DEVELOPMENT VERSION: This is an experimental DALICC environment. Features, data and APIs may change or be reset without notice. A stable version of this service, with a potentially different feature set, will be made available soon at dalicc.net.

2026

Non-Commercial Government Licence

Also known as NCGL UK 2.0, Non-Commercial Government Licence v2.0, Non-Commercial Government Licence version 2.0, UK Non-Commercial Government Licence v2.0, UK Non-Commercial Government Licence version 2.0.

Commercial use
not allowed
Share alike
not required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
Compare with… Add to the compatibility check Download JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML Text

Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NCGL-UK-2.0

Permissions

  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text Making copies of the work in any form.

Prohibitions

  • Change license from the text Not permitted: Change license. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.
  • Commercial use from the text Not permitted: Commercial use. The text says: "The Licensor grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information for Non-Commercial purposes only subject to the conditions below." Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • Promote from the text Not permitted: Promote. Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

License-wide duties

This license states no duties that apply to the work as a whole.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

No default rule of that graph reaches this license: it speaks about every act the rules are about.

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

The Information is licensed ‘as is’ and the Information Provider excludes all representations, warranties, obligations and liabilities in relation to the Information to the maximum extent permitted by law. The Information Provider is not liable for any errors or omissions in the Information and shall not be liable for any loss, injury or damage of any kind caused by its use. The Information Provider does not guarantee the continued supply of the Information.

Info

Target asset types
Creative work (i.e. text, picture, sound, movie), Dataset, Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/non-commercial-government-licence/version/2/
Legal code
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/non-commercial-government-licence/version/2/
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
The National Archives
Attribution name
The National Archives
SPDX identifier
NCGL-UK-2.0 on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
NCGL-UK-2.0

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar 

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NCGL-UK-2.0",
  "license-title": "Non-Commercial Government Licence",
  "spdx-id": "NCGL-UK-2.0",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NCGL-UK-2.0> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NCGL-UK-2.0"
  }
}

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/NCGL-UK-2.0" rel="license">Non-Commercial Government Licence</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge DALICC badge for Non-Commercial Government Licence

Markdown 

[![License: Non-Commercial Government Licence](https://dalicc.net/license-library/NCGL-UK-2.0/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/NCGL-UK-2.0)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/NCGL-UK-2.0"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/NCGL-UK-2.0/badge.svg" alt="License: Non-Commercial Government Licence"></a>

Review

Status
Reviewed against the license text
Last checked
2026-09-15
Reviewer
Giray Havur
Verdict
corrected during the review
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
14 recorded, 4 applied to the record, 0 proposed

The record models version 2.0 of the UK Non-Commercial Government Licence and models it well: the non-commercial restriction, the attribution and notice duties and the onward-licensing rule are all in place. Applied: the SPDX identifier, the trailing blank in the title and the non-endorsement prohibition, which the three sibling government records carry and this one did not.

14 findings

  • minor Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    The record carried no SPDX identifier although its own DALICC identifier is the SPDX list identifier NCGL-UK-2.0 and its cc:legalcode is the SPDX seeAlso URL. Added.

  • minor Rubric 1 dct:title applied

    The title literal ended with a trailing blank, "Non-Commercial Government Licence ". Removed.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target none

    dalicc:CreativeWork, dcmitype:Dataset and dcmitype:Software. The software type is supported by the definition: "Information means information protected by copyright or by database right (for example, literary and artistic works, content, data and source code)".

  • info Rubric 3 odrl:permission none

    The permissions follow the freedoms list, copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information, adapt the Information, and exploit it for Non-Commercial purposes. dalicc:ModifiedWorks and cc:DerivativeWorks are both present, which is what this licence grants and what the OGL 3.0 record lacked before the review.

  • info Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition none

    cc:CommercialUse is prohibited, which the licence states twice: the grant is "for Non-Commercial purposes only" and the not-permitted list adds "exercise any of the rights granted to you by this licence in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation." The definition of Non-Commercial purposes excludes a file-sharing exchange without monetary compensation, which the model cannot express.

  • major Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    The non-endorsement clause was not modelled: "This licence does not grant you any right to use the Information in a way that suggests any official status or that the Information Provider and/or Licensor endorse you or your use of the Information", and the exemptions list excludes logos, crests, military insignia, the Royal Arms and trade marks. The library expresses this by prohibiting dalicc:promote, which the other three government records of this review group already did. Added.

