How to read an Ontario driver record: convictions, suspensions and demerit points

A conviction, a suspension and a demerit point are three different entries with three different lifespans. Ontario states that demerit points stay on your record for two years from the offence date - the date you committed it, not the date you were convicted - so points can vanish from the total while the conviction that generated them is still on the 3-year record.

Demerit points run from the offence, not the conviction

Ontario's rule is that demerit points stay on your record for two years from the offence date. Court delay does not extend the clock and does not shorten it: an offence committed in July that is not dealt with until the following January still loses its points two years from the July date.

This is the single most useful thing to know when reading your own record, because it explains the thing that confuses people most - a conviction listed with no points attached to the running total.

What the point thresholds actually trigger

For a fully licensed driver, Ontario publishes three thresholds: 6 to 8 points brings a warning letter, 9 to 14 points brings a second warning letter, and at 15 or more points the licence is suspended for 30 days.

Novice drivers are on a different and stricter scale. If you are on a G1, G2, M1 or M2 licence, do not read the fully licensed thresholds as yours.

Suspensions and reinstatements are separate entries

A suspension appears as its own line, and so does the reinstatement that ended it. Both are on the 3-year record. An "active fine suspension" - a licence suspended because a fine was not paid - is listed separately again, and is the one category the record reports as a current state rather than as history.

An expired medical suspension is the exception the ministry names explicitly: ServiceOntario lists it under what the 3-year record does not include.

Three years of what, exactly

On the 3-year record, both Highway Traffic Act and Criminal Code of Canada convictions cover three years. The 5-year record is not a longer version of the same thing: form SR-LC-112 describes it as three years of Highway Traffic Act convictions and five years of Criminal Code ones.

If you are reading a record to work out whether something has "come off", the answer depends on which of the three clocks - two-year points, three-year Highway Traffic Act, five-year Criminal Code - the entry sits on.

Common questions

When exactly do demerit points come off?

Two years from the offence date, as Ontario publishes it. Not two years from your conviction, and not two years from when you paid.

How many points before I lose my licence?

Ontario publishes 15 or more points as a 30-day suspension for a fully licensed driver, with warning letters at 6 to 8 and again at 9 to 14. Novice licences have their own, stricter scale.

Do demerit points come off if I take a driving course?

Ontario's demerit points page describes the two-year rule and the thresholds. It does not describe a course that removes points, so we do not claim one exists.

What we could not confirm

These are things this page would have liked to tell you and could not find on a Ministry of Transportation or ServiceOntario page. Rather than guess, they are listed.

  • The novice-driver demerit thresholds are acknowledged as different but not stated, because the numbers were not confirmed on the ministry page cited here.

Sources

Everything on this page is checked against a page published by the Government of Ontario or the Ministry of Transportation. Nothing is taken from another commercial site.

Checked 2026-09-04.

Next: what the 3-year Ontario driver record shows, and what it leaves out , or what to do when your Ontario driver record is wrong .

This is a guide, not a sales page, which is why there is no price on it. If you do want us to order the record for you, that is what we do — and you can equally order it from ServiceOntario (Ministry of Transportation) yourself.