Licence or license?
In American English write license; in British and Commonwealth English, licence. licence is a noun meaning “UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia, and…”; license is a noun meaning “A legal document giving official permission to do something; a permit”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) license is about 3.5 times as common as licence.
What is the difference between licence and license?
| licence | license | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore standard spelling of license | USA legal document giving official permission to do something; a permit USThe legal terms under which a person is allowed to use a product, especially software USTo authorize officially |
| Example | none recorded | In order to enter the building, I need to show my license |
| Forms | licences | licenses |
| Pronunciation | /ˈlaɪ.səns/ /ˈlɑe.səns/ /ˈlaɪsəns/ | /ˈlaɪ.səns/ |
| Region | no label | US |
| In writing | 9.3 times per million words | 33 times per million words |
Sources: licence and license in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of licence and license
licence
- 1
UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore standard spelling of license
license
- 1
USA legal document giving official permission to do something; a permit
- 2
USTo authorize officially
I am licensed to practice law in this state
- 3
USThe legal terms under which a person is allowed to use a product, especially software
- 4
USTo give formal authorization to use
It was decided to license Wikipedia under the GFDL
- 5
USFreedom to deviate deliberately from normally applicable rules or practices (especially in behaviour or speech)
- 6
USTo acquire authorization to use, usually in exchange for compensation
The filmmakers licensed several iconic 80's songs for the soundtrack
- 7
USExcessive freedom; lack of due restraint
- 8
USTo give permission or freedom to; accept
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, licence or license?
licence appears 9.3 times per million words; license 33 times per million words.
licence 9.3 times per million wordslicense 33 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search licence vs license?
“licence vs license” is searched about 1,300 times a month on Google and 190 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“license vs licence”, “licence or license”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.