Hi all, i have all my licence categories on my irish licence but i’m getting married and moving up to northern ireland. I was going to exchange my licence but came across this on the ni dva web site :
DVA do not exchange any bus or lorry entitlements from licences issued in a designated country - this also applies if you passed any lorry/bus tests in a designated country
Can anyone tell me does this mean i’ll lose all my artic and coach entitlements? Thanks in advance
As far as I’m aware, an HGV licence issued in an EU country will allow you to keep driving in NI until you’re age 45 or 5 years after you become a NI resident whichever is longer. Don’t know what happens after this though.
doc95:
I was going to exchange my licence but came across this on the ni dva web site : DVA do not exchange any bus or lorry entitlements from licences issued in a designated country - this also applies if you passed any lorry/bus tests in a designated country
Where did you take your tests? Ireland? Ireland isn’t a “designated country” it’s European Economic Area (EEA). You won’t lose your artic and coach entitlements. Helps if you read the right bit of the page like. 
nidirect.gov.uk/index/inform … icence.htm
A “designated country” is:
Australia
Barbados
British Virgin Islands
Provinces and Territories of Canada
Falkland Islands
Faroe Islands
Hong Kong
Japan
New Zealand
Monaco
Republic of Korea
Singapore
South Africa
Switzerland
Zimbabwe
Ireland isn’t in that list, it’s in the other one (EEA). In which case what wing-nut says applies.
My dad had an Irish license with every category on it. Sent it off to coleraine to get a UK license - they sent him a provisional car license! When he rang up to complain he was told that they didn’t recognise the Irish test, probably due to licenses just being handed out if you’d had a provisional for so many years. He had to resit every part of every test - car (on R plates for a year at the age of 55!), class 2 and class 1, including all hazard perceptions and theory’s! That was 7 years ago, so things may have changed, but he was proper ■■■■■■ off!
Why do you want to change it over anyhow , it perfectly legal to keep it and drive in the uk or northern ireland with it and its more difficult to get points on it there
jprioredi:
Sent it off to coleraine to get a UK license…That was 7 years ago, so things may have changed
Aye, Coleraine is closed now. Everything done by Swansea now and they can make just as big of a pig’s ear of it if you’re unlucky.
nedflanders:
Why do you want to change it over anyhow
Depending on where he’s driving, he might feel that he’d prefer to point dodge points in the 26 of the 32 counties. 
Besides that, he also might not want to do 7hrs of CPC crap every year and just do it in the one block at the last minute.
Send licence off with a new photo to the DVLNI or DVLA whichever is relevant for where you are and you then get back a new licence with your current address on it if you tell them what that is
cost is under £25
Got it sorted, rang dvla ni, i can keep all my licences but with the coach i have to get a back ground check through access ni. i just need to renew it every 5 years, money racket. Judging by the comments i think i’ll just drive away on my southern licence and easier cpcs.
Thanks lads.