  • info Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition none

    dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited, which rests on the condition "ensure that any onward licensing of the Information, for example when combined with other information, is for Non-Commercial purposes only". The text restricts the terms of an onward licence rather than forbidding relicensing outright, so the statement is an approximation, but it is the closest the vocabulary comes and it errs on the safe side.

  • info Rubric 5 odrl:duty none

    cc:Attribution and cc:Notice hang on odrl:distribute, odrl:modify and odrl:derive, which matches the condition "acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence", with the default statement "Contains information licensed under the Non-Commercial Government Licence v2.0." No duty is duplicated and none sits at the wrong level.

  • info Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer none

    dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer holds both paragraphs of the No warranty section, quoted verbatim. As in the sibling records there is no separate dalicc:LiabilityLimitation and the exemptions list is not carried.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction none

    dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:perpetual match the grant, "a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence". The governing law is the jurisdiction of the Information Provider's principal place of business, for which the model has no field.

  • gap Rubric 8 record none

    The exemptions list and the automatic end of the rights on breach or on non-commercial use have no terms. Proposed terms: dalicc:exemptedMaterial and dalicc:terminationOnBreach.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check reports no conflict, before and after the corrections.

  • info Rubric 10 record none

    The record is the non-commercial edition of the Open Government Licence, drafted from the same template. Against OGL 3.0 it differs exactly where the documents differ: commercial exploitation moves to the prohibitions, the onward-licensing condition appears, and the fee permissions and odrl:grantUse are absent. It was also the only one of the four government records that already modelled the notice duty, which is why it was used as the model for correcting the other three.

  • major Rubric 10 record applied

    Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 9: the record called itself a dalicc:jurisdictionPortOf the Open Government Licence while its dalicc:variantKind said 'edition'. The Non-Commercial Government Licence is an edition of the same licence for the same jurisdiction, not a port of it, so the port relation is replaced by the general dct:isVersionOf and the variant kind stays.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The content review of 2026-09-15 added 1 identification detail and 1 prohibition, changed 1 identification detail, recorded the relation to the record this one was adapted from and recorded the review state. Later changes brought it in line with its family and its text in the verification of 2026-09-15, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

    11 changes

    • added dalicc:jurisdictionPortOf dalicclib:UkOpenGovernmentLicenseForPublicSectorInformation

      Port relation The 2026-09-15 review made the relation between a jurisdiction port and the record it was adapted from explicit in the data.

    • added dalicc:reviewStatus dalicc:Reviewed

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added dalicc:reviewedOn "2026-09-15"^^xsd:date

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added dalicc:variantKind "edition"

      Port relation The 2026-09-15 review made the relation between a jurisdiction port and the record it was adapted from explicit in the data.

    • changed dct:title "Non-Commercial Government Licence"

      was dct:title "Non-Commercial Government Licence "

      Review finding The title literal ended with a trailing blank, "Non-Commercial Government Licence ". Removed.

    • added prohibition dalicc:promote

      Review finding The non-endorsement clause was not modelled: "This licence does not grant you any right to use the Information in a way that suggests any official status or that the Information Provider and/or Licensor endorse you or your use of the Information", and the exemptions list excludes logos, crests, military insignia, the Royal Arms and trade marks. The library expresses this by prohibiting dalicc:promote, which the other three government records of this review group already did. Added.

    • added spdx:licenseId "NCGL-UK-2.0"

      Review finding The record carried no SPDX identifier although its own DALICC identifier is the SPDX list identifier NCGL-UK-2.0 and its cc:legalcode is the SPDX seeAlso URL. Added.

    • removed dalicc:jurisdictionPortOf dalicclib:UkOpenGovernmentLicenseForPublicSectorInformation

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 9: the record called itself a dalicc:jurisdictionPortOf the Open Government Licence while its dalicc:variantKind said 'edition'. The Non-Commercial Government Licence is an edition of the same licence for the same jurisdiction, not a port of it, so the port relation is replaced by the general dct:isVersionOf and the variant kind stays.

    • added dct:isVersionOf dalicclib:UkOpenGovernmentLicenseForPublicSectorInformation

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency and consolidation decision 9: the record called itself a dalicc:jurisdictionPortOf the Open Government Licence while its dalicc:variantKind said 'edition'. The Non-Commercial Government Licence is an edition of the same licence for the same jurisdiction, not a port of it, so the port relation is replaced by the general dct:isVersionOf and the variant kind stays.

    • changed prohibition cc:CommercialUse

      was prohibition cc:CommercialUse

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "The Licensor grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information for Non-Commercial purposes only subject to the conditions below."

    • added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>

      Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.

  2. Version 1

    The version this model had before the content review of 2026-09-15.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.