End of the road for unofficial driving test booking services

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has introduced new rules for car driving test bookings, putting learners firmly in control of their own booking.

The change means it is now against the law for third parties, including unofficial test booking and cancellation finder services, as well as driving instructors, to make bookings for someone else.

It’s also a breach of DVSA’s terms and conditions for the booking service for third parties to change, swap or cancel a driving test for someone else.

Stopping people reselling tests for profit

Simon Lightwood, Minister for Roads and Buses, said:

This government inherited record waiting times and a huge backlog of learners waiting for tests, with the system seeing too many people paying over the odds to third-party touts.

But we’re taking action and seeing results, delivering almost 2 million tests over the past year, more than 158,000 extra tests since June 2025, and military driving examiners now on the ground helping boost capacity across the country.

These new rules put learners back in control by stopping others from snapping up tests and reselling them for profit, helping make the system fairer and ensuring tests go to the people who genuinely need them.

Beverley Warmington, DVSA Chief Executive, said:

Our priority is to stop learners being exploited by third parties, put them in control of their driving test and make the process fairer by clamping down on businesses that resell tests at inflated prices.

These new measures help bring a halt to a system where the use of bots and third parties increases the amount some learners pay for a test and blocks test availability for many others. These measures will help free up appointments for genuine learners who are ready to take their test.

We’re determined to reduce waiting times further, building on the more than 158,000 additional tests delivered between June 2025 and March 2026 - supported by driving examiner numbers at their highest level since 2018 and the recent deployment of military driving examiners who are already carrying out tests.

New rules are making booking fairer

The new rules aim to make booking driving tests fairer for learner drivers.

Learners should only ever pay the official DVSA fee - £62 on weekdays and £75 on evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

The changes introduced today build on the reduction in the number of changes that can be made to a test from 6 to 2, which came into force on 31 March 2026.

From 9 June 2026, further restrictions will come into force, limiting learners to moving their test only to one of the 3 nearest driving test centres. This will help to deter bookings at locations where learners do not intend to take their test.

Driving instructors and driving schools can still:

• advise learners on when they are ready to take a test and offer support throughout their learning journey
• set their available times, preventing learners from booking tests at times that do not work for them

More driving examiners and more driving tests

DVSA is continuing to increase driving examiner capacity to help provide more tests. As of April 2026, there were 1,604 full-time equivalent driving examiners in post - the highest level of examiner capacity since March 2018.

DVSA has doubled its training capacity for new driving examiners, meaning it can recruit more driving examiners and get them testing sooner.

More driving tests taking place

Provisional data shows that the number of driving tests taking place has increased over the last year.

Source: Table DRT121G, Driving test and theory test data: cars

More people passing their test

The same provisional data shows an increase in the number of people passing their driving test.

Source: Table DRT121G, Driving test and theory test data: cars