Fleetbrain KnowledgeCheck code vs. a managed licence checking platform
FKFleetbrain Knowledge Team · May 2026 · 3 min read
The DVLA gives you two ways to check a driver's licence. Most people start with the check code, and that makes sense. But if you're managing more than a handful of drivers, it's worth knowing where it starts to break down.
The check codeA driver logs into their Government Gateway account, generates a share code, and sends it to you. You enter it, view their licence. It costs nothing and takes a few minutes.For a single check, it's hard to fault. No subscription, no setup, just done.The issue is that it doesn't scale. The code expires, so every check is a fresh round trip: you ask, the driver logs in and generates a new one, sends it over, you file the result somewhere. Across ten drivers checked quarterly, that's 40 of those round trips per year. Across 30 drivers it's 120, before you factor in the ones who don't respond quickly. The results live in a folder or a spreadsheet somewhere, updated by hand.
Free, and quick for one-off checks.
Requires the driver to do something every single time a check is needed.
Gets harder to manage as the number of drivers grows.
A managed licence checking platformThe difference is consent. A driver is enrolled once and agrees to have their licence checked for up to three years. After that you can check whenever you need to without going back to them.Results are stored automatically, so you build up a history rather than a pile of one-off snapshots. If a driver picks up points between checks, you can see exactly when it happened relative to the previous check, not just that it happened at some point.All your drivers sit in one dashboard. No hunting through email threads, no cross-referencing spreadsheets. When records pass their expiry date they're deleted automatically, which is one less thing to track manually from a GDPR standpoint.There's also a compliance argument. A time-stamped record of every check on every driver is useful evidence if you ever need to show that you've met your legal obligation to verify the licences of people driving on your behalf.
Drivers consent once; checks can run for up to 3 years without going back to them.
Full check history is kept, so changes to a record are visible over time.
All drivers in one dashboard.
Expired records deleted automatically.
Audit trail as evidence of your legal duty being met.
Costs money, usually priced per check.
Drivers need to be enrolled before the first check, which takes a bit of time upfront.
Which makes sense for youIf you're checking licences occasionally, the DVLA share code is fine. It's free and it works.If you're checking regularly across a fleet, the check code process is adding up to more work than it might look like on paper. A platform is worth the cost for the time it saves alone, before the compliance side of things even comes into it.
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