Pink slip or blue slip? How to tell

If the car is registered in NSW and you’re renewing it, you need a pink slip. If it isn’t registered, because the rego lapsed more than three months ago, or the car came from interstate, or it has no plates, you need a blue slip instead.

The short way to tell

Ask one question: is the car currently registered in NSW, and are you just renewing it?

If yes, you need a pink slip. If no, you almost certainly need a blue slip.

That covers most people. The rest of this explains where the line sits, because a few situations sit close to it. If someone has mentioned a green, brown or white slip, which slip is which explains those too.

What is a pink slip?

A pink slip is a safety inspection report, or eSafety check. Most light vehicles more than five years old need one each year before the rego can be renewed. The five years are counted from the month and year on the compliance plate.

It checks that the car is safe to drive: brakes, tyres, steering and suspension, lights, windscreen and wipers, seatbelts, the exhaust, rust in the parts that matter. Our guide to what fails a pink slip goes through the list properly.

The report is valid for six months, and goes to Transport for NSW electronically when the car passes.

What is a blue slip?

A blue slip is an Authorised Unregistered Vehicle Inspection Scheme report, which everyone shortens to AUVIS. It covers the same safety checks, and then goes further: it also confirms the car’s identity, and that it meets the design standards to be registered in NSW.

You need one instead of a pink slip if any of these are true:

• the registration has been expired for more than three months
• the car has been brought into NSW from another state, territory or country
• it has no number plates
• it is a write-off that has been approved for re-registration

A blue slip can also be needed for changes to the registration record, like a different engine, and for clearing some defect notices.

The report is valid for 42 days rather than six months. That shorter window is deliberate: a blue slip is a step on the way to registering the car, not something to file away for later.

The situations people get wrong

The rego ran out last month. Still a pink slip. Under three months, you renew as normal.

The rego ran out last summer. Blue slip. Once you pass three months, there is nothing left to renew and the car has to be registered again.

You just bought a car from Queensland. Blue slip, because it is coming into NSW from another state, even if it has current rego there.

You bought a car in Sydney with current NSW rego. Neither, not yet. Transferring the rego into your name doesn’t need an inspection. The pink slip comes due when the rego does.

The car is a write-off you’ve repaired. Blue slip, and only if it has been approved to go back on the road.

What the blue slip adds

The safety half of a blue slip covers the same ground as a pink slip. The extra work is the identity and standards half: confirming the car is the car the paperwork says it is, and that it is built to be registered in NSW.

That is why a blue slip costs more than a pink slip, and why fewer stations are authorised to do them. It is also why the report is only good for 42 days. It is one step in registering a car, and the rest of the steps are meant to follow shortly after.

Once it passes, the report usually goes to Transport for NSW electronically, and you finish the registration at a service centre.

Where you can get each one

A pink slip comes from an Authorised Inspection Scheme station. That can be a workshop you drive to, or a mobile provider who comes to the car. The inspection fee is the same either way, and a mobile provider can charge a call-out fee on top. There is more on that in how a mobile pink slip works.

A blue slip has to come from a station authorised for unregistered vehicle inspections, which is a smaller list. Pink Slip Approach does not do blue slips. Our sister business, Blue Slip Today (opens in a new tab), does.

One thing worth planning for

If the car needs a blue slip, it is unregistered, which means getting it to the inspection is its own problem. NSW does allow you to drive an unregistered vehicle by the most direct or convenient route to an authorised inspection station as part of getting it registered, and police can ask you to prove that is what the trip is for. Take the appointment confirmation with you.

If it only needs a pink slip and the rego hasn’t lapsed yet, none of that applies. You can book a mobile pink slip and the car doesn’t move at all.