How to Register a Vehicle in Victoria — The (Terrible) Process Explained

I’ve had to register a few vehicles in Victoria. The first was a car that I bought at a government auction (here’s that process here), the second was a motorcycle that I bought from another state and which arrived unregistered, and the third was a car I was moving to Victoria from Queensland.

It turns out that while the process of registering a vehicle in Victoria is technically straightforward, it’s long and it’s easy to get steps wrong — even for someone like me who has registered vehicles in multiple states and countries. The process is cumbersome, expensive, time-consuming, and broken in multiple parts. So I thought I’d document it in case it helps others, as the details caught me off guard.

The quick run-down is that you need to expect it to take two to four weeks to finish. If you’re planning on getting an unregistered vehicle, make your booking to register it now!

The process is, in a nutshell

1. Get an unregistered vehicle permit (if needed)
2. Book your roadworthy certificate (RWC) inspection,
3. Make an appointment with Vicroads, then
4. Visit an inspection centre, and leave with the plates

More details on all these steps below.

Updated in 2025 as VicRoads did add a booking portal — we had to book by phone until recently!

Step 1: Book and get an Unregistered Vehicle Permit (if necessary)

If your car is not registered in any state, then you need to get one of these. (If you’re transferring registration from another owner or state, then this step isn’t necessary.)

In Victoria, you need an unregistered vehicle permit to drive your car around for the purpose of inspections and registration.

But how long a permit should you get? Book your Roadworthy certificate inspection, then your VicRoads inspection centre inspection, and then buy your temporary registration.

Because those services are booked out for a few weeks, it’s safest to first make those bookings to know how long registration you’ll need.

Note that the fees are calculated linearly on top of a base processing fee. E.g. for a sedan, a 1-day permit is $46.80, and then you add on $2.20 for every day after that. So a 2-week permit is $66.60. But if you need it for one day again after that because you got your dates wrong, you have to pay $46.80 again! So get your period right.

In some other states, you can drive an unregistered vehicle just with CTP as long as you’re only driving it around for the purpose of getting it registered. In Victoria, this isn’t the case.

Step 2: Get your Roadworthy Certificate

The roadworthy certificate is the first hurdle. You have to visit a mechanic and get it done. Fees range from $200-300, and it takes up to 2 hours to complete. Usual practice is to leave a vehicle with them, go away, and come back later in the day. That’s assuming your car doesn’t need much, though every time I’ve done it I’ve needed new tyres (usually a same day or next day process).

The first hard part is getting an inspection appointment at a mechanic. Most centrally loacted mechanics are booked out for a week or two in advance.

Because most mechanics don’t have online booking portals, you have to call individual mechanics to ask for prices and availability. So, block out an hour of your day!

Secondly, you have to pay the piper.

The RWC process in Victoria is ridiculously laborious and involves taking lots of evidence photos and submitting them to the online portal. This is to avoid fraud. There are certain pros to this — I see far fewer lemons or modified vehicles on the roads in Victoria than in Queensland (crazy loud exhausts, tinted indicators that I can’t even see in broad daylight). The reason the RWC appointment is expensive is that it takes a long time to do, and mechanics are expensive.

That doesn’t even make it difficult. In fact, it’s such an easy cash grab that mechanics set up centres that only do registration inspections.

If you need an RWC and want to book it in a convenient location ASAP — good luck. You’ll spend an hour or two on the phone.

By the way, the roadworthy certificate process in Victoria is quite strict. Modifications or defects are noted with extreme detail. If you have a modified vehicle (RIP all my motorcycles) then you should make sure you have the original parts on hand, especially if you have a loud aftermarket exhaust.

The certificate itself is a digital one — it gets lodged with VicRoads. So if you think you can copy the image above and make a fake one, let me know how you go. Should be hilarious!

Step 3: Make an Appointment at a Testing Centre

Now, you have to make an appointment at a VicRoads inspection centre.

“Why do I need a second inspection?” Good question. They just want to make sure the carpet matches the drapes.

The unfortunate part is that

1. There are very few VicRoads inspection centres
2. It’s not clear where they are from the Vicroads site (unless you know all the suburbs and cities in Victoria off by heart)
3. They’re booked out. All of them!
4. The portal doesn’t make it easy for you to find the next available appointment at ANY centre; it defaults to the nearest centre
5. The centres can be chaotic

The list of inspection centres is just that — a list. There’s no map. Google Maps doesn’t show them comprehensively, as searching for “VicRoads inspection centre” also shows customer service centres with no inspection facilities.

So I’ve had to make my own map of inspection centres.

The rural inspection centres have shorter wait times of sometimes less than a week. But the ones reasonably close to the city are booked out for weeks. So make a list of the ones that are reasonably close.

