Licence endorsements

The nine endorsements

They fall into two groups, and the groups behave differently.

The character-assessed group — P, V, I and O. These involve a fit and proper person assessment, because they put you in a position of responsibility over other people or their property.

• P — passenger. Required to drive a vehicle carrying passengers for hire or reward: taxis, rideshare, shuttles, buses. The most commonly held of the group by some distance.
• V — vehicle recovery. For operating tow trucks and recovery vehicles.
• I — driving instructor. Required by anyone teaching driving for payment. If you are hiring an instructor, this is the credential to ask about — see the course providers page.
• O — special type. For special-type vehicles that fall outside the ordinary classes.

The machinery group — D, F, R, T and W. These are about operating particular equipment on a road, and they turn on training and assessment rather than character.

• D — dangerous goods. Required to transport dangerous goods above the quantities that trigger the rule.
• F — forklift. For operating a forklift on a road.
• R — rollers. For road rollers.
• T — tracks. For tracked vehicles, such as excavators and bulldozers with tracks.
• W — wheels. For wheeled special-type vehicles, such as wheeled loaders and graders.

The requirements for each — prerequisites, courses, unit standards, medical certificates — are set out by NZTA endorsement by endorsement. The forklift endorsement page is a good example of the level of detail each one carries, and it sits alongside the pages for the other machinery endorsements.

The forklift confusion, because it catches nearly everyone

People ask for a "forklift licence". There is no such thing. There are two separate requirements and they get conflated constantly.

If you operate a forklift on a road, you need an F endorsement on your driver licence. That is a transport requirement, administered by NZTA, added to your licence.

If you operate a forklift inside a workplace — a warehouse, a yard, a site — the governing requirement is health and safety law and your employer's obligation to ensure you are competent. That typically means a training certificate from a recognised provider, and it is not an endorsement and does not appear on your licence.

Plenty of experienced operators hold the certificate and no endorsement, entirely lawfully, because they never take the machine onto a road. Plenty of others assume the certificate covers the road and it does not. If your job might involve crossing or working on a road, sort the endorsement, and check the current requirements with NZTA rather than relying on what the last yard told you.

What a fit and proper person assessment is

For P, V, I and O, the decision is not only about competence. NZTA assesses whether you are a fit and proper person to hold the endorsement, looking at your driving history, transport offending, relevant criminal history and any complaints on record.

Two things worth knowing. First, this is an assessment of a record, not a test you sit — so there is no preparing for it, only knowing what is on your record before you apply. Second, an adverse decision is not the end of it: there is a process for putting your case and for appealing, and the reasons for a refusal are given to you.

If you have history that might be relevant, it is better to raise it in the application than to hope it does not surface. It will surface.

Expiry is where endorsements go wrong

An endorsement has its own expiry date, generally shorter than the licence itself, printed on the card next to it. Renewing your licence does not renew an endorsement, and an endorsement that lapses does not quietly keep working — it stops.

For endorsements attached to your job, that is a livelihood problem rather than an administrative one, and it usually arrives at the worst possible moment. Put the endorsement expiry in a calendar with a lead time long enough to redo any course or medical certificate that renewal requires, because those bookings are the slow part.

Applications and renewals are counter transactions at a driver licensing agent, the same as any other licence transaction. They carry their own fees on top of any course cost, and where the current schedule sits is on the fees page.

How endorsements interact with classes

Most machinery and passenger work sits alongside a heavy class rather than a car licence, and the two are gained separately — the class lets you drive the vehicle, the endorsement lets you do the work. The heavy vehicle page covers the class side of that.

Where an endorsement involves a practical assessment, failing it works like any other practical: a stand-down, a rebooking and another fee, with nothing you already hold affected. The mechanics are on the failed test page.

Use the activity-specific guides for forklifts, passenger services, wheels, tracks and rollers and dangerous goods. Each separates the approved course or fit-and-proper step from the underlying vehicle class and workplace obligations.