· Written and maintained by Nonimo
The card number on a VIC drivers licence is on the back of the card. Newer licences print it in the top right corner of the back; some older ones print it in small text just below and to the right of your birth year. On the digital licence in the Service Victoria app, it stays hidden until you tap the eye icon at the bottom.
It is not your licence number. The licence number is on the front and normally stays the same for as long as you hold the licence. The card number belongs to the piece of plastic, changes every time the card is renewed or replaced, and is the extra detail that online identity checks ask for. That makes it the one field to cover before a copy of your licence leaves your hands.
The tool at the top of this page does that from a photo. The same screen works whether the copy is for a real estate agent, an employer or a bank, or the picture is going into an AI chatbot. Your name and photo stay visible; the licence number, card number, signature and the rest start covered. Fill in who the copy is for, then download an image or a PDF. It also handles the other ID documents Nonimo covers.
Where the card number is on a VIC drivers licence
Service Victoria’s card number page gives two places to look, and both are on the back of the card. Turn your licence over before anything else: if you have been searching the front, that is why you haven’t found it.
On most newer cards, and some older ones, the card number is in the top right corner of the back. On some older cards it is printed in small text, below and to the right of the driver’s birth year. If you have a change of address sticker, the number may be printed on that as well.
The table sums up every place the number can be found, including the ones that do not involve the card at all.
| Where you look | Where the card number is | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Newer card | back, top right corner | Service Victoria |
| Some older cards | back, small text below and right of the birth year | Service Victoria |
| Change of address sticker | may be printed on the sticker | Service Victoria |
| Digital licence | bottom of the licence, behind the eye icon | Service Victoria |
| myVicRoads account | your online account | Service Victoria |
| A phone call | not given out, for security reasons | Service Victoria |
The front of the card is a different matter. Service NSW, which publishes the layout of every state’s licence for its own online checks, describes the front of a Victorian card as your name followed by the licence number and the date of birth, and the back as showing only the card number.
That split matters later, when someone asks you for a copy of both sides. The way a licence ended up carrying two numbers is covered in the section on government numbers in our identifiers guide.
On the digital driver licence
The digital licence in the Service Victoria app keeps the card number out of sight. To see it, open your licence in the app, scroll to the bottom and tap the eye icon.
That default works in your favour. A screenshot of the digital licence taken without tapping the icon shows no card number. Better still, show the licence in person and let the other person scan its QR code: nothing is left behind in anyone’s inbox.
If you can’t read the small print
Older cards print the number small. Service Victoria’s own tip is to take a close up photo of the back of your licence, zoom in to read it, and delete the photo when you are done.
That last step is the one people skip. A photo of the back of your licence sitting in your camera roll, and often in a cloud backup, is a copy of the card number you never meant to keep. If you cannot read it at all, the number is also in your myVicRoads account, or at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre; it is not given out over the phone.
What the card number on a VIC drivers licence is for
A Victorian licence carries two numbers that do different jobs. The licence number identifies you as a driver and stays the same. The card number identifies one particular card: Transport Victoria says that when your licence is renewed or replaced, you get a new card number.
That is the whole point of it. Someone holding an old photo of your licence has a card number that no longer matches, and Transport Victoria’s reasoning is that having both a card number and a licence number makes it harder for your identity to be stolen. Cards issued since November 2022 carry the number on the back, in the top right corner.
Why identity checks ask for both numbers
Online identity checks are where the card number earns its keep. Service NSW publishes the details it asks for when you use a government service online, with an example licence from every state and territory, and its note for a driver licence is short: you need to provide both your card number and your licence number.
Put the fields of such a check side by side and the risk of a careless copy is plain. The front of your licence already shows your name, your date of birth and your licence number. The card number is the field that is left, and the back of a Victorian card prints it on its own.
Think of it as the security code on the back of a bank card. Nobody asks you to send that code with a photo of your card, and the same instinct applies here.
What changed after the 2022 Optus breach
The Optus breach of 2022 is the reason many Victorians first heard of a card number. Service Victoria’s page on the breach lists the data that may have been compromised: names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email and home addresses, and ID document details such as driver licence or passport numbers.
