New changes to driving test booking rules
What are the changes?
How people can book their car driving test has been changing over the last few weeks. These changes are part of the crackdown on bots booking tests so that third companies can then sell these on at inflated prices.
This is a great move towards protecting learner drivers from being scammed and hopefully will help to reduce the waiting times for driving tests. In England the wait time for a driving test is 22.7 weeks, Scotland 22.9 weeks and in Wales 17.3 weeks, according to figures provided to the BBC by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) for April 2026.
This month’s change
The most recent change to the rules was made last week, and it means that you can only move your driving test to a test centre near your orignal booking. Previously you could move it to any test centre. You can find out where you’re allowed to move it to here.
If you move your test from Reading you can move to Greenham, Basingstoke or Farnborough. If you then want to move again you will be allowed to move back to Reading, or to the 3 nearest test centres to the new one that you’ve chosen (for example if you went to Farnborough you can go to Guildford, Chertsey (London) or Basingstoke.)
Previous changes
In May this year the rule changes were you have to book and manage your own test (previously your instructor could do this for you). You’re also not allowed to use unofficial services to search for available tests, you have to go through the official GOV.UK site.
Earlier in the year the number of changes you are allowed to make to a booked test was reduced from 6 to only 2 changes. If you change more than one thing at the same time (for example changing the location and date together) this still only counts as one change. Also if the DVSA needs to change your test for any reason this doesn’t count towards the amount of changes that have been made to your booking.
If you’d like to read the full article from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency about all of the changes please click here.
Pass with us!
We’re happy to see anything that reduce the wait times for driving tests, they’re too high at the moment, and we’d love to support more of our learners to pass their test!
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