Registering a kit car in the UK: IVA, the new DVLA rules and which plate you get

Registering a kit car in Britain got considerably clearer on 26 August 2025, and most of what you will read about it was written before that date.

On that day DVLA replaced its long-standing policies for “rebuilt” and “radically altered” vehicles with new ones for repaired, restored and modified vehicles, after a consultation that drew more than 1,350 responses. The gov.uk guide was restructured at the same time, which is why links in older forum threads now land on a generic overview page rather than the rules they once pointed at.

This is the process as it stands now, from the approval test through to the number plate, and including the consequence that most builders discover too late.

First, the approval test

A kit car that has never been registered in the UK has to pass Individual Vehicle Approval before DVLA will register it. The IVA scheme covers amateur-built vehicles along with personal imports, rebuilt vehicles and motor caravans. It cannot be used for a vehicle that has previously been registered in the UK.

Basic IVA is the amateur-builder’s route, and it involves a visual inspection and tests to confirm the vehicle meets the necessary standards. The current statutory fee for a car is in the region of £450 for an inspection in working hours, with a higher fee for out-of-hours slots and fees for retests, and the inspection itself runs to several hours. Confirm the current figure on gov.uk before budgeting, because fees are revised.

Tests are carried out at DVSA test centres. You choose one from the published list when you apply, and DVSA aims to offer an inspection within twenty working days at the location you chose wherever possible.

The test is the gate. No certificate, no registration, and the work that follows is all paperwork.

Three kinds of kit car, in DVLA’s eyes

The new rules make a distinction that decides everything afterwards, and it is worth understanding before the first part is bought.

A kit-built vehicle is one where all the parts are supplied new by the manufacturer. Prove that, and the car can be registered with a current registration number, as if it were a new car. DVLA also allows a current number where one reconditioned non-structural component has been used.

A kit conversion is a kit fitted to a single donor vehicle. Here the donor’s identity can survive, on conditions set out below.

A reconstructed classic is a vehicle built from genuine period components from more than one vehicle, all over forty years old and of the same specification as the original. The relevant enthusiasts’ club must inspect the vehicle and confirm it is a true reflection of the make and model before DVLA will register it with an age-related number.

Everything outside those three, including a car built from an assortment of used parts of uncertain origin, heads towards a Q plate.

The points system, and which number you get

For a kit conversion, DVLA’s rule is specific. The vehicle keeps the donor’s original registration number if the original unaltered chassis or monocoque bodyshell is used along with two other major components from the donor.

If a new chassis or bodyshell from a kit manufacturer is used together with two major donor components, the vehicle gets an age-related number appropriate to the donor’s age rather than the donor’s own mark.

With fewer donor components than that, or where the donor’s registration is unknown, the result is a Q plate.

For structurally modified vehicles more generally, the replacement for the old “radically altered” policy is a points-based test: to keep the original registration number, a vehicle must score eight or more points, with five of those required from having the original, or a new and unmodified, chassis, monocoque bodyshell or frame. A vehicle with fewer than eight points, or one built on a second-hand or altered chassis or bodyshell, meaning one that has been drilled, cut or welded, does not keep its number.

The practical lesson is that the chassis decides. Keep the donor’s chassis or shell original and unmodified and the donor’s identity can survive the build; cut it, or replace it with something used, and it cannot.

The paperwork

The application is made on the V55 form, with the vehicle parts statement, V627/1, completed for a kit-built vehicle, a kit conversion, a reconstructed classic, or a like-for-like replacement chassis or bodyshell.

The evidence DVLA wants is official receipts or invoices from identifiable suppliers for the major components used in the build, and copies are acceptable. Each must show the component’s identification or serial number where it has one, its specification and its provenance. A folder of receipts assembled as the build goes along is worth far more than one reconstructed from memory at the end, and DVLA may inspect the vehicle before registering it.

What a Q plate actually means

DVLA issues Q registration numbers to vehicles whose age or identity is in doubt, and the consequences run deeper than the letter on the plate.

The original number becomes invalid permanently. Once a Q is issued, any original registration must never be displayed again. There is no route back.

The car must pass type approval to get one, which for a kit means the IVA above.

It will never be MOT exempt. The historic MOT exemption at forty years does not apply to vehicles with a Q prefix, to kit cars assembled from components of different makes and models, to kit conversions where new parts have been added to an existing vehicle, or to reconstructed classics. All are treated as substantially changed. A Q-plated car is tested every year for as long as it is on the road, however old it gets.

That last point is the one builders most often discover afterwards, and it is the reason the donor’s chassis matters so much. A kit conversion on an original, unaltered donor shell that keeps its registration is on a different legal footing for the rest of its life from an identical car that did not. The wider rules on which vehicles qualify for exemption, and the separate tax question, are in our guide to tax and MOT exemption.

Before you start building

The sequence that saves grief is to decide the registration outcome you want before buying the donor, and to build towards it.

If the aim is an age-related or original number, source a donor with a sound, unmodified chassis or shell and keep it that way, because drilling or welding it changes the outcome. Keep every receipt from the first day. Photograph the donor’s identification plate and chassis number before anything is removed. And read the current gov.uk pages for kit-built, kit-converted, structurally modified and reconstructed classic vehicles rather than a forum post from before August 2025, because the rules those posts describe no longer exist.

Kit cars occupy a particular corner of the British classic world, one with its own marques, its own history and its own reasons for existing, and the registration rules above are only the administrative edge of it. The cars themselves are covered in our guide to British kit cars.