How to Renew Motorcycle Registration without Plate Number

If you bought a motorcycle here in the Philippines, the seller or distributor usually processes the 1st registration for you and the registration will be good for a year. After that one, once it’s close to its expiry date it’s your duty to renew your motorcycle. The problem is: during your renewal usually your motorcycle still doesn’t have an assigned plate number and still using the MV file number.

The requirements are simple, and you probably saw this list while you are searching on how to renew your motorcycle or on the LTO website itself. But for your convenience, I will still list it down for you below (source: LTO).

• CTPL Insurance Policy or additional insurance that you want or in LTO website ” Appropriate Insurance Certificate of Cover (COC) “
• Duly accomplished and approved Motor Vehicle Inspection Report (MVIR)
• Photocopy of Certificate of Registration (CR) and Official Receipt of payment
• Certificate of Emission Compliance (CEC)
• Taxpayer’s Identification Number

My Challenge

I read from other blog sites about the Compulsory Third Party Liability Insurance or CTPL insurance that ML or Cebuana Lhuillier is offering. So far it’s affordable and convenient insurance for me since Cebuana and ML are almost everywhere besides the fact that it’s around 300 pesos only.

However, when I applied for it, the teller informed me that they can only provide this insurance to those who have plate numbers assigned/available or at least “uploaded” in LTO’s system. I got confused, the latter is obvious and easy to understand since I don’t have that plate number yet even after a year while the former which is the “upload” term got me puzzled. What do they mean by “uploaded”? Is it not LTO’s responsibility to do that “upload” in at least real-time when there’s a new registration?

Anyway, if you know the answer why, please let me know and feel free to comment down under this post. This is my first time to renew a motor vehicle and the acquisition of insurance was the challenging part.

Because I don’t know another insurance provider for vehicles in my area, I decided to go to the LTO office in JCenter Mall.

LTO Satellite Office: JCenter Mall

For those who are not in Cebu, some items of this section may not be applicable to you. Please go to the nearest LTO office in your area and let me know down in the comment section of your experience.

In my case, the closest and convenient LTO office for me is the JCenter Mall in Mandaue City, Cebu. So, I went to this office because I’m certain that they have an approved or affiliated requirements provider like clinics, insurance, emission testing, etcetera. Somehow it provides convenience but it is also kind’a questionable because of the monopoly going on. I don’t know if this is true to all LTO offices, please share it down the comment section about your observation. Well, I just hope that they will have more approved and recognized requirements providers nearby. Though I heard that they will have a new office soon which is more of a compound and probably in that way they can house more affiliated requirements providers.

Please note that you can still go to your favorite or preferred requirements provider offices just make sure that they are approved by LTO.

For a first-timer like me, the closest one in their office is the most ideal one, though they offer a little pricey CTPL insurance compare to Cebuana. It’s just weird that they are not requiring “upload” and MV file number is fine. Anyway, at the end of the day, what’s important is you have that CTPL insurance policy and document to submit.

The next stop is the emission testing, there’s a center located behind the mall, close to the jeepney terminal. The emission testing is around 300 pesos for motorcycles and 60 pesos for the stencil. Note, after you’re done with the emission testing immediately go to the neighboring area (just right beside the emission testing center), it’s the LTO’s Inspection Center. Informed the officer then fill-out the form, in the form, paste there the stencil of the chassis and the machine number.

Finally

After all the requirements were completed, I went back to the office and submitted my papers. It was Wednesday and very few were applying for the registration. It took me 10 minutes of waiting before I was called by the cashier to pay for the registration. I paid around 500 pesos then the cashier gave me the Official Receipt (OR) and sticker.

If it’s your first time to renew and you also don’t have a plate number assigned yet. Better to directly go to the nearest LTO office and see if there are nearby affiliated insurance providers, it may be pricey but once you will have your own plate number probably next year you can avail ML or Cebuana’s CTPL insurance.