Here are the VicRoads inspection centres that are closest to Melbourne, for reference:

VicRoads inspection centre	Approx. Time to get there from CBD
Carlton	15 min
Broadmeadows	30 min
Hoppers Crossing	30 min
Mitcham (Ringwood)	35 min
Bundoora	40 min
Sunbury	40 min
Melton	45 min
Dandenong	45 min
Frankston	50 min
Dromana	1h 10 mins
Geelong	1h 10 mins

Of course, if you’re anywhere other than the CBD (which I just put as a reference point), the times will vary.

Now, you have to make a booking. As recently as 2024, you had to do this on the phone, and work off an inaccurate calendar. Luckily, they’ve now added a rudimentary booking portal! You know, the kind that’s so easy to code that I could do it in one morning…

The first step is to tease you with this list, which shows some appointments as early as today. Unfortunately, they’re very far away, and you can’t book them unless you tell it to look near that location.

So I could get an inspection TODAY if I drove … I don’t even know exactly where most of those places are (I’m not from Victoria!). That means they’re far, anyway.

Next, to book an appointment, you have to give it a postcode or suburb (even though it knows your address!) and it shows you a short selection of your nearest options. Unfortunately, sometimes none of your nearest options will have availability soon.

Below you can see a screenshot of the appointments for my nearest centre – two weeks from the date I took that screenshot.

Some of the options it gives in your nearest centres have none! They’re in the list, just to tease you, but seem not to have vehicle inspection facilities at all. Great job, VicRoads…

Anyway, long story short, you have to do a lot of clicking around to find a facility that’s near enough with open appointments. If you’re in regional Victoria, lucky you!

Bear in mind that the appointments are generally during the day. You can’t choose your time. So you need to take a couple of hours off work just to make the inspection.

Step 4: Attend your VicRoads Inspection and get your plates

Now, attend your inspection. Welcome to the chaos of a VicRoads office! They’re not all like this, but Dandenong was like a hospital’s emergency waiting room. Carlton was calmer. Geelong is somewhere in between (why have I had to go to so many? I hate this.)

At VicRoads, the process is far from obvious. I first got there and was bamboozled by the massive queue inside. It was stressful — like a DMV in the US. Worse, actually. It was nothing like the quiet little TMR offices in Queensland where everyone was happy and things got done quickly. Nope.

For your inspection, you need:

• The completed vehicle registration form (you can fill it out there — takes about 10 minutes, so get there early!)
• Your car (drive it there!) or motorcycle or van or whatever
• Proof of address. Take a bank statement or your rental / home ownership contract. Some things that I tried that didn’t work were a) an insurance agreement (from a big bank! but it didn’t matter) and b) a mobile phone bill.
• ID (license) + something else with your name on it (medicare card, bank card, etc.)
• A screwdriver and screws or bolts to attach your plates. They don’t give you these! (See below on important notes for these)
• Money $$$ — stamp duty + registration fees

Digital copies of all the above paperwork (not IDs of course) is fine. The only paperwork you physically need is the form you fill out.

You have to

1. Check in at the appointment desk
2. Get a number
3. Wait your turn to be served by someone at a desk
4. Go outside to have the car inspected
5. Come back in, pay the piper, and get your plates
6. Attach the plates with the screwdriver and screws you brought. (You did, right?)

The VicRoads staff deal on a daily basis with people who are disorganised, not necessarily financially well-off, and often non-English speaking. So they’re frazzled and at their wit’s end. It looks like a tough job. So don’t be alarmed if they’re a little short with you (they definitely were short with me).

But if your paperwork is in order, in theory, the registration process should go smoothly.

The inspection is simple. They check the car’s VIN and engine number and make sure everything is hunky dory.

Just remember — you have to attach your own plates. Bring a screwdriver and the right pieces. For most cars, you need M6 screws (20-25mm should be fine), so bring those with a screwdriver to fasten them. But every car is different. Mine needed two M6 bolts at the back, but two self-tapping screws at the front. Ridiculous!

Anyway, you now have new plates, and you’re free to leave.

Aftermath

So, given this, what would I do next time? Short answer — either plan ahead, buy a car that’s registered, or just don’t buy a car at all.

Buying and driving a car in Australia is increasingly a low ROI endeavour. It’s almost like the government outsources the responsibility of transport to individuals. We pay for vehicles, adhere to the broken processes, pay for registration, “compulsory insurance” (plus personal insurance), fuel and fuel taxes (or electricity), toll roads, traffic fines, parking fines, and more. I wrote a rant about that here.

The worst part is that we have to deal with VicRoads’ cumbersome processes and exorbitant costs just for the questionable privilege of having to drive to get around in Melbourne.

The best answer is to live in an area well-served by public transport, or one that’s walkable or accessible to places via bicycle. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for everyone.

Otherwise, the vast majority of Australians will still need to drive for the next 20-50 years while infrastructure catches up with the population. Hopefully the above helps you!