Vehicle Licensing & Road User Charges

Get Your Vehicle Licence (Registration) Sorted

Vehicle Licensing means paying a fee to use your vehicle on public roads. This is the label that is displayed on your windscreen. Most vehicles in New Zealand must be registered and display a valid vehicle licence (also known as a rego).

NZTA will send you a renewal notice in the mail four weeks before your rego expires. This includes information about the costs and your options.

Don’t wait for your rego label, get it right away at VTNZ. We can also line up your WoF and rego renewal dates so you can get them all sorted at once.

All you’ll need is a current WoF or CoF  and your vehicle’s licence plate number and we can do the rest.

Get Your Road User Charges Sorted

Owners of vehicles powered by a fuel that isn’t taxed, like diesel vehicles, must pay road user charges. Heavy vehicles with a manufacturer’s gross laden weight of more than 3.5 tonnes (3,500kg) also incur road user charges. This includes non-powered trailers.

You can be fined if your Road User Charges run out – so it’s important to keep up to date.

Find out more about how VTNZ can help your business stay on top of Vehicle Licensing and Road User Charges. Contact us.

What type of RUC licence do I need?

Distance licence

If you own a diesel powered car, ute, van or heavy vehicle you’ll need a distance licence. A distance licence is purchased in 1000km units (or multiples of 1,000).

RUC weight

Every vehicle has been allocated a permanent RUC weight.

The RUC weight of the vehicle is the lesser of the:

• gross vehicle mass for the RUC vehicle, or
• maximum allowable mass for the RUC vehicle under section 4.5(1) of Part 1 of the Vehicle Dimensions and Mass Rule 2002 (VDAM Rule).

The RUC rates tell you how much you will need to pay depending on the permanent RUC weight of your vehicle.

Over the permanent RUC weight

If you have a permit allowing you to carry loads heavier than your permanent RUC weight, you can:

• apply for an additional licence for the towing vehicle for each individual load that covers the additional weight carried under the permit, or
• change your towing vehicle to an H RUC vehicle type and have an H distance licence. This option is designed for vehicles that run overweight most of the time.

To change to an H RUC vehicle type, you need to complete a Road user charges application to change to H RUC vehicle type form (RUCCV-H) (PDF, 2 pages, 80 KB) and send it in to the NZ Transport Agency.