Pink, blue, green: which slip is which

A pink slip is the yearly safety inspection for a car that is already registered in NSW. A blue slip is the safety and identity inspection for a car that isn’t. A green slip isn’t an inspection at all: it is your compulsory third party insurance. Everything else you hear is a nickname for one of those.

The quick version

Pink slip. A safety inspection for a car that is already registered in NSW, needed each year once the car is more than five years old, so the rego can be renewed.

Blue slip. A safety and identity inspection for a car that is not currently registered in NSW: one that has been off the road more than three months, come from interstate or overseas, lost its plates, or been approved to go back on the road after a write-off.

Green slip. Not an inspection at all. It is compulsory third party insurance, bought from an insurer, covering people injured in a crash involving your car.

Those three cover almost everyone. The rest of this is for when they don’t. If you already know it’s a choice between pink and blue, pink slip or blue slip goes through the cases that sit close to the line, like an interstate car or a rego that ran out last summer.

Pink slip

The official name is a safety inspection report, and Transport for NSW also calls it an eSafety check. Nobody says either out loud.

You need one if your car is registered in NSW, is more than five years old counting from the month and year on the compliance plate, and you want to renew the rego. It is a yearly thing.

It checks the car is safe: brakes, tyres, steering and suspension, every lamp, the windscreen and wipers, seatbelts, the exhaust, oil leaks, and rust in the parts that hold the car together. What fails a pink slip goes through it properly.

The report lasts six months, and the pass goes to Transport for NSW electronically. Only an Authorised Inspection Scheme station can issue one, which includes mobile providers who come to the car.

Some vehicles are exempt: historic vehicles, many conditionally registered vehicles, caravans under 411kg tare and trailers under 251kg tare without brakes.

Blue slip

The official name is an Authorised Unregistered Vehicle Inspection Scheme report, which everyone shortens to AUVIS.

It covers the same safety ground as a pink slip and then adds the part a pink slip doesn’t: confirming the car’s identity, and that it meets the design standards to be registered in NSW.

You need one instead of a pink slip when the car is not currently registered here. That means registration expired more than three months ago, a car brought in from another state or country, a car with no plates, or a write-off that has been approved for re-registration.

It is valid for 42 days rather than six months, because it is a step on the way to registering a car rather than something to file away.

Pink Slip Approach doesn’t do blue slips. Blue Slip Today (opens in a new tab), run by the same family, does. If you land on us and need them, we’ll point you across rather than let you work it out yourself.

Green slip

A green slip is compulsory third party insurance, and it is the one people most often confuse with an inspection. It is not a check of your car. It is cover for people injured in a crash involving it.

You buy it from a licensed CTP insurer before you can register the vehicle, and prices differ between insurers for the same car, so it is worth comparing. It is also not the same as comprehensive insurance, which covers the car itself and is optional.

We don’t sell green slips and we can’t arrange one for you.

The ones you hear about less

Brown slip. You will see this in the trade, usually meaning the inspection a repaired write-off needs before it can go back on the road. Transport for NSW doesn’t use the colour, and the path for a written-off vehicle is narrow: NSW says you can only get approval to repair and re-register a written-off light vehicle in very limited circumstances. If someone has told you that you need a brown slip, ask them which inspection they actually mean before you book anything.

White slip. Another informal one, usually meaning the report you are handed when a car fails an inspection. It is not a separate booking or a separate fee. It is the list of what has to be fixed. What to do after a failed pink slip covers what happens next.

Which one do you need?

Work through it in this order.

1. Is the car currently registered in NSW? If no, it is a blue slip.
2. Has the rego been expired more than three months? If yes, it is a blue slip.
3. Otherwise, is the car more than five years old? If yes, it is a pink slip.
4. Either way, you will need a current green slip before the registration itself can be paid.

If your answer landed on pink slip, you can book a mobile inspection and we’ll come to the car. If it landed anywhere else, or you read all that and still aren’t sure, call us on 1300 696 999. We would rather spend two minutes on the phone than have you pay for the wrong inspection.