How much does a motorcycle licence cost in the UK?

What the government charges

Only four charges go to the state, and they are the same everywhere in Great Britain. A first provisional driving licence costs £34 if you apply online and £43 on a paper D1 form, so there is a nine pound premium for using the post. You can apply from the age of 15 years and 9 months, and it is worth doing early because the provisional has to be in your hand before a school will put you on a bike.

The motorcycle theory test costs £23. That single fee covers both halves, the 50 multiple-choice questions and the hazard perception clips, and you have to pass both on the same visit. Module 1, the off-road manoeuvres test, costs £15.50. Module 2, the on-road test, costs £75 on a weekday, rising to £88.50 in the evening, at a weekend or on a bank holiday.

Take the cheapest legitimate path and the DVSA side of a full A1 or AM licence comes to about £147.50. That figure is worth remembering, because it is the part nobody can mark up. If a training school quotes you a package, ask them to separate the DVSA fees from their own charge. Any school that will not do so is not a school you want.

One important caveat: CBT is not a DVSA test and has no official price. It is delivered by approved training bodies who set their own rates, which is why the same course costs £130 in one town and £200 in another.

What training schools charge

CBT is the entry point and typically runs from about £130 to £200 for the day, including the use of a school bike, a helmet and usually gloves. Prices sit at the top of that range in London and the South East and at the bottom in smaller towns. If you bring your own machine some schools knock off twenty pounds or so, but you will need it taxed, insured and MOT’d, which for most beginners is a chicken-and-egg problem.

Beyond CBT, training is sold either by the hour or as a package. Hourly rates for direct access instruction run from roughly £40 to £70 depending on region and machine size. Packages are more common and more predictable: a two-day A1 or A2 course with both tests included generally lands between £550 and £800, while a three to five day Direct Access course for category A usually falls between £750 and £1,200.

The two questions that actually determine what you pay are these. First, does the package include bike hire on test day, and does it include the DVSA fees or are they extra? Second, what happens if you fail? Some schools include one retest, others charge a fresh day rate plus the fee, and the difference between those two policies can be two hundred pounds. Get both answers in writing before you book.

Absolute beginners should also be realistic about extra days. A rider who has never touched a clutch will rarely get through Direct Access in the advertised three days. Schools know this; the honest ones will tell you at the assessment stage, and the assessment ride itself is usually free.

Three worked budgets

A 16-year-old on a moped. Provisional licence £34, CBT about £160, and that is legally enough to ride a 50cc moped on L plates. Total to get on the road: roughly £195 plus kit. If you go on to the full AM licence, add the theory test at £23, both modules at £90.50 and a two-day training package at around £500, taking you to about £800 in total.

A 17-year-old on a 125. Same start: provisional £34 and CBT at about £160, which allows a 125cc bike on L plates immediately. Most riders in this position stay on CBT for a year or two and simply renew it, which costs another £160 every two years. Taking the full A1 instead means the theory test, a two-day course and both modules, so around £750 to £900 all in. Two CBT renewals cost more than half that, so if you plan to keep riding, the full licence pays for itself surprisingly quickly.

An adult on Direct Access. Provisional £34, CBT about £170, theory £23, a four-day DAS package at around £950 with bike hire, and both test fees at £90.50. That is roughly £1,270 to a full unrestricted category A licence, assuming you pass both modules first time. Budget an extra £250 or so for a retest day and fee, because roughly a third of candidates need one.

None of these figures include the bike, the kit or the insurance. Those are covered below, and for a first-time rider they usually add another £700 to £1,500 before the bike itself.

The kit you cannot skip

A helmet is the only item the law requires, and it must meet UN ECE 22.06 or a British Standard equivalent. Everything else is optional in law and essential in practice. A competent first set costs between £250 and £600 new, and the split usually looks something like this: helmet £100 to £300, jacket £80 to £200, gloves £30 to £80, trousers £70 to £150 and boots £70 to £150.

Buy the helmet first and buy it in person. Head shapes differ, and a helmet that fits badly is both less safe and unbearable after an hour. Never buy a second-hand helmet: you cannot see the damage a single drop has done to the shell liner. Everything else can reasonably be bought used, and end-of-season sales on last year’s textile gear are the single easiest saving available to a new rider.

Check the clothing labels for the EN 17092 rating. Class AAA offers the most abrasion protection and Class A the least, with armour at CE Level 1 or the tougher Level 2 at the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. A textile jacket at Class AA with Level 2 armour is a sensible target for road riding and costs far less than leather.

Most schools lend a helmet and gloves for CBT, so you do not have to buy anything before your first day. Use that day to find out whether you actually enjoy riding before you spend several hundred pounds.

What it costs once you have passed

Insurance is the volatile number. A 17-year-old on a 125 in a city can be quoted well over £1,000 a year, while the same bike for a 30-year-old in a small town might be £250. Third party fire and theft is often more expensive than comprehensive, so always price both. A named older rider, a garage or a locked driveway, a Thatcham-approved alarm and a lower annual mileage all move the number meaningfully.

Vehicle tax is comparatively trivial and banded by engine size, running from roughly £25 a year for the smallest machines to about £120 for a large capacity bike. An MOT is required from the bike’s third birthday and is capped at £29.65. Fuel is where motorcycles genuinely win: a 125 will return 100 miles per gallon or better, and even a large sports tourer will beat most cars.

The line people forget is servicing and consumables. A first service on a new bike runs £100 to £200, chains and sprockets are £120 to £250 fitted, and a pair of tyres for a mid-capacity bike is £200 to £350. On a 125 ridden gently these are annual costs at most. On a large bike ridden hard, tyres alone can be a twice-yearly expense.

If you are weighing a bike against a car for commuting, run those numbers honestly. Motorcycles are cheaper to tax, fuel and park, but the training, kit and insurance front-load the cost in year one.

How to keep the bill down

Book Module 2 on a weekday. The out-of-hours premium is £13.50 every time you sit it, and if you need a retest that is money spent twice. Apply for the provisional licence online rather than by post and save £9 for two minutes of typing.

Do the theory test early, before you book training. It is valid for two years, it costs £23, and it is the one part you can revise for at home for nothing using the official practice questions. Turning up to a booked training week without a theory pass is how people lose deposits.

Ring at least three schools and compare like for like: hours of instruction, whether DVSA fees are included, whether bike hire on test day is included, and the retest policy. Ask specifically whether the price assumes you already ride. Quotes that look two hundred pounds apart are often identical once you normalise those four variables, and occasionally the more expensive one is genuinely cheaper.

Finally, think about the sequence. If you are 17 and certain you will ride for years, going straight to the full A1 usually beats renewing CBT twice. If you are 19 or over and will eventually want a bigger bike, going directly to A2 avoids paying for the A1 test on the way. And if you are 24 or over, Direct Access is nearly always cheaper than climbing the ladder one category at a time.

What expires, and what is yours for good

Three clocks run at once and it is worth knowing which is which. The CBT certificate, DL196, lasts two years from the day you complete it. When it expires you retake the whole course at full price; there is no shorter refresher option. The theory test pass certificate also lasts two years, and if it runs out before you pass Module 2 you pay the £23 again and sit the whole thing again.

Full licence entitlements do not expire. Once category AM, A1, A2 or A is on your licence it stays there, subject to the usual medical and renewal rules on the photocard itself. That is the real argument for taking the tests rather than living on CBT renewals: you pay once instead of every second year, and you drop the L plates, the pillion ban and the motorway ban at the same time.

If you are still deciding which category to aim for, our guides to CBT, the A1 licence, the A2 licence and the full category A licence set out the age limits, machine limits and test requirements for each.