How Long Does a CSCS Card Last?

Here's the current picture:

• Green Labourer: 2 years for your first card (since Feb 2025), 5 years on renewal
• Blue Skilled Worker: 5 years
• Gold Advanced Craft / Supervisor: 5 years
• Black Manager: 5 years
• White Professionally Qualified Person: 5 years — it cannot be renewed; when it expires you apply for a new one
• Red cards (Trainee, Apprentice, Experienced Worker, Provisional): 6 months to 5 years depending on variant — Provisional 6 months, Experienced Worker 1 year, Apprentice 4½ years, Trainee 5 years. None of those can be renewed; the one exception is the two-year Trainee card CSCS issues for some classroom-based qualifications, which can

CSCS reduced the first-issue Labourer card to two years to tackle the oversupply of green cards being used by people who aren't actually in labouring roles. Renewal now requires evidence you're employed as a labourer. Alongside the change, the HS&E test pass used for your initial application counts for three years on this route, so the same test can cover your first renewal.

You can renew a CSCS card from six months before it expires. Renewal generally requires a valid HS&E test pass — the test result must be recent (within two years for most routes), which is why many workers end up re-sitting the test at renewal time.

If it’s been a few years since you last sat the test, don’t assume you’ll walk it — the question bank and formats get updated. Refresh with a few timed mocks before booking.