Its answer was a new card rather than a new identity. VicRoads replaced the licences of eligible affected Optus customers at its own expense, and Service Victoria advised asking for a new licence number only if criminals had already used the stolen ID. The number that changes is the card number, so that is the number worth keeping to yourself.
For the business that lost the data, a breach that size is also a notification and an insurance claim, which what cyber insurance covers in Australia explains.
Why it’s the field to cover before you send a copy of your licence
Most requests for a copy of your licence are reasonable. An agent needs to know the applicant is real, an employer needs to know a driver is licensed, a hire company needs to know who has the car. None of them needs the card number to do that, because seeing your name, photo and licence number already answers their question.
Businesses that hold copies are also the ones that get breached. What you send is what they end up storing, sometimes for years, so the copy you send is the copy that leaks.
| Who asks | Why they want it | What they need to see | What to cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real estate agent | rental application | name, photo, licence number | card number, signature |
| Employer | a driving role or onboarding | name, licence class, expiry | card number, signature, address |
| Car hire company | who has the car | name, photo, licence class | card number, signature |
| Bank or lender | a 100 point check | name, date of birth, licence number | card number, signature |
| Insurance broker | a motor claim | name, licence number | card number, signature, address |
Read the table as a starting point, not a rule: if a request genuinely needs something you have covered, uncover that one field and leave the rest. Brokers handle more licences than most offices, and our page for insurance brokers shows where a licence sits in a claim file.
Rental applications in Victoria
Victoria has written down what a rental provider can ask for. Consumer Affairs Victoria’s page on applying for a property says a rental provider or their agent can request no more than two identity documents from a set list, and a driver licence is the first item on it. The same list includes a Medicare card, a passport and a utilities bill at your current address.
From 31 March 2026, rental providers and their agents must use the prescribed rental application form, and they can only ask for the information it sets out. Consumer Affairs Victoria also says they can only use a renter’s personal information to decide whether the renter is suitable, or to meet another requirement of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997. Agencies that process applications in bulk will find our page for real estate agents useful too.
What the OAIC says about copies
Where the Privacy Act covers an agency, the OAIC’s guidance on tenancy is direct. If a real estate agent needs a copy of an identity document, it says to think about blanking out personal information the agent doesn’t need.
It goes further on the agency’s side: if a real estate agent needs to use or disclose a document with a government related identifier, including copying it, they must generally blank that identifier out. A driver licence number is one of the OAIC’s own examples. That is why the tool on this page starts with the licence number covered as well as the card number, which keeps both out of their files from the start.
Employers, car hire and the 100 point check
An employer hiring for a driving role wants to see that the licence is current and the right class. A car hire desk wants to match the face at the counter to the licence and record who is driving. Both are usually happy to sight the card, and a copy for their file rarely needs anything on the back.
The 100 point check is the everyday name for the identity check banks and other businesses run, and the licence is often the first document people reach for. Much of that checking now happens online, by matching the licence number and the card number, which is one more reason not to hand the card number to anyone running a paper check.
How to send a copy of your drivers licence safely, with a watermark
Start with a question most people never ask: does the recipient need the back at all? On a Victorian licence, the back carries the card number and little else, so a copy of the front alone often answers the request. When they do ask for both sides, the card number is the field to cover first.
| Field | Where it is | In a copy you send |
|---|---|---|
| Name and photo | front | visible from the start |
| Licence type and conditions | on the card | left visible |
| Licence number | front, after your name | starts covered; uncover it if they need it |
| Date of birth, expiry date | on the card | start covered; uncover either if they ask |
| Address | on the card, or an address sticker | starts covered; uncover it if they need it |
| Signature | on the card | covered |
| Card number | back | covered |
The positions of the two numbers follow Service Victoria and Service NSW; the third column is how the tool on this page starts. Then the order of work, which takes a couple of minutes once you have done it once:
- Ask what they need. Front only, or both sides; a copy, or a look at the card in person.
- Work on a copy. Keep the original photo out of the email thread and delete it when you are finished.
- Cover the card number and signature. Then anything else they did not ask for, such as your address.
- Add a watermark. Who the copy is for, why, and the month.
- Strip the metadata. A phone photo can carry the device, the date and the place it was taken.
- Send it through the channel they gave you. Then ask them to delete it once the application is settled.
