Transport commissioner confirms late renewal increase

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clark has de­nied claims that mo­torists who re­new their dri­ver’s per­mits late are be­ing barred from ac­cess­ing the 10-year li­cence op­tion, fol­low­ing pub­lic com­plaints of sharply in­creased costs and con­fu­sion at some li­cens­ing of­fices.

Clark was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia af­ter dri­vers re­port­ed be­ing charged a $600 penal­ty for late re­newals and be­ing told that even a one-day de­lay au­to­mat­i­cal­ly dis­qual­i­fies them from re­new­ing for 10 years.

“To al­low once your li­cence ex­pires, late fees must be ap­plied. That is sec­tion 61A of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act,” Clark said.

How­ev­er, he re­ject­ed as­ser­tions that late re­new­al pre­vents mo­torists from qual­i­fy­ing for a 10-year per­mit.

“We do not pre­vent any­one from re­new­ing their per­mit for 10 years sub­se­quent­ly when a de­lay is ap­plied. That is not a prac­tice of Li­cens­ing,” he said.

The con­cerns emerged, as mo­torists en­coun­tered and shared pic­tures of re­ceipts show­ing high­er fees un­der amend­ments in­tro­duced by the Fi­nance Act of 2025. Guardian Me­dia re­viewed a re­ceipt dat­ed Jan­u­ary 5, 2026 (Ref: T367647YIY), show­ing a mo­torist charged a $600 late re­new­al penal­ty for a per­mit ex­pired for less than six months. The penal­ty was ap­plied to a stan­dard five-year re­new­al, tra­di­tion­al­ly priced at $500, along with a $35 change of ad­dress fee, bring­ing the to­tal cost to $1,135.

The in­creased charges re­flect leg­isla­tive changes rather than a sys­tem mal­func­tion. Un­der the Fi­nance Act of 2025, the penal­ty for li­cences ex­pired for six months or less was dou­bled from $300 to $600.

Be­yond the high­er penal­ties, mo­torists al­so re­port­ed be­ing told that late re­newals are now re­strict­ed to five-year li­cences on­ly. Un­der ex­ist­ing reg­u­la­tions, dri­vers un­der age 56 are el­i­gi­ble for a 10-year per­mit at a cost of $1,000.

Clark said he con­tact­ed the Port of Spain Li­cens­ing Of­fice af­ter the re­ports sur­faced.

“I con­firmed with the su­per­vi­sor for Port of Spain. He men­tioned to me that he held a meet­ing this morn­ing with his staff and in­formed them that this is not the prac­tice that was be­fore,” Clark said.

He added that a sec­ond meet­ing was be­ing con­vened to re­in­force the cor­rect pro­ce­dure.

“I don’t know if some­one may have giv­en mis­in­for­ma­tion, but that is not a prac­tice of the Li­cens­ing De­part­ment. Un­der the law, you are al­lowed to move for­ward with the 10 years,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke with Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our, who con­firmed the same po­si­tion out­lined by the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er.

He said the added crowds in cer­tain li­cenc­ing of­fices to­day were as a re­sult of peo­ple com­ing to com­plete the process of the trans­fer to ve­hi­cles.

Za­k­our said a full re­lease on the mat­ter will be is­sued lat­er.