Financial Resources

As we are all aware, you require financial resources to be available to run your transport operation and equally in the event of a major component failure, as well as ongoing operational maintenance. Sufficient funds should also be available to ensure that all repairs, including major items, such as a replacement clutch or a new engine can be purchased without leaving your finances severely reduced.

There are three types of operator licenses. All of them require sufficient financial resources to be made available to obtain an operator licence. The licence types and financial resources to be made available are:

Restricted Licences

This allows the carriage of goods on an own account basis within the UK and abroad. The current legislation does not require a Standard licence for International own account movements, but the driver should carry an own account document.

The European Legislation 1072/2009 provides the following definition of what is own account operations, or ‘not hire and reward’, which contains the following conditions:

• The goods carried must be the property of the undertaking or must have been sold, bought, let out on hire or hired, produced, extracted, processed or repaired by the undertaking.
• The purpose of the journey be to carry the goods to or from the undertaking or to move them, either inside or outside the undertaking for its own requirements.
• Motor vehicles used for such carriage must be driven by personnel employed by, or put at the disposal of, the undertaking under contractual obligation.
• The vehicles carrying the goods must be owned by the undertaking or have been bought by it on deferred terms or hired.
• Carriage must be no more than ancillary to the overall activities of the undertaking.

Rates for Restricted Licenses from 01 January 2021 are:

• £3,100 for the first vehicle
• £1,700 for every other vehicle

Standard National and Standard International Licenses

The current figures for goods vehicles and buses on a Standard National or Standard International licence are:

• £8,000 for the first vehicle
• £4,500 for every other vehicle

This is calculated based on the number of vehicle spaces you applied for on your licence application. For example, if you requested 15 vehicle spaces on your licence, this would require proof that you have sufficient funds to cover this as an average. It is therefore calculated as follows:

£8,000 (1^st Vehicle) + 14 x £4,500 = £71,000

In the case of Standard International Licenses, the rules changed on 21 May 2022 to include vehicles that have a GVW of between 2.5t and 3.5t and are used for ‘hire and reward’, when entering the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. In cases involving these vehicle types, these vehicles will need to be added to the licence, and therefore there must be sufficient vehicle spaces on the licence.

It therefore follows, that additional financial resources must be available to cover these additional vehicles also.

For van only fleets operating on an international licence it is:

• £1,600 for the first van
• £800 for every other van

Examples

1. An International Operator with no HGVs or PCVs, but 6 vans of 3.5t, which would require the following financial resource

£1,600 (1^st Van) + 5 (additional Vans) x £800 = £5,600

• An International Operator with 15 HGVs or PCVs, plus 6 vans of 3.5t would require the following financial resources:

£8,000 (1^st HGV/PCV Vehicle) + 14 (additional HGVs/PCVs) x £4,500 + 6 (vans) x £800 = £75,800

More details can be found in the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Document on finance.

Financial standing is not a fee that must be paid for a licence; it is the resources that must be available for the duration of the licence.

Source – Traffic Commissioners