What to write in a drivers licence watermark
A good watermark names the recipient, the purpose and the date. For a rental application it could read: Copy for Smith Street rental application only · October 2026. If that copy ever turns up anywhere else, the text says where it came from and that it was never meant for this use.
A generic word such as COPY does almost nothing, because it fits any misuse. Run the text diagonally and repeat it across the card so it crosses your name and number. A stamp, a single band, is tidier and suits a copy you send to a business you trust, but a band along one edge can be cropped in seconds.
Cover it so it stays covered
How you cover a field matters as much as which field you cover. A soft blur can leave the shape of the digits readable, and a box drawn over a PDF can leave the text underneath intact. A solid box burned into the pixels of the image is what removes the number.
The same goes for a scan saved as a PDF, which has traps of its own that our guide to redacting a PDF walks through. And a phone photo carries details that do not show on screen: the camera model, the time and, with location turned on, where you took it. That is the same problem as the hidden properties in Word and PDF files, and it is solved the same way, by removing them before you send.
Cover the card number and watermark your licence copy here
The tool at the top of this page does the covering, the watermark and the metadata in one screen, built for a phone first. Drop a photo or a PDF of your licence, or choose one; on a phone that opens the camera or your photos. It takes JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, the format iPhones save photos in, and PDF, multi page ones included.
It reads the card and shows a chip per field: name, photo, licence number, card number, signature, date of birth, address, expiry date and other details. Your name and photo start visible and the rest covered, while the licence type and conditions stay visible. Tap a chip to redact that field or show it again, and switch between the document only and the whole photo. Redacting a licence copy, as banks and agents say, comes down to these chips.
The watermark is on from the start, in two styles: all over, the text repeated diagonally across the card, or a stamp, a single band. Its text comes filled in as Copy for ___ only, with the month and year; fill in the blank, or switch the watermark off.
When you download, as PNG, JPG or PDF, the boxes and the watermark are burned into the image, and the file leaves without its metadata, so no EXIF details and no GPS location go with it.
Your document never leaves your device: it is read and redacted in your browser. Working from a licence photo stored on your computer? The Nonimo app, on Mac or Windows, covers the fields and adds the watermark there too.
Putting your licence into an AI chatbot: cover every field
The same screen works for a chatbot question, such as what a licence condition code means or how to fill in a form. Tap the name and photo chips as well, so every field about you is covered; the licence type and conditions stay, and they are what such a question is about.
Switch the watermark off if you only need the picture for the question. Whether a chatbot keeps what you upload depends on the provider and the plan, and our guide to whether ChatGPT saves your data sets out what OpenAI says. For Gemini, Claude and Copilot too, what each one keeps from an uploaded photo is compared in its own guide.
A NSW licence prints the card number top right on the front
A NSW licence puts the card number somewhere else entirely. Service NSW’s guide on data breaches places it at the top right of the card, on the front. Where a Victorian card hides the number on the back, a NSW card prints it on the side everyone photographs.
That changes the advice for a NSW copy. Sending only the front does not keep the card number out of it, so cover it on the front before the copy goes. We cover the NSW card in more detail in where the NSW licence card number is and why to cover it. Service NSW’s document examples ask for both the card number and the licence number, the same pair that makes the card number worth protecting in Victoria.
Card number on the back, top right on newer cards. A copy of the front alone leaves it out.
Card number on the front, top right of the card. Every copy of the front shows it.
On a NSW licence the tool starts the same way, with the licence number and the card number covered, and the government numbers in our identifiers guide cover the rest of the state’s paperwork.
If your licence details have already been exposed
If a copy of your licence has gone somewhere it shouldn’t, or a business tells you it has been breached, start with your accounts. Service Victoria’s advice from the Optus breach still applies: look out for suspicious activity in your online accounts, especially bank accounts, report fraud straight away, and be wary of scammers who already know your details.
A replacement card is the next lever. Because Transport Victoria issues a new card number with every replacement, an old copy stops matching once the new card is printed, while your licence number stays the same.
A new licence number is a bigger step, and Service Victoria’s advice is to ask for one only if criminals have already used your stolen ID. Some leaks start inside the business that holds the copy, when a file goes into a chatbot, and which AI tools a business can use under the Privacy Act is a fair question to put to them.
