Transport for London says only 41 of its currently licensed private hire drivers applied using a non-UK driving licence — a tiny share of a 112,457-strong PH driver pool — according to a Freedom of Information reply published on 10 September 2026.
The request asked how many TfL-licensed private hire drivers were operating with a “NON-UK driving licence.” TfL answered that 41 applied using a non-UK licence. It could not report on a further 10,424 records without checking each one by hand because of a reporting-system fault it said it was fixing. Those drivers had still met licensing requirements, TfL said, and it believed non-UK licences in that subset were “likely to be very low” and broadly in line with the 41 figure.
Coverage stresses the wording: the FOI identifies how drivers applied, not that all 41 are still presenting an overseas licence day-to-day.
What the rules allow
TfL’s published PH driver rules require a full, current GB, Northern Ireland, EU or EEA category B (or equivalent) motorcar licence held for at least three years. Overseas licences from designated countries can be exchanged, but the three-year clock runs on the UK/EU/EEA licence after exchange, not the previous foreign licence period.
For the London trade, the FOI puts a hard number on a long-running rumour mill: on the data TfL can query, non-UK licence applications are rare — with the caveat of those 10,424 unreadable rows until the reporting fix lands.