The Motor Vehicles (Exchangeable Licences) (Amendment) Order (Northern Ireland) 2026 was made by the Department for Infrastructure on 15 April 2026 and comes into operation on 1 June 2026. Its main effect is to amend the 2022 exchangeable licences regime so that eligible category B car licences connected to Moldova can be exchanged for a corresponding Northern Ireland licence. In the preamble, the Department states that it is satisfied Moldova's licensing system makes satisfactory provision for the granting of the relevant licences. That finding is the legal basis for adding Moldova to the list of jurisdictions recognised under Article 19D of the Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1981.
The Explanatory Note to the statutory rule says the change is limited to licences authorising category B vehicles, meaning cars. In practical terms, the new route is available where the licence was issued by Moldovan authorities to a person who passed a driving test in Moldova, or where Moldova issued the licence by exchange after the person had passed a test in the United Kingdom, an EEA state, a country already listed in Tables 1 to 3 of Schedule 1, or a jurisdiction listed in Schedule 2. That point matters because the Order is concerned with the origin of the underlying driving entitlement, not only the country printed on the current licence. For licence holders, employers and advisers, the test history behind the document now becomes a key part of the eligibility check.
The amendment also creates a new Table 4 in Schedule 1 and uses that category for the Moldova designation. The drafting is deliberately narrow. A licence that has been granted by exchange, and which traces back to a driving test passed in a Table 4 country, cannot be exchanged in Northern Ireland for a wider set of entitlements such as AM, B+E, F, K, Q, A1 or A2, even if those entitlements appear on a licence issued by another recognised country. According to the legislation, the exchange route therefore applies to the car entitlement, not to every additional vehicle class that may have been added later through another jurisdiction's rules. For employers, fleet operators and anyone checking a driver's status for work purposes, that is a material limit.
The Order also preserves the distinction between manual and automatic transmission. Where a person originally passed a driving test in an automatic vehicle, any Northern Ireland licence issued on exchange will authorise automatic vehicles only, even if the incoming licence authorises manual driving in the issuing country. This reflects the existing approach taken in Northern Ireland licensing law. The practical effect is that an exchanged licence should not be treated as evidence of manual entitlement unless the underlying test record supports it.
A second change concerns Gibraltar. The amendment inserts Gibraltar into Schedule 2, which is the list of countries and territories from which a current licence may already have been exchanged before it is presented for exchange in Northern Ireland. The Explanatory Note presents this as a clarifying amendment rather than a new recognition decision. Licences issued in Gibraltar were already exchangeable in their own right under the 1981 Order, and the 2026 instrument adjusts the 2022 framework so that Gibraltar is also properly reflected in the chain-of-exchange provisions.
From 1 June 2026, the immediate policy outcome is straightforward: some drivers with Moldova-linked car licences will be able to move into the Northern Ireland licensing system without taking a fresh local test. The eligibility rules, however, are more exacting than a simple country list. Decision-makers will need to check whether the licence is category B, where the original driving test was passed, and whether the entitlement is automatic-only. Taken as a whole, the Department for Infrastructure's legislation and accompanying Explanatory Note describe a targeted addition to the 2022 Order rather than a broad expansion of mutual recognition. The change opens a defined administrative route for car licences while preserving existing limits around transmission type and wider vehicle categories.