And when it is a whole client file rather than one card, the same approach comes in the software that masks names, licence numbers and other ID numbers on your computer before an AI tool sees them.
Sources
- Service Victoria, Find my Victorian driver licence card number. The card number is on the back: top right corner on newer cards, small text below and right of the birth year on some older cards; may be on a change of address sticker; hidden behind the eye icon on the digital licence; available through myVicRoads; not given out by phone; delete the close up photo after reading it. service.vic.gov.au
- Transport Victoria, Licence card numbers. A renewed or replaced licence gets a new card number; cards issued since November 2022 print it on the back, top right; having both numbers makes identity theft harder. transport.vic.gov.au
- Service Victoria, Optus breach. Data that may have been compromised, including driver licence numbers; replacement licences for eligible affected Optus customers at VicRoads’ expense; a new licence number only if stolen ID has already been used; watch accounts and report fraud. virtualassistant.service.vic.gov.au
- Service NSW, Document examples to verify your identity. Both the card number and the licence number are needed; the back of a Victorian licence shows only the card number. service.nsw.gov.au
- Service NSW, Data breaches. The NSW card number is at the top right of the card; since 1 September 2022 both numbers are needed to pass a Document Verification Service check; a replacement licence keeps the licence number and gets a new card number. service.nsw.gov.au
- OAIC, Tenancy. An agent may only collect what is reasonably necessary; think about blanking out personal information an agent doesn’t need in a copy; agents copying a document with a government related identifier must generally blank it out; a driver licence number is one; the Privacy Act covers organisations turning over more than $3 million. oaic.gov.au
- Consumer Affairs Victoria, Applying for a property. No more than two identity documents from a set list that includes a driver licence; the prescribed rental application form is mandatory from 31 March 2026; personal information used only to assess the renter or meet the Residential Tenancies Act 1997. consumer.vic.gov.au
Common questions
Where is the card number on a VIC drivers licence?
On the back of the card. Newer Victorian licences show it in the top right corner of the back, and some older ones print it in small text below and to the right of your birth year. A change of address sticker may carry it too, and the digital licence shows it after you tap the eye icon.
What is the card number on a Victorian drivers licence?
It is a second number that belongs to the plastic card rather than to you. Your licence number normally stays the same, while Transport Victoria issues a new card number whenever the licence is renewed or replaced. Online identity checks, such as the ones Service NSW runs, ask for both, so the card number works like a security code.
Is the card number the same as the licence number?
No. On a Victorian licence the licence number sits on the front, after your name, and the card number is on the back. The licence number identifies the driver and normally stays the same; the card number identifies one particular card and changes each time a new card is issued.
Where is the card number on the Service Victoria digital licence?
Open your licence in the Service Victoria app, scroll to the bottom and tap the eye icon. The number stays hidden until you do, so a screenshot taken without tapping the icon does not show it. You can also find it in your myVicRoads account or at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre.
Where is the card number on a NSW drivers licence?
On the front, at the top right of the card, according to Service NSW. That means any copy of the front of a NSW licence shows the card number, so it is the field to cover before you send one. Replacing the card gives you a new card number, while the licence number stays the same.
Should I cover the card number before sending my licence to a real estate agent?
Yes, in most cases. Your name and photo confirm who you are; uncover the licence number if the application asks for it. The OAIC suggests thinking about blanking out personal information an agent doesn't need, and the card number is the detail an identity check asks for on top of the licence number.
Can a rental provider in Victoria ask for a copy of my licence?
They can ask for it as one of your identity documents. Consumer Affairs Victoria says a rental provider or agent can request no more than two identity documents from a set list that includes a driver licence, and from 31 March 2026 applications must use the prescribed rental application form.
What should I write in a watermark on my drivers licence copy?
Who the copy is for, why, and the month. Something like: Copy for Smith Street rental application only · October 2026. Run it diagonally across the card so it crosses your details, because a watermark in a corner can be cropped out in seconds.
What should I do if my licence details were exposed in a data breach?
Watch your accounts, especially bank accounts, and report anything you didn't do. A replacement card gives you a new card number while your licence number stays the same. In its Optus breach advice, Service Victoria said to ask for a new licence number only if criminals have already used your stolen ID.