How do I prove who I am when I have no passport or driving licence?

This is a circular problem — you need a document to get a document — and the way out is knowing which routes are designed for exactly that. There are three: an identity check that uses your financial footprint instead of a card, a statutory way of getting onto the electoral register with no address, and a regulatory rule that stops banks treating a document list as the law.

Step by step

1. Try the One Login security-questions route.GOV.UK One Login can verify you by asking about financial products — a mobile contract, bank accounts, credit cards, loans, a mortgage — or about Personal Independence Payment. A current account with a UK bank or building society is enough to begin, without any photo document.
2. Get the details exactly right first time.Names must match exactly, including middle names, and financial answers are checked against credit reference data. You get one attempt at this route, so check your credit report first so you are answering from the same record they are.
3. Register to vote, even with no fixed address.A declaration of local connection lets a homeless person, a remand prisoner or a mental health patient register using the address of, or nearest to, a place where they spend a substantial part of their time. You can ask for correspondence to be collected from the electoral registration office instead of posted.
4. Then apply for a Voter Authority Certificate.Once registered, you can apply free for a photographic Voter Authority Certificate in England, Scotland and Wales. You do not need a National Insurance number to apply — a birth certificate, a bank statement and a bill can be used instead.
5. Know the certificate's limits.It is for voting. GOV.UK states expressly that it cannot be used as proof of identification for other purposes, including proving your age. It is genuinely useful; it is not an identity card.
6. Look at the wider voter identification list.Several accepted forms are free or already held: a PASS card, a Blue Badge, an older person's or disabled person's bus pass, a Freedom Pass, a Scottish National Entitlement Card, an HM Armed Forces Veteran Card, a provisional driving licence. Expired photographic identification is accepted for voting if the photograph still looks like you.
7. For a bank account, quote the rule rather than a list.Money laundering rules require verification from a reliable, independent source — a standard, not a prescribed list. The FCA expects firms to have measures ensuring their procedures do not unreasonably deny access to people who cannot reasonably be expected to produce detailed evidence of identity.
8. Ask specifically about a basic bank account.Designated providers must offer a fee-free basic account to any eligible applicant, with no credit check needed to be offered one, and a decision within a set number of business days. Ask for it by name, because branch staff often do not offer it.
9. Use the Universal Credit document list as a checklist.The Department for Work and Pensions publishes the most complete list in UK government of what counts as identity and address evidence, including rent cards, savings account books, NHS medical cards, letters from an employer or an education provider on headed paper, and confirmation from the electoral register that you live at an address.
10. Note the recency standards.That same list uses six months for utility bills, mobile bills and wage or pension slips, and three months for a power of attorney or a grant of probate. Those are the most useful published benchmarks for how old a document can be.
11. Northern Ireland: use the Northern Ireland scheme.Northern Ireland has its own identity assurance service accessed through a nidirect account, used for AccessNI, driving licence services, legal aid and rates. GOV.UK One Login is not the route for those services.

Tips

• Get your statutory credit report from all three agencies free before attempting any identity verification. It is the record the checks are run against.
• Ask for a basic bank account by name and ask for any refusal in writing. Both change the conversation.
• Registering to vote is the cheapest identity anchor there is, and there is a statutory route for people with no fixed address.

Common mistakes

• Treating a document list as the law — The legal standard is a reliable independent source, not a list. Organisations set their own lists and can accept other evidence when asked.
• Guessing at the security questions — There is only one attempt at that route. Check your credit report first so that you are answering from the same record the check uses.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask