Guides · Paperwork
Useful links When Scrapping Your Car
Everything you might need to sort with the DVLA when a car leaves your keeping, with the online route first, because in 2026 that is almost always the faster one.
When we collect your car, the transfer paperwork is handled for you, the only thing left for you is the yellow section of the V5C log book. But scrapping a car sometimes comes with a side-task: keeping a registration, declaring a car off the road, or replacing a lost log book. Each has a DVLA route, and they are all here.
Keeping your registration — V317
If your plate is worth keeping — and on older and inherited cars it can be worth more than the car — it must come off before the vehicle is scrapped. Retention costs £80, takes minutes online, and the registration then sits on a certificate in your name. Paper form V317 does the same job by post.
Take a registration off a vehicle on GOV.UK
The rules, the catches and who qualifies: our guide to keeping a plate when scrapping.
Declaring a car off the road — SORN (V890)
A car kept on private land without tax must be declared off the road, or the DVLA will fine the keeper. A SORN is free and immediate online with the V5C reference; form V890 is the postal version. Note for plate-keepers: a car needs to have been continuously taxed or on SORN to retain its registration, so this declaration matters more than it looks.
Make a SORN on GOV.UK
Road tax refund — no form needed
The old V14 form died with the tax disc. Today the refund is automatic: when the DVLA is told your car has been scrapped, sold or taken off the road, your direct debit is cancelled and any full remaining months are refunded by cheque. Nothing to download — the notification is the refund trigger.
How vehicle tax refunds work on GOV.UK
Quick checks before you decide
Check a vehicle's MOT history — every test, failure and advisory on record. The repair-or-scrap decision usually lives in this list. One catch from the plate rules: a classic that is normally MOT-exempt still needs a current MOT to retain its registration.
Check a vehicle's tax and SORN status — shows whether tax or a SORN is in place right now. Worth a look before retaining a plate, since the registration must have been continuously taxed or on SORN.
Check for outstanding safety recalls — free, by registration. An open recall is fixed at no cost by the manufacturer, which occasionally changes the scrap-or-keep maths entirely.
And before handing any car over: how to choose who scraps it.
What happens to the paperwork when you scrap with us: the treatment facility notifies the DVLA and issues the official proof of destruction — the Certificate of Destruction — which ends your responsibility for the vehicle and triggers the tax refund above. Your part is the V5C's yellow section, and that is it.
Ready when you are
Sort the plate first if it needs keeping, then the rest of the paperwork takes care of itself.
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