Driver licence classes

The six classes in plain terms

Class 1 covers cars, vans, utes and light vehicles. It is where nearly everyone starts, and it is also the prerequisite for most of what follows.

Classes 2, 3, 4 and 5 are the heavy classes, in ascending order of what they let you drive. Broadly, class 2 and class 4 are rigid vehicles at different weights, and class 3 and class 5 are the combination equivalents — rigid vehicle plus a heavy trailer.

Class 6 is motorcycles and mopeds above the very smallest.

What separates class 2 from class 4, or class 3 from class 5, is weight — specific numbers, in kilograms, applied to the vehicle and to what it is towing. We deliberately do not print those numbers here. They are the entire operative content of the distinction, an employer or a hire company will hold you to them exactly, and a driver who works from a stale figure on a third-party page is driving outside their licence without knowing it. They are published on NZTA's what you can drive page, which is also where you check what a given class lets you do at each stage.

How classes stack, and where they do not

The heavy classes build on class 1. You need a full class 1 licence before you can start on class 2, and the heavy ladder then proceeds in order — you do not jump from class 1 to class 5. How that ladder actually works, including the courses that can substitute for time served, is on the heavy vehicle page.

Class 6 does not stack that way. It is a parallel track, not a rung above class 1. Holding a full car licence does not entitle you to ride a motorcycle and never has, although it can affect parts of the class 6 process. The motorcycle page covers that in full.

Going the other way, a higher class generally carries the lower ones with it — a heavy class licence does not stop you driving a car. What it does not do is carry entitlements sideways into class 6.

Endorsements are a different axis entirely

An endorsement is not a class. It is a letter added to a licence you already hold, permitting a specific activity rather than a vehicle size: P for carrying passengers for hire, F for forklifts, D for dangerous goods, I for driving instruction, V for vehicle recovery, O for special-type vehicles, and W, R and T for wheeled, roller and tracked machinery.

They run on their own cycles, with their own courses and their own expiry dates, and they do not renew automatically when the licence does. The endorsements page covers the landscape.

The practical consequence is that "do I need a special licence for this?" often has the answer "no, but you need an endorsement", and the two are applied for in different ways.

Reading your own card

The class or classes you hold are printed on the licence, along with the stage and any conditions. If you have accumulated entitlements over the years — a class 2 from an old job, an endorsement that lapsed — the card is the fastest place to check what is actually current.

If you want the underlying record rather than the card, the driver licence register is searchable, and that is covered on the licence check page. Conditions such as a corrective lenses requirement apply across every class you hold, not just the one you are using — the eyesight requirements page explains how those are recorded and what they mean in practice.

Each class means starting the tests again

This is the part that surprises people moving into a new class. You do not simply apply for class 2 or class 6 because you have driven for fifteen years. Each class has its own theory test and its own practical assessment, sat at its own stage, and each attempt has its own fee — where to find the current ones is on the fees page.

The applications themselves happen where every licence application happens: at an appointed driver licensing agent, not an NZTA office. Practical assessments for the heavy classes and for class 6 are arranged separately, and failing one works the same way as failing any other practical test — a stand-down, a rebooking and another fee, as set out on the failed test page. Nothing you already hold is affected by a failed attempt at a new class.