The smart licence card is the licence. It is the bank-card-sized plastic that Nepal has issued since December 2015, chipped from the start and carrying a QR code on newer cards, and it replaced the cardboard licence that transport offices used to fill in by hand.
Most people arrive here with one of two questions. Has mine been printed?
Check the print list DOTM publishes, text LC and your licence number to 33001,
or open the Driving License section of the Nagarik App. How long does printing
take? For four years nobody could tell you, because 2.9 million applications
had stacked up behind the queue. That backlog was reported cleared in mid-July
2026. What replaced it is a different problem, and it is below.
Not there yet, still facing the exam? Yatayat Likhit has the full DOTM question bank, free and offline.
What the smart card replaced
DOTM stopped issuing paper licences on 1 December 2015. The Bagmati transport management office began handing out smart cards on 20 December 2015, and the plan announced at the time was three to five years to convert every licence in circulation. It took considerably longer than that.
The old document was cardboard, written up at the office. The card that replaced it is machine-readable: a chip holds your identity details, and the biometrics you gave at the office (photograph, signature, fingerprints) sit behind the record. Newer cards carry a QR code, which is what a traffic officer scans.
DOTM publishes the sample card with its security features:
dotm.gov.np/content/56/smart-card-driving-license-with-security-features/On the face of the card you should find your name, date of birth, blood group, address, citizenship number, the licence number, every category you hold, the issue and expiry dates, and the office that issued it. Check every one of those at the counter, not at home.
You may not have to carry it at all
This is the part that surprises people who have been waiting years for a piece of plastic. If your licence is linked in the Nagarik App, the traffic police accept the phone.
Nepal Police says so in its own notice on the e-challan and the Nagarik App at traffic.nepalpolice.gov.np/notices/63/: "No Need to Carry a Physical License." The officer scans the QR code shown under the digital licence. The digital licence went live on 20 October 2024 with Nagarik App version 2.0.28, and the police notice above is dated Poush 16, 2081 (31 December 2024). It works offline once the licence is linked, and the same QR is how a digital fine gets attached to your record.
Three practical notes:
- Link it before you need it. Doing it at a checkpoint, on a bad signal, is not the moment.
- The app is showing DOTM's record, not your plastic. If your card has never been printed, ask your own office whether the digital licence will still display for you. I have not seen that answered anywhere official.
- A print-check website is not a licence. It is a status page. That has never counted at a checkpoint and it does not count now.
Has yours been printed?
Three routes, one underlying source. Everything ultimately reads the print lists DOTM publishes per office, per batch, as notices.
| Route | How it works |
|---|---|
| DOTM notices at dotm.gov.np | The lists themselves, per office and per date. The authority, and the least convenient to search |
| SMS to 33001 | Send LC, a space, then your licence number. A small charge applies |
| Nagarik App | Driving License section, added in version 2.0.95. Android first, with iOS to follow |
The Nagarik App message, when your card is ready, reads: "Your driving license has been printed, please collect it from the concerned office." Read that as printed, not as sitting on a counter with your name on it. DOTM had to say so publicly in 2026: the notice fires on the print run, and cards can still be in transit or unsorted when it appears. Your office's own distribution notice is what settles it.
The licence number format, what "not found" actually means, and why a dozen third-party checker sites exist are all covered separately. How the print check works.
Why the wait has been so variable
Any page that gives you a single fixed printing time for a Nepali licence is describing a moment, not a rule. Here is the period this page describes, with dates, so you can judge how stale it has gone by the time you read it.
2022 to 2026: the backlog. Applicants had been driving on payment slips instead of cards since 2022. On 25 March 2026 the Kathmandu Post put the queue at nearly 2.7 million people, with applications going back about four years.
9 September 2025: the fire. DOTM's Minbhawan office was set alight during the Gen Z protests. Of the 22,000 printed cards held there, about 18,000 were destroyed and only some 3,000 came out intact. The blaze also took the licence-printing machines, the embossed number plate plant and the data centre. Services stopped. Renewal restarted on 4 November 2025, at 21 of the 42 transport offices, with staff working from makeshift setups.
