Millions of Older Drivers Could Now Pay Doctors £62.50 for a DVLA Medical Letter

• The fee doctors charge to complete a DVLA driving licence medical report has jumped to £62.50 from 1 April 2026, up from £40 before January, the first rise in this fee in 14 years.
• There are now 6.2 million full car licence holders aged 70 or over in the UK, up from 3.9 million just 12 years ago, a rise of 59 percent.
• The fee is set to rise again each April from 2027, capped at 5 percent a year in line with inflation, under an agreement between the British Medical Association and the DVLA.

Turning 70 does not cost a UK driver anything at the point of renewal. The “Renew at 70” service on GOV.UK is free, and most drivers who complete the health declaration truthfully and have nothing to report will get a new licence in the post within days. The bill only lands when a driver has to declare a medical condition that could affect their fitness to drive, and the DVLA asks a GP or consultant to confirm it in writing. That letter now costs £62.50, a figure set out in a new fee agreement between the British Medical Association and the DVLA that took full effect on 1 April 2026.

The rise has gone through in two steps. Before January 2026, GPs were paid £40 and consultants £42 for completing what the profession calls a “Series 2” medical report, a flat rate that had stood untouched for 14 years. From 1 January 2026 the two rates were harmonised at £50, then increased again to £62.50 from 1 April. Taken from the original £40 GP rate, that is a rise of more than 56 percent in three months. The BMA has confirmed the fee will keep climbing from April 2027 and April 2028, capped at 5 percent a year against the consumer price inflation index, so this is not a one-off spike but a new, permanently higher baseline.

Why more drivers than ever are exposed to the fee

The reason this fee touches more people than it once did is demographic, not just financial. Britain’s population of licence holders aged 70 and over has grown from 3.9 million twelve years ago to 6.2 million today, now accounting for roughly 14.7 percent of the UK’s 42 million full car licence holders. Every one of those drivers must renew every three years once they pass 70, and a growing share of them are driving with a long-term condition that requires medical sign-off, from diabetes managed with insulin to epilepsy, heart conditions, sleep apnoea or reduced visual fields. None of those conditions automatically end a driving career, but almost all of them now come with a paperwork cost that did not exist at this level a year ago.

The BMA’s own published fee schedule sets out exactly what a driver could be charged depending on what the DVLA needs. A standard GP Series 2 report is £62.50, the same figure a consultant charges for their equivalent report. A full GP medical examination, rather than a report based on existing notes, is £85. A consultant examination or a vocational exercise test for bus and lorry entitlement is £136.50. A blood test taken purely for DVLA purposes is £39, on top of any report fee. None of these are NHS-funded services; GPs and consultants are permitted to set their own private fees for this kind of paperwork, so the BMA figures are a recommended rate rather than a legal maximum, and some practices charge more.

For drivers who hold or want to keep C1 or D1 entitlement, the kind needed to drive a minibus or a larger van or lorry-class vehicle past 70, the bill is higher still. Those drivers face a mandatory medical assessment every three years using a DVLA D4 form, which typically pulls in the full examination fee rather than the cheaper report-only rate. A single check-up can run past £100 once a practice’s own charges are added to the DVLA-recommended base.

The scale of this is not trivial. If even a modest share of the UK’s 6.2 million over-70 licence holders needs a medical letter at renewal, doctors’ surgeries stand to collect several million pounds a year in fees that barely existed as a talking point twelve months ago. For the individual driver, £62.50 is not a bank-breaking sum on its own, but it lands at the same time as rising car insurance, breakdown cover and fuel costs, and it is a fee that simply did not exist for most people renewing a licence before this year.

There is also a knock-on cost in time. The DVLA has separately faced criticism over how long it takes to process licences once a medical report has been submitted, with waits stretching to several weeks in some cases while a driver is left unable to drive. A doctor’s letter costing £62.50 is only the start of the process, not the end of it, and a driver who needs a repeat test or a specialist referral could be charged more than once before a decision comes through.

Can you avoid the fee?

Not every driver over 70 will ever see this bill, and there are ways to keep the cost down for those who might.

Most over-70 renewals stay free. If a driver’s health declaration on the “Renew at 70” form is a genuine “no” to every listed condition, GOV.UK processes the renewal without involving a GP at all. The fee only applies once a condition is declared, or the DVLA specifically writes back asking for medical evidence, so honest, healthy drivers with nothing to report should never be charged.

Ask the practice for its rate before booking. The BMA figures are a guide rather than a fixed price, so GP fees for this paperwork vary between surgeries, and some charge noticeably more than £62.50 for a Series 2 report or £85 for a full examination. A short phone call to ask what the practice charges, and whether a report from existing notes will do rather than a full new examination, can avoid an unexpectedly high bill.

Check whether a letter is actually required. The DVLA’s medical enquiries team can sometimes confirm over the phone whether a condition needs a doctor’s letter at all, especially for conditions that are well controlled or have already been assessed in the past three years. It is worth asking before paying for a report that later turns out not to have been needed.

Keep a copy of any letter paid for. If a condition needs reassessing at the next renewal in three years, a GP with the original report on file can sometimes update it more quickly and cheaply than starting again, rather than commissioning a fresh full examination.

Budget for the fee to rise again. With increases already locked in for April 2027 and April 2028, a driver who expects to need a medical letter at a future renewal should plan for a higher figure than £62.50, not the same one.

Sources: British Medical Association, “Fees for driver licensing and the DVLA,” bma.org.uk, updated 14 April 2026 (fee schedule effective 1 January and 1 April 2026, and confirmation of annual uplifts from April 2027 and 2028); British Medical Association, “Fee rise for driving licence form filling,” bma.org.uk (agreement background and first rise in 14 years); population figures on licensed drivers aged 70 and over compiled from DVLA driving licence data cited in UK driving licence renewal guidance published 2026.