Cancelling a Queensland registration takes two things: the cancellation of registration form (F3517), completed and signed, and the number plates handed back, unless the plates are personalised or customised ones you are keeping, or are lost, stolen, destroyed or already surrendered, or the car has been written off. A current registration in your name can bring a refund of the unused registration and the CTP insurer’s premium, less an administration fee of $22.00 as at October 2026.
General information about Queensland’s rules, not legal advice about your car. Transport and Main Roads is the place to check your own registration; its My registrations service shows what is registered in your name.
Who can cancel
Only a registered operator listed on the registration can cancel it, or someone representing an organisation that is the registered operator.
When the registered operator has died, the order matters. The executor, administrator or next of kin first transfers the registration into the deceased estate, or to another person, and only then cancels it. Transport and Main Roads asks for it this way so that any refund for the unused registration reaches the right person.
The cancellation, step by step
Get form F3517
Use one form for each registration when you are cancelling fewer than five. For five or more, one form will do, with the other registrations listed on an attachment.
Fill in all of it
Transport and Main Roads lists four things that hold up a cancellation when missing: a blank field, an unfinished declaration in Section 7, no signature from the registered operator (or the organisation’s representative), and no current mailing address.
Sign it on paper or on screen
The form can be signed by hand on a printout, or signed digitally. To sign digitally, download the file first and open it in Adobe Reader, which works in its free version; a form opened inside a web browser will not offer the option to sign.
Lodge it with the plates
The form and the plates go together, by one of the three routes in the table below.
Keep the receipt
Plates handed in are receipted.
| Route | Where it goes | What goes with the form |
|---|---|---|
| In person | A transport and motoring customer service centre; otherwise a QGAP office, a Magistrates Court or a police station that provides registration services | The number plates, unless you are not required to hand them in |
| By post | Registration cancellations at the Department of Transport and Main Roads, PO Box 372, Longreach QLD 4730 | The plates themselves, or the receipt from plates already surrendered |
| By email | regocancellations@tmr.qld.gov.au | Allowed only when the plates have already been surrendered or need not be; attach the surrender receipt if there is one |
Which plates go back
The plates on a Queensland car are not the owner’s to keep. In Transport and Main Roads’ words:
“any number plate issued to a vehicle, that includes personalised or customised plates, remains the property of the State of Queensland”
Queensland Government, number plate requirement and ownership (CC BY 4.0)
For personalised and customised plates, Transport and Main Roads gives the person they were issued to ownership of the characters only, never of the plates themselves. That is why the rules for handing plates back depend on the kind of plate and on what has happened to it:
- Two plates issued: both go back. Trailers, motorcycles and motorised mobility devices carry only one plate, so only one is handed in.
- Personalised or customised plates: you may keep them. To end those plates as well, lodge the cancel personalised/customised plate application (F5339) with the cancellation form and hand the plates in.
- Lost, stolen or destroyed: say so in the declaration at Section 7 of the form.
- Confiscated by police: while Queensland Police Service holds the plates under a confiscation, the registration cannot be cancelled; the Service is the place to ask.
- Re-registered in another state: the other state’s authority takes the Queensland plates. Ask for a number plate surrender receipt and send it with the cancellation form.
What comes back, and what does not
A refund is possible only when the registration is current, and registered in your name in Queensland, at the moment you ask to cancel. It covers the unused part of the registration and of the CTP insurer’s premium.
Some charges are not refunded: the traffic improvement fee, plus other charges and surcharges, for example the reinstatement fee for a registration renewal and the CTP levies. A cancellation fee comes out of what is refunded, to pay for processing it; Transport and Main Roads lists this administration fee at $22.00 as at 1 July 2026.
Registering the car in another state does not cancel its Queensland registration on its own. The refund only follows once you send the cancellation form with the receipt the other state gave you for the plates.
When the car has been written off
A car can lose its registration when it is written off, which Transport and Main Roads describes as repairs costing more than the car is worth, whether after collision, fire or water damage or after being stripped for parts. What happens next depends on whether an insurer is involved.
- An insurer assessed it
- The insurer normally reports the write-off, and may also tell Transport and Main Roads about the cancellation. Ask the insurer before cancelling: it may take over the registration as part of the claim, and once the registration is out of your name a refund may no longer be yours.
- No insurer assessed it
- You report the write-off yourself when you lodge the cancellation. If the car has not been used since the accident or other incident, you can declare that in Section 7 and ask for the refund to run from the day after it.
Which cars must be reported, and by whom, is the subject of the written-off vehicles guide. A car sold to someone who will keep driving it is a different matter, covered by Transport and Main Roads’ registration transfer pages.