tzone

How to check the gender on a UK driving licence.

I originally wrote this piece in Gemma's blog but I think it is pretty useful for us all to know.

In case you didn't know although a driving licence doesn't have gender directly printed on it, it does however have gender encoded into your driver number. This is how it works

A typical driver number may look like this JACKS611249MB6SP
The bold six digit section has date of birth and gender encoded into it.

I've colour coded the six digit section to help explain how it works.
611249

The red numbers are for the year you were born in, in this case 1969
The green numbers are the month you were born in, in this case november.
The blue numbers are for the date you were born in, in this case the 24th.

This example is of a male driving licence, the first green number is always 0 or 1 for a male driving licence. For a female driving licence a 5 is added to this first green number making it a 5 or a 6.

So lets say the owner of this driving licence transitions from male to female then the six digits that contain date of birth and gender of her new driving licence would change to this 661249.

Sounds complicated perhaps, the easiest way to remember is that the second digit is 0 or 1 for male and 5 or 6 for female. Everyone I know that has sent for a new licence has had a properly updated driver number but it's worth checking just in case they've made a mistake.

.. Hi there Chrisse PurplePrincess
I have just checked mine and the second digit is a 6
Thank you for that ,oh and I love the sloganizer
love and peace to all
Lady Tanya

.. Hi there Chrisse PurplePrincess
I have just checked mine and the second digit is a 6
Thank you for that ,oh and I love the sloganizer
love and peace to all
Lady Tanya

I was very happy when I sent mine in to get the name changed and my number came back as a 0.