“License” or “Licence”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 8 prefer “license” and 4 prefer “licence”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	license	licence	Preference
United States	97	3	“license”
United Kingdom	34	66	“licence”
India	48	52	“licence”
Philippines	95	5	“license”
Canada	82	18	“license”
Australia	43	57	“licence”
Liberia	100	0	“license”
Ireland	28	72	“licence”
New Zealand	53	47	“license”
Jamaica	82	18	“license”
Trinidad & Tobago	86	14	“license”
Guyana	80	20	“license”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“license”

…wreck that the first salvage license in South Carolina was granted…
After earning his pilot's license and undergoing advanced training, he…
…CD of the soundtrack, under license from Turner Entertainment; in the…
…on the station's city of license and followed in parentheses by…
No license is required for such vehicles.
…from the footage, where the license plate of Dincă's car happened…
…the late 1990s, the inventors licensed PMS (UK), a toy retailer,…
…18, 2013, CodComm applied for license to cover with the FCC…
…unit as well as technology license fees.
Funda Payan obtained her license on May 25, 2011.

“licence”

Yorkshire Television is re-awarded its licence having bid £37.7 million to…
…their take on the Batman licence, and by May 2007, they…
…Melbourne Victory had won the licence to be the only Melbourne…
…newspapers that needed a royal licence to operate.
…the licensee's rights under the licence contract.
The NRU reactor licence expired in 2016.
…Polly had been refused a licence.
Stacey Baggs relinquished her licence to work for Ricky Holloway…
…studying for her commercial pilot's licence and who became her friend.
Brisset received a Licence d'anglais from the Université de…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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