Booking a practical driving test in the UK should be as easy as visiting the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) test booking website, or booking via a phone call. However, the current reality is slightly different.
In this post, you’ll learn how to book a practical driving test in the UK on official DVSA website.
Prerequisites
You need to have the following before you can book a practical test:
- Provisional driver licence (UK)
- A theory test pass certificate (that is, you must have passed UK driving test recently, not more than 2 years ago).
- A debit or credit card to pay for the test. Practical test for car currently costs 62 GBP.
Steps
Follow these steps to book your practical test:
1. Visit DVSA Website
Visit the DVSA booking website using a browser like Chrome, Safari or Firebox from your phone or computer. https://www.gov.uk/book-driving-test.
Next, click on the green Start now button on the website.
2. Select Test Type
Now, select your test type from the Choose type of test page. If you’re going for a test for car, select Car (manual and automatic).
3. Enter Your Details
On the next screen, enter your driving licence number. You can find your driving licence number on your provisional licence. Select No for “Have you been ordered by a court to take an extended test?” if it doesn’t apply to you. Click Continue to proceed.
4. Pick Test Date and Centre
On the next screen, use the date picker field, to select the date you want to take your test.
Next, enter your preferred test centre. **Important Note**: enter the post code for your test centre instead of full address or name of city. For example: “NG1” instead of “Nottingham”.
After you complete the above steps, you should be on the test centre available date and time results page. If you see no test found for all the list items on the page, click on Show more results to refresh the page. Unfortunately, you may need to refresh the page for a few minutes before you find any dates.
Additional tips for finding test dates
Due to what people popularly describe as backlog, it can be difficult to find test dates at your preferred test centre.
I recommend you book a test at another centre near you when you’re unable to find at your centre. You can then log in to the DVSA website using https://www.gov.uk/change-driving-test.
Then, change your test centre and date to what works better for you. The process may will take minutes refreshing the DVSA website. To reduce the stress, I made a free tool for Android, iOS and Chrome that you can use when browsing the DVSA website.
Here are videos showcasing the tools:
Chrome Demo:
Mobile App Demo:
Download the tool for your phone or Chrome from https://drivingtestassist.co.uk.