UK tyre law for vans, cars and HGVs at a glance: the 1.6mm and 1mm minimum tread depths, the inflation rule most fleets get wrong, and the £2,500 per-tyre fine that ends runs of bad luck.
Key Takeaways
- Vans and cars must have at least 1.6mm of tread across the central three-quarters of the tyre, all the way round. HGVs, buses and trailers over 3,500kg must have at least 1mm.
- The fine is £2,500 per illegal tyre plus 3 penalty points per tyre. Four illegal tyres on one van is a £10,000 exposure and a 12-point licence hit on the driver.
- Tyres must be inflated to the manufacturer's pressure for the actual load being carried. A van at kerb weight and the same van loaded up are two different pressures; getting this wrong is a prohibitable defect at the DVSA roadside.
- Heavy vehicles have a 10-year age cap on front steered axle tyres. It is a statutory rule, not a recommendation.
- Walkaround checks catch tyre defects early. A daily habit of eyeballing sidewalls and pressing a gauge on one tyre per day rotates the whole fleet through in a week.
If you run a van, car, or HGV for work in the UK, tyres are the single item most likely to cost you a fine, a roadside prohibition, and a line in your DVSA record. The law on tread depth, pressure and condition is specific, it is enforced, and the penalties scale with the number of wheels on the ground.
This guide covers the commercial vehicle tyre law for 2026: the legal minimum tread depth for each vehicle class, the inflation rule most small fleets get wrong, the less-known rules on tyre age and condition, and the fines and points that apply when an officer finds a problem. It is written for the small business operator with a van or two, but the rules are the same whether you run one Transit or fifty artics.
For the wider daily check routine that picks up most tyre problems before they become fines, the daily walkaround check guide is the place to start.
What is the legal minimum tread depth?
For cars, vans, and light goods vehicles up to 3,500kg, the legal minimum is 1.6mm of tread across the central three-quarters of the tyre, measured the whole way round the circumference. For HGVs, buses and trailers over 3,500kg, the figure drops to 1mm across three-quarters of the breadth. Both figures come from Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986.
Two details trip fleets up. First, the rule is about the central three-quarters, not the outer edges. A tyre that is bald on the shoulders but still has 2mm across the middle is legal on depth, but almost certainly failing on pattern and condition, which are separate offences. Second, the rule is around the entire outer circumference. A single flat-spot worn below the minimum fails the whole tyre, even if every other section of the tread is fine.
Treat 1.6mm as the legal floor, not the target. Stopping distances on a wet road roughly double between 3mm and 1.6mm. Most fleet policies, and most vehicle manufacturers, recommend changing tyres at 3mm to keep the safety margin that the legal minimum has already used up.
Vans vs cars vs HGVs: the quick table
Cars and light goods vehicles (up to 3,500kg). 1.6mm minimum, central three-quarters of the breadth, full circumference. Same rule as a family saloon. A Ford Transit, a Mercedes Sprinter, a VW Caddy, an Iveco Daily up to 3.5 tonnes: all 1.6mm.
HGVs, buses, coaches, and trailers (over 3,500kg). 1mm minimum, three-quarters of the breadth, full circumference. That includes rigid lorries, articulated tractor units, passenger-carrying vehicles with more than eight seats, and any trailer over 3,500kg gross plated weight.
Motorcycles. 1mm minimum (for machines over 50cc) with visible tread across three-quarters of the breadth, or visible tread pattern if a motorcycle is under 50cc.
Moving a 3.5 tonne van to a 4.25 tonne plated weight, which is becoming more common with electric vans, does not flip it to the 1mm rule. The 1mm figure applies to vehicles first used on the road in a category that was over 3,500kg originally. For any borderline case, check the V5C and the DVSA MOT inspection manual before assuming.
The tyre pressure rule most fleets get wrong
Tyre pressure is governed by the condition clause in Regulation 27: every tyre must be inflated to make it fit for the use the vehicle is being put to. In practice, that means the manufacturer's pressure for the actual load being carried, which is not the same as the unladen pressure on most commercial vehicles.
Look at the door pillar sticker on almost any van and you will see two columns: a lower figure for kerb weight and a higher figure for fully laden. A Transit L3H2 might sit at 55 psi unladen and 72 psi fully loaded. Drivers who set the pressures at the depot and then load the van for delivery are often 15 to 20 psi under the correct figure by the time they leave the yard.
Why this matters at DVSA roadside. Under-inflation is a recorded defect on the standard safety inspection report. If an examiner finds a van running 20 psi under the load-specific figure, that is a defect note. If the under-inflation has caused visible sidewall damage, it escalates to a prohibition. The published DVSA Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness requires operators to record pressures on every safety inspection and act on any under-inflation finding.
