Whoops ! wrong button
Hi Ro,
There hasn’t been a paper ADR ‘ticket’ issued in the UK since Oct 2012.
From that date, ADR ‘tickets’ became an ADR card as shown by a couple of posters.
All ADR cards and DGSA qualifications are issued for the whole of the UK and NI by SQA from their HQ in Glasgow.
To address a point made by another poster, item #1 at the top of the front of an ADR card (regardless of which country issued it) is the candidate number which is issued to identify a candidate in their system by the country that issued the ADR card. This can be alpha-numeric or just numbers, but it must clearly identify the candidate in the country that issued the ADR card.
For a UK issued ADR card, SQA uses a unique candidate number which the candate retains for all time, including renewals, even if there is a gap in validity periods.
Now to the easiest question… ADR requires at ADR 8.2.1.6 that an ADR card issued by any ADR member country shall be accepted in all other ADR countries because that’s part of the ADR agreement that all the ADR member countries governments have signed to.
[ADR 8.2.1.6. is also available in the Polish version of ADR, or indeed in any other language spoken in any other ADR member country.]
So the short answer is that our Polish friend’s ADR card is as valid in the UK as it is in Poland and does NOT need to be exchanged.
A candidate is free to return to their ‘home’ country to take an ADR course in their own language if they wish to, then they come back here and carry on as normal.
I have heard of some UK transport companies who kick up a big fuss about foreign issued ADR cards and the completely false ‘requirement’ to swap out an ADR card for a UK issued one, so to them I advise that their (properly qualified) DGSA has a quick look at ADR 8.2.1.6 to refresh thier memory of something that they should already know and should have passed to the transport office.
The details shown by cooper1202 are accurate and are mirrored by use of the same format [at ADR 8.2.2.8] for all ADR cards issued in all ADR member countries.
Thanks Dave - I knew you’d come up trumps! 
can the uk agencies or even the business check the validity of a foreign adr card then?
Hi Ro,
It’s all part of my ADR tutor and DGSA anorak service. 
I’ve just realised that I’ve been doing this for 22yrs and still going strong(ish!). 
This document seems to say that the Polish system will only issue ADR certificates…" Issued only to Polish citizens; valid only together with a proper category driving licence."
It doesn’t say what a “proper category driving licence” is.
Would they mean a Polish one?
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/prado/en/POL-FY-01001/index.html
I know that ADR is accepted cross borders, but the isn’t the issuing of them different in different countries?
After all, driving licences are accepted in different countries, but the driving test is not identical in all countries from what I have heard.
If the OP has a PL ADR licence then as Dave has said that will be perfectly valid in the UK. Getting one may not be straightforward.
Talk to PL trainers before parting with cash.
It’s always satisfying to specialise in something and maybe it’ll be a little earner long after you’re reitred!
This is always good advice.
I start with 3 reminders…
1.) ADR is binding law for the international carriage of dangerous goods, ie transport that crosses international country boundaries, or to put it another way, a movement of dangerous goods under which the consignor is in one country, and the consignee being in a different country.
2.) For the purposes of this discussion, there is NO link between ADR and the EU and they are completely separate ideas.
Dave’s ADR trivia… there are approximately twice as many countries who are members of ADR than those who are members of the EU.
3.) Any ADR member country is free to adapt or modify ADR for domestic use and/or make some of their own dangerous goods carriage laws for domestic use.
In the UK, we do exactly that by using CDG 2009 (as amended) for the national carriage of dangerous goods on UK registered vehicles or railway carriages, which gives rise to other UK legal requirements contained in ADTP 2020, the DG EAC List 2025… then there are a whole raft of ‘Authorisations’ and ‘Letters of Authority’ issued by the DfT from time to time. (This complexity usually confounds Google searches because they don’t always come up with a totally correct answer. 
)
As another example with which I’ve had many dealings, Germany is a member of ADR, but the Germans have GGVSEB which covers their national dangerous goods transport by Road, Rail and Inland Waterway.
If I’ve read the linked document correctly, it seems to be from 2013, so the following comments may or may not be true in the case in point…
Over the years, the UK has gone through various requirements to keep pace with the fact that ADR is revised and republished every two years. If something isn’t mandated, then any particular country is allowed to make various requirements for domestic use under the own national laws, with the UK being no exception to this.
Since around 2013(ish) the idea of linking an ADR ‘ticket’ or card to a UK driving licence has been dropped from the requirements for those taking an ADR course.
There was a requirement in the UK for linking a DVLA driver number to an ADR ‘ticket’ durning the time that both an ADR ‘ticket’ and a driving licence were both issued from DVLA, Swansea, this being the case ever since I started teaching ADR back in 2003, but IIRC, this got modified in the UK around 2013.
Also IIRC, the changeover for issuing ADR licences from DVLA to SQA took about 5yrs beginning in 2008ish.
If the document you’ve linked is from 2013, this could be explained if Poland’s transition started in a different year to ours, or happened at a different pace.
It may even be that the Poles have kept the link between a driving licence and an ADR card if both still come from the same issuing authority.
Any ADR card can easily be checked by contacting the issuing authority indicated at item # 7 near the bottom of the front of an ADR card. The info given at item #1 at the top of the front of an ADR card identifies the holder of the card to the issuing authority.
I’m already 2 and a bit years over my pensionable age, so yes, my ADR teaching and consultancy gigs are a nice earner.
As for retiring, I doubt that I can completely retire in the accepted sense since I’m stuck in a trap of my own making due to me stupidly not making any provision for a pension whilst I was working. 