Disclaimer

We are independent, and that has consequences

KiwiVehicle is privately run. It is not NZTA Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Automobile Association, VTNZ, the Companies Office, the Ministry of Transport or any department, agency, contractor or delegate of the New Zealand Government. There is no agreement, partnership, sponsorship or accreditation between this site and any of them.

Those organisations are named throughout the site because you cannot explain the system without naming them. Naming them does not imply that they endorse, review or have any involvement with what we publish, and any trade marks belong to their owners.

The consequence that actually matters to you is operational rather than legal. We hold no records and can reach none. We cannot check your rego, warrant, demerit points or licence status; cannot correct an entry, cancel an infringement or restore an entitlement; cannot see where an application has got to; and cannot make anything happen faster. Everything on this site is written on the assumption that you will complete your transaction inside the official system, and each page is built to hand you over to it.

Information, not advice

Nothing here is legal, financial, insurance, mechanical or personal advice, and no page creates a professional relationship of any kind. We describe how the system generally works and the rules that generally apply. We do not know your vehicle, your history, your insurance policy, the terms of your finance agreement or the specific facts of your case, and any of those can change the right answer.

Where a decision has real money, a deadline or a legal position attached to it — buying a vehicle with a security interest registered against it, disputing an infringement, working out whether a policy still covers you — take the official or professional answer over ours.

The official source prevails

Every page names the official sources it relies on and the date those sources were checked. That date is doing real work: rules in this area change, sometimes on announced dates and sometimes quietly, and no independent site tracks every change the moment it lands.

So the rule is simple. If something on this site conflicts with what NZTA, the Police or another responsible body publishes, the official position is correct and ours is wrong. Act on theirs, then tell us so we can fix ours. Our editorial policy explains how the checking and correction process works.

For the same reason we do not publish opening hours, phone numbers, fees, processing times or predicted restoration times for outages. Those details go stale fastest and cause the most harm when they are wrong, and a site that guesses at them is not being helpful, only confident.

Links to other sites

We link to official services and to organisations involved in the system. Those sites are not under our control, and we are not responsible for their content, availability, accuracy or privacy practices. A link is a route to the authoritative source, not a warranty about what you find there or an endorsement of anything else on that domain.

Always check that you are on the official domain before you enter anything. A link from here opens the official system separately, and that system asks you for your details directly, on its own site, under its own privacy terms.

Advertising

The site is free and funded by advertising, primarily Google AdSense. Ads are chosen and served automatically by Google and its partners, not selected by us, and their appearance on a page is not a recommendation. We do not publish sponsored content or paid links in informational pages, and no advertiser has any influence over what we write.

No warranty and no liability

The site is provided as it is. We publish in good faith and check what we publish, but we do not warrant that every page is complete, current or free of error, or that the site will always be available.

To the extent the law allows, we accept no liability for loss or damage arising from your use of this site or from reliance on anything published here, including a fine, a missed deadline, a wasted trip, a purchase you regret or a decision that turned out badly. This does not affect rights you have under New Zealand law that cannot be excluded.

Your side of it

Use the site for personal, non-commercial information. Do not copy or republish substantial parts of it as your own, and do not present it as official information or as anything endorsed by a public body. Do not attempt to interfere with the site's operation.

We may change, add to or remove content at any time, including these terms, and the review date on each page shows when it was last checked. Continuing to use the site after a change means accepting the version then published.

Getting in touch

Corrections go to [email protected], and the ones that could send someone to the wrong place or cost them a fine are dealt with first. Please do not send us your plate number, licence number, VIN or any identity document: there is no lookup form on this site, we never ask for those details, and we cannot do anything with them. The contact page explains what we can and cannot help with.