What Changed in Nepal's Driving Licence System Under EDLVRS

Eligibility

• First-time applicants for any Nepali driving licence category
• Existing holders renewing a licence that is close to expiry
• Holders adding a new vehicle category to a current licence
• Anyone requesting a duplicate or copy of an issued licence
• Applicants tracking the print status of a licence already approved
• Vehicle owners handling registration and revenue payment
• Anyone whose previous licence portal bookmark stopped working after Shrawan 2083

Required documents checklist

• □ National ID card, or the Nagarik App installed with your NID available to scan
• □ Citizenship certificate
• □ Passport-size photographs
• □ Your existing driving licence, for renewal, category addition or a duplicate request
• □ Blood group record
• □ Medical report, where your service or licence category requires one
• □ A payment method for the applicable revenue and service charges
• □ Existing vehicle registration documents, for vehicle registration services
• □ The exact provincial portal address, taken from dotm.gov.np rather than a search result

Step-by-step process

1. Identify the portal that applies to you. EDLVRS is deployed province by province, and a national route at applydl.dotm.gov.np has also been reported as active. Start from dotm.gov.np rather than a search result, because third-party sites reproduce outdated addresses.
2. Scan the QR code on your National ID card or in the Nagarik App. This populates your name, date of birth and identity details straight from the government record, which removes the spelling and date mismatches that cause a large share of rejections.
3. Choose the correct service flow before entering anything. New application, renewal, category addition, licence copy and tracking are separate journeys, and starting the wrong one is the commonest reason applicants cannot proceed.
4. Complete the online form for that specific service and check the auto-filled fields against your own documents before submitting.
5. Pay the revenue online through the portal and save the payment confirmation. That receipt is your evidence if a record does not appear later.
6. Attend your transport office for the steps that did not move online: biometrics, the written examination, the practical trial and medical verification.
7. Prepare for the written exam using DoTM's own published question sets. The department publishes Category B and Category AK papers for 2082-83 as downloads on dotm.gov.np.
8. Track printing after approval. DoTM publishes office-by-office lists of printed licences, separated into regular and urgent, so you can check rather than guess.
9. If a step fails or a record is missing, contact your transport office using DoTM's published office contact directory instead of a third-party helpline.

Fees and timelines

• DoTM has not published a single consolidated EDLVRS fee schedule in an accessible page format. Revenue and service charges vary by licence category, by service type and in some cases by province.
• Confirm the current amount on your provincial portal at the payment step, or at your transport office, before paying anything. A fee quoted on a third-party website, including this guide, is not a reliable basis for payment.
• DoTM does not publish a guaranteed processing time for licence issue or printing.
• The realistic sequence is online application and payment, then an office appointment for biometrics and examination, then a wait for printing. Only the printing stage is publicly visible.
• DoTM publishes office-by-office lists of licences ready for distribution, split into regular and urgent categories, which is the practical way to check progress.
• If you are planning around travel or a job start date, work backwards from the office appointment rather than from the online submission date.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the old portal simply broke. The entry point moved and was reorganised by province. Retrying a dead bookmark will not resolve it; start from dotm.gov.np.
• Using a third-party apply-here page. Several commercial sites reproduce the licence form and rank well in search. Some are outdated, and handing your National ID details to any of them is an avoidable risk. The portal address should sit on a gov.np domain.
• Trying to finish everything online. Biometrics, the written exam, the trial and medical verification did not move. Applicants who submit online and then wait for a licence to arrive are waiting for something that will not come until they attend in person.
• Treating the National ID as optional. It is now a prerequisite rather than one acceptable identity document among several. If you have not enrolled, that is the first task and it runs on its own timeline.
• Typing details manually when the QR scan is available. Manual entry reintroduces exactly the name and date mismatches that cause rejection.
• Assuming one province's process matches another's. Because deployment is provincial, portal addresses, payment behaviour and appointment booking can differ. Guidance written for one province may not hold in another.
• Starting the wrong service flow and then trying to correct it mid-application rather than exiting and beginning again.
• Paying a fee quoted by a third party instead of the amount shown at the portal payment step.

Office and portal links

FAQ