Ontario to Eliminate Licence Plate Renewals
Drivers in Ontario will no longer have to renew their licence plates every year in order to continue legally using their vehicles, Premier Doug Ford announced on Tuesday during a press briefing in Mississauga.
"We're getting rid of that totally—registering your vehicle," he told reporters.
In 2022, the Ford administration first got rid of the stickers that drivers had to put on their licence plates to confirm the renewal. It also scrapped the renewal fee of $120.
"Now we're getting rid of the reregistration,” Ford added. “They'll be automatically reregistered so people won't have to worry about that at all."
The Premier didn’t say exactly when the new measure will come into effect, but hinted that it would be “very soon, extremely soon."
Dakota Brasier, the senior media adviser to Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, made it clear that the process will automatically renew only for drivers “in good standing." Those with unpaid traffic fines or tolls will need to pay them first, she warned.
The decision came a day after the Toronto Star revealed there are more than one million expired plates on Ontario roads, with many drivers forgetting to renew them since they no longer have to pay a fee.
Last year, the OPP issued 15,631 tickets to drivers lacking a currently validated permit for their vehicle.