The fix is procedural, not mechanical. Either set pressures at the door-sticker fully-laden figure and leave them (accepted practice for multi-drop delivery vans where load varies hour-to-hour), or check pressures with a calibrated gauge before every loaded run. A fortnightly depot pressure check with the same gauge is the minimum any multi-van fleet should be running.
Condition: the rules beyond tread and pressure
Legal tread and correct pressure are the headline rules. The less-known condition rules catch out fleets that only check the depth gauge. A tyre can be fully legal on depth and still be a prohibitable defect on any of the following:
Cuts, bulges, and exposed cords. A cut in the sidewall deeper than 25mm, or 10% of the section width if that is less, is an automatic fail. A visible bulge or lump in the sidewall is the sign of an internal structural failure and is a dangerous defect whatever the tread looks like. Exposed cords or plies are an instant fail at any point on the tyre.
Mixing tyres across an axle. Cross-ply and radial tyres must not be mixed on the same axle on most vehicles. Mixing winter and summer tyres on an axle is not illegal but is flagged on inspection. Mixing tyre sizes that differ from those listed on the V5C is an instant MOT fail and a C&U offence.
Tyre age on heavy vehicles. Since February 2021 it has been illegal for heavy goods vehicles and some buses to fit tyres over 10 years old to the front steered axle, and to any axle of a minibus with a single rear wheel. The date is stamped on the sidewall as a four-digit DOT code: week and year. A tyre marked "2314" was made in week 23 of 2014 and is now out of date for a front HGV axle.
What are the penalties if DVSA or police find a defect?
An illegal tyre is a separate offence per tyre. The penalty sits at up to a £2,500 fine and 3 penalty points per tyre. Four tyres illegal on the same vehicle is up to £10,000 and 12 points on the driver's licence, which is a ban. The driver, not the company, takes the points, but the company carries the fines and the reputational hit of a DVSA record.
The process at the roadside usually goes one of three ways. An examiner who spots a minor defect issues a Vehicle Defect Rectification Notice (VDRN), giving you 14 days to fix it and present evidence. A moderate defect triggers a Graduated Fixed Penalty Notice (GFPN), which can be £50 to £300 per offence, capped at £1,500 per stop across all defects found. A dangerous defect triggers a PG9 roadside prohibition, grounding the vehicle until the defect is fixed, often at the roadside or at the nearest safe location. PG9s feed into the operator's OCRS score and shape how often DVSA stops that operator's vehicles in the future.
For the wider playbook on what an officer actually checks and what to say at the roadside, the DVSA roadside inspection guide is the companion piece to this one.
How to build a tyre-check habit that actually sticks
The single most effective control against every rule above is a daily walkaround that includes every tyre. The national standard for a van walkaround is 19 fixed items, and tyres appear four times (one per corner, with tread and condition on each). That level of detail is overkill to read off a card every morning but unmissable if it is baked into the checklist as a tick per tyre.
A practical weekly cadence for a small fleet:
Every morning. Eyeball each tyre: obvious under-inflation, obvious damage, obvious foreign object. 30 seconds per vehicle. Tick off the walkaround items.
One pressure check per vehicle per day, rotated. Set a rota so each van gets a full gauge check once a week. On a five-van fleet, that is one driver checking one van's pressures each morning. In a month every tyre has been gauged four or five times.
Every service interval, or quarterly, whichever is sooner. Tread-depth gauge across all positions. Record the mm per tyre. That trace catches uneven wear early, which saves tyres, which saves money.
Every MOT or safety inspection. The inspector covers all of the above. File the report, scan any paper records to the vehicle file, and match it against your own walkaround records. Gaps between the two are the first thing DVSA asks to see.
The cadence matters more than the tool. A phone camera and a printed checklist beats an elaborate digital system that nobody uses. But if you can capture the checks in a timestamped digital record, with photos of tread depth when something is borderline, you have a compliance trail that answers the hardest question a DVSA officer can ask: prove it.
The bottom line
The UK rule book on commercial tyres is short and enforced. 1.6mm for vans and cars, 1mm for HGVs, manufacturer pressure for the actual load, no cuts or bulges, no tyres over 10 years old on a front HGV axle. The fines are big, the points stack up per tyre, and the PG9 system makes a bad tyre a bad day for the whole fleet.
The daily walkaround is the control that catches all of it early. If tyre checks are not already a named item on your drivers' morning routine, make them one this week. Every later fine you avoid is paid for by the ten minutes that habit costs you.
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Sources: Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, Regulation 27 · TyreSafe: tyres and the law · Tyre defects and damage: HGVs, buses and trailers, GOV.UK · Guide to maintaining roadworthiness, GOV.UK · Ban on tyres over 10 years old for heavy vehicles, GOV.UK blog · Highway Code Annex 6: vehicle maintenance, safety and security