Regulatory action against rule breakers

by | May 22, 2026 | Locations

The new DVSA rules for booking driving tests has now been in place for 10 days, and they have provided the following update of the action they have taken against people/organisations who are breaching their rules:

As you know, from 12 May 2026 only learner drivers have been allowed to book, change, swap or cancel a car driving test.  

The use of any bots or automated searching of our service also breaks our new terms and conditions. 

We’ve moved quickly to enforce the new rules and continue to do so. Here’s what we’ve done so far. 

1,178 driving licence numbers suspended from online booking

Where our monitoring detects unusual activity on the booking service, we will suspend access to book, change or cancel driving tests online.

We’ve already done this 1,178 times for driving licence numbers involved. We email learners to tell them when we’ve done this.

They will be able to call us if they need to book or manage their test.

Apps reported to Apple and Google

We have reported a number of third-party apps to Apple and Google for breaching both our terms and conditions and the platforms’ own developer guidelines.  

We are working with both platforms to have non-compliant apps removed. 

Social media accounts being taken down

We are reporting social media accounts and groups that advertise services that are against the law or break our terms and conditions.  

Platforms are already removing accounts as a result, and we will continue to report others. 

Businesses continuing to use bots have been suspended

We have suspended 7 business accounts that breached our terms and conditions. They were (unsuccessfully) trying to book car driving tests. 

We will not hesitate to suspend further accounts where we find the rules are being broken. 

How you can help

As their instructor, you are often the most trusted source of advice for your pupils. Please encourage them to: 

  • only ever book, change or cancel their test through GOV.UK 
  • only ever pay the official DVSA fee – £62 on weekdays and £75 on evenings, weekends and bank holidays 
  • not use any app, website or social media account offering to find or secure an earlier test slot 

If a learner would like an earlier appointment, the only legitimate ways to arrange this are: 

  • using the GOV.UK service to change their driving test appointment 
  • swap their driving test with another learner driver directly with DVSA 

Thank you for your continued support in helping to make the system fairer for every learner. 

 

Just a reminder. These new changes are as a result of the surveys that the DVSA did with the public. Driving instructors have had no say in how the regulator responds to the surveys.