October 2025 to July 2026: the clearance. Two contracts with the Security Printing Centre:
| Signed | What was agreed |
|---|---|
| 29 October 2025 | 1.2 million cards, covering applications up to 25 April 2026 |
| 17 April 2026 | 1.7 million more, the second phase closing 16 July 2026 |
On 11 July 2026 the Kathmandu Post reported 2,592,417 cards printed against a backlog of about 2.9 million applications, and quoted Security Printing Centre executive director Dev Raj Dhungana saying the second batch was finished. Counts elsewhere run to 2.74 million, which is the number printed and sent out to offices rather than the number the Post had at press time.
16 April 2026: the 24-hour arrangement. DOTM sends the Centre the data of everyone who passed a trial and paid the revenue by 6pm. The Centre prints overnight and returns the cards during office hours the next day. It puts its own ceiling at 40,000 cards a day, and by July 2026 it was receiving details for three to four thousand applicants a day, so the printing was never the narrow part. Your data reaching the printer was, and the list saying so being published afterwards.
17 July 2026: the new system. Licence services moved onto the province eDLVRS portals on Shrawan 1, 2083, and the switch stalled the counters feeding the printer. On 5 August the Post found most of the 42 transport offices still unable to take new applications, run trials or complete renewals nearly three weeks in, with some doing nothing but handing out already-printed cards. That is the last reporting I can point to. If you are reading this months later, ask your own office where it landed rather than trusting the paragraph above.
So do not read "24 hours" as your waiting time, and do not read the old four-year wait as it either. Check the print list rather than counting days.
The cards DOTM held back
Worth knowing if you applied years ago and nothing has ever appeared.
In July 2026, DOTM held back 307,583 cards that had less than one year of validity left on them. Director Keshav Khatiwada gave the arithmetic as reported: printing them costs about Rs 6.6 crore at Rs 220.54 a card including VAT, the holders would have to renew almost immediately anyway, and an estimated 65 percent of them are working abroad.
The department's position is that those cards print once the holder renews. So if that describes your application, waiting is the one thing that will not produce a card. Your route is renewal, which prints a fresh card with a fresh expiry date. Paying a renewal fee for a card you never physically received feels wrong, and it is still the way out.
Collecting it
The print result names the office holding your card. That is normally the office where you gave your biometrics.
Take with you:
- The original citizenship certificate. Some offices accept other ID, this one always works.
- Your payment receipt or application reference.
- Time. Collection counters get busy from late morning.
Then check the card at the counter, before you leave the building. Name spelling, date of birth, blood group, every category you hold, the licence number and the expiry date. A mistake caught at the counter is a correction. The same mistake found six months later is a fresh application.
If someone else is collecting for you, ring the office first and ask what authorisation they want. It varies between offices, and turning up with the wrong paperwork wastes two people's day instead of one.
Cards genuinely do sit unclaimed. In March 2026, DOTM director Keshav Khatiwada put it at roughly 7,000 uncollected out of about 30,000 printed by then. If a check says yours is printed, go and get it.
Renewing the card
The expiry date is printed on the card. You can renew during the final year of validity, and there is a 35-day grace period after expiry before a late fee applies.
Renewal happens on your province eDLVRS portal, under this service:
नवीकरण तथा प्रतिलिपि अनुरोध (renewal and duplicate request)Renewal and the lost-card duplicate share one form. A renewal produces a new card, so it puts you through the same print and collection cycle again, which is a reason to renew early rather than on the last day. Renewal and the grace period.
An old cardboard licence is converted by renewing it. There is no separate conversion service to look for.
If the card is damaged
Use the same "नवीकरण तथा प्रतिलिपि अनुरोध" service on your province portal. The difference from a lost card is that you still have this one, so you generally do not need a police recommendation. Take the damaged card in. Handing it over is usually part of being issued the replacement.
Ring your office first and ask what they want, because this is one of the details that varies between them.
What counts as damaged enough to bother:
- The QR code will not scan, which is now the card's main job.
- The chip is cracked or the card is split.
- The photograph or the licence number has worn away.
Keeping it intact is mostly about where you put it. Do not carry it loose in a pocket with keys. Do not leave it on a dashboard in the sun. Do not punch a hole in it to put it on a keyring. Do not laminate it: it is already the finished document, and a layer of plastic over the QR is a failed scan waiting for the worst possible moment.
If the card is lost or stolen
Traffic police first, transport office second. Report the loss, get the recommendation letter, then file the duplicate request on your province portal. Going to the transport office first gets you sent away, because the office needs the police recommendation before it issues anything. The full pratilipi process.
