How to get your motorcycle licence in Canada

Alberta

To earn your Class 6 motorcycle licence, you must be 16 and you you must have a Class 7 licence (Alberta’s beginners licence, which allows you to ride a moped, and also is a beginner’s licence for cars and motorcycles) for a year, or a Class 5 (standard car driver’s licence).

If you have the Class 5, you’ll be issued a Class 7 licence. If you’re still enrolled in the province’s  graduated licencing program, you will be issued a Class 7 GDL licence.

Whether or not you have your Class 5 licence,  a learner (Class 7) must be accompanied by another motorcyclist with a Class 6 while riding, you must have fewer than eight demerit points on your licence, and you must have a blood alcohol content level of 0%.

However, if the learner only has a Class 7 licence, you are further restricted, with no riding after dark allowed.

After a year of this program, a rider may take a 30-question written test at an Authorized Service Alberta Registry Office and then take a road test for a Class 6-GDL licence.

After passing this, you will remain in the two year probationary stage and be subject to the conditions and restrictions of the GDL program. If you’re still enrolled in the province’s graduated licencing program, your licence is probationary for two more years, and you must still maintain 0% blood alcohol content while riding.

Once the two-year GDL program is up, you can acquire your unrestricted Class 6 licence.

More details here.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Someone once told me that here in BC, when he got his licence back in the 70s, the clerk walked out into the parking lot and told him, “Ride out that gate there, and ride back in that gate over there.”

    Exiting through the one gate put you on a one-way street, and the only way to get back was to take a long loop around the block that went through a couple of intersections and over some railroad tracks. If you made it back in one piece you got your endorsement.

  2. Maybe check your info on the ON licence – you state in the article “You must hold your M1 licence for at least 60 days before taking a road test to advance to an M2 licence”….incorrect, you can take a recognized course anywhere in that time period, do the test within the course & be M2 qualified – the Ministry just waits until the 60 days to recognize it. Also you write “After 22 months you may then take a second road test to get your unrestricted M licence.” It is only 18 months if you take a recognized course.

    • Nope wife and I did the Ontario M licencing and the ministry states you have your M1 for ONLY 90 days after passing the written test, but after 60 days can you take your M1 exiting test and after the 90 days are up you either have your M2/ML or you have to start the process all over again.

  3. My dad took his car test back in the 50s and the examiner said, “Oh, do you want this to be good for a motorcycle too?” When my dad said “Sure!” The examiner ticked a second box and there you go – licensed for a bike for life.

  4. I had always assumed that to get your motorcycle licence in Alberta that you just went through the same process as a regular drivers’ licence there – fill out the form on the back of the cereal box, cut it out and mail it in with your proof of purchase.
    Learn something new every day.

  5. Times have changed…my dad took his test in Windsor Ontario in the late 60’s and it was basically ride around the block from the mto office and if you made it back in 1 piece you passed

Join the conversation!