 fee. Expired rego carries the same $200 fee and is a separate offence, so the two are not interchangeable and not combined. Since the same lookup returns both, run the rego expiry check in the same visit rather than coming back to it.
The one exception is narrow and worth quoting properly. You may drive a vehicle with an expired or failed WoF only to take it somewhere for repair or to get a new WoF, and only if it is safe to do so. Police put it as taking the vehicle to the workshop for its inspection. A trip to work with an inspection booked for Thursday is not covered by that exception.
An expired WoF also affects your ability to renew the rego, because the licensing system expects a current inspection. That is how a forgotten inspection turns into two problems in the same week. If you are already in that loop, work through the WoF first and then renew the rego.
Why the next due date may surprise you
Inspection frequency in New Zealand is not one interval for everyone. It depends on the vehicle's age and on when it was first registered, and the rules are changing.
From 1 November 2026, new light vehicles get their second WoF at four years rather than three, light vehicles aged four to fourteen years that were first registered from 1 November 2019 move to a two-yearly inspection instead of an annual one, and vehicles first registered before 1 January 2000 move from six-monthly to annual, motorcycles included. Vehicles aged fourteen to twenty-six years are unchanged and stay annual. Light vehicles first registered between 1 November 2013 and 31 October 2019 move to two-yearly later, from 1 November 2027. The same change adds checks on the warning lamps for autonomous emergency braking and lane keep assist, and increases the penalties for an expired WoF and for non-compliant wheels and tyres.
That combination of age and registration date is genuinely awkward to work out in your head, and it is why two apparently similar cars in the same street can be on different cycles. The date printed at the inspection is the one that governs your vehicle.
What the check will not tell you
The expiry check confirms that a vehicle held a current warrant on a given date. It does not confirm that the vehicle is in good condition now. A WoF describes the vehicle as it was on the day it was inspected, and a warrant issued eleven months ago is a historical statement.
It is also silent on everything outside NZTA's own records: money owing on the vehicle, stolen status, and who the registered person is. Vehicle and plate checks sets out which organisation holds each of those.
If you are trying to work out what is likely to fail before you book, what a WoF inspection covers goes through the items that actually catch vehicles out, most of which are cheap to fix at home and expensive to fail on.
If the vehicle fails, you have 28 days from the failed inspection for a free recheck, and the recheck has to be with the same inspecting organisation, though it can be a different site of the same company. After 28 days it is treated as a fresh inspection and you pay again.
If the plate returns nothing
A blank result is usually mundane. Character confusions between O and 0, a personalised plate that has replaced the original, a registration that has been cancelled, or an NZTA outage will all produce the same empty screen. The plate is not found works through the explanations in order of how likely they are, and none of the common ones mean anything is wrong with the vehicle.
Frequently asked questions
how do i check my wof expiry
can i drive with an expired wof
is there a grace period after a wof expires
why is my next wof due date different from last time
Sources and verification
- NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. Warrant of Fitness, checked 2026-08-12.
- NZTA Vehicle Inspection Portal. Changes to light vehicle inspections from 1 November 2026, checked 2026-08-12.
- NZTA Vehicle Inspection Portal. In-service WoF and CoF — inspection and certification process, checked 2026-08-12.
- New Zealand Police. Grace periods and infringement fees for expired rego or WoF, checked 2026-08-12.
- NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. Official vehicle and driver licensing information, checked 2026-08-12.
Checked against the sources above. If something has changed, tell us.