Before that ever happens, do the five-minute thing: photograph both sides of the card and save it somewhere you can reach without the card, and write the licence number down separately.
What the card costs
The smart card print charge is reported at NPR 200, on top of whatever your province charges for the application, renewal or duplicate itself.
Since FY 2083/84 each province sets its own fee schedule, so there is no national
table that is right for everyone any more. Check the figure on your own province
portal before you pay, and only ever pay on a gov.np address.
What a licence costs.
Two hostnames people search and should not
Both of these turn up in searches for smart card status, and neither has anything for an applicant:
admin.dotm.gov.npis the staff sign-in for the eDLVRS system. It loads, which is why it keeps surfacing in searches. There is no public lookup behind it and no account you can create.doctor.dotm.gov.npis the examining doctor's portal, where the doctor files your medical result. You never sign in to it.
The public services all live on your province portal. Which portal is yours.
Common mistakes
- Checking the print list daily. The notices update in batches, not in real time. Nothing changes between Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Reading "not found" as "lost". It nearly always means not printed yet, or printed but not yet listed.
- Travelling to collect without checking first. Expensive outside the valley.
- Leaving a printed card at the office for months. Thousands do.
- Not checking the details at the counter. Thirty seconds there saves a fresh application later.
- Waiting on a card DOTM held back. If your licence had under a year of validity left, it prints after you renew, not before.
- Treating a checker screenshot as a licence. Link the real thing in the Nagarik App instead.
Practise before you get to this stage
If you are reading this before you have taken the exams, everything above is the last step, not the first one. The written test comes from a published DOTM bank of about 500 questions, which makes it one of the few exams where covering the whole syllabus is realistic.
I built Yatayat Likhit for exactly that: the full bank with the reason next to each answer, tracking of what you keep getting wrong, timed mocks in the exam format, the Nepali road signs, trial checklists, and an Ishihara-style colour-vision test for the medical. Free, offline, Nepali and English, for categories A, K and B.
Get the app: Yatayat Likhit, free and offline, on iPhone and Android.
Questions people ask
Is the smart card compulsory in Nepal?
It is the only driving licence issued since December 2015, so anyone applying or renewing gets one. Old cardboard licences are converted by renewing them rather than by a separate swap.
How long does a smart licence card take to print now?
The multi-year backlog was cleared as the second printing phase closed on 16 July 2026, and since 16 April 2026 the Security Printing Centre has printed overnight from the day's data and returned the cards the next working day. The catch in 2026 was upstream: the move to the province eDLVRS portals on 17 July stalled applications, trials and renewals at most transport offices for weeks. Check the print list rather than counting days.
Do I still have to carry the physical smart card?
Not if your licence is linked in the Nagarik App. Nepal Police's notice on the e-challan says the physical card is not required when the officer can scan the QR code on your phone. Link it before you need it.
What is stored on the smart card?
Your identity details on the face of it (name, date of birth, blood group, address, citizenship number, licence number, categories, issue and expiry dates) plus a chip and, on newer cards, a QR code that verifies against DOTM's record.
My licence was never printed. What do I do?
Check the print list first, since publishing lags printing. If the licence had less than a year of validity left, it is in the 307,583 DOTM held back in July 2026, and those print only after you renew.
How do I replace a damaged smart card?
Use "नवीकरण तथा प्रतिलिपि अनुरोध" on your province eDLVRS portal, the same service as a duplicate. You normally do not need a police recommendation because you still have the card. Take the damaged one with you.
Can someone else collect my licence for me?
Sometimes, and it depends on the office. Ring first and ask what authorisation they need, because the rules are not uniform and a wasted trip costs two people their morning.
Why did the licence backlog get so bad?
Cards had been queueing since 2022, and the fire at DOTM's Minbhawan office on 9 September 2025 destroyed the printing machines, about 18,000 finished cards and the data centre. Clearing it took two printing contracts, October 2025 to July 2026.
Keep reading
- Licence print check — the number format, the SMS route and what each result means.
- Just passed the trial? — the fee, the receipt and what happens before the card exists.
- Renewal and the 35-day grace period — the same form that replaces a damaged card.
- Lost your licence? — police recommendation first, then the duplicate request.
- Your province portal — where every one of these services now lives.
