Northern Ireland · 15 DVA car test centres
Driving test centres in Northern Ireland
From July 2025 to June 2026, 52.5% of 59,234 car driving tests at DVA centres were passes, against 54.9% in the four quarters before. Centres ranged from Hydebank (43.0%) to Armagh (63.4%).
Driving tests in Northern Ireland are run by the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA), part of the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), not by DVSA. DfI publishes each centre's car test pass rate every quarter; it doesn't publish waiting times by centre, so this part of the site has pass rates and test numbers only.
Highest pass rates: Armagh (63.4%), Craigavon (63.2%), Downpatrick (63.0%). Lowest: Hydebank (43.0%), Lisburn (44.8%), Newry (47.0%). The busiest centre was Belfast (Balmoral), with 5,734 car tests.
New learner rules from 1 October 2026: a six-month minimum learning period, a logbook and new R plates.
- Under 48%
- 48–53%
- 53–58%
- 58%+
Every DVA centre, by pass rate
| Trend | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armagh | Armagh | 63.4% | −11.7 | 59.4% | 68.4% | 1,889 | |
| Craigavon | Armagh | 63.2% | −3.4 | 61.7% | 65.0% | 4,151 | |
| Downpatrick | Down | 63.0% | −3.5 | 62.6% | 63.5% | 3,708 | |
| Omagh | Tyrone | 62.5% | −0.9 | 60.8% | 64.8% | 2,735 | |
| Enniskillen | Fermanagh | 62.3% | −1.1 | 63.1% | 61.1% | 1,878 | |
| Larne | Antrim | 53.2% | −0.9 | 54.2% | 52.3% | 4,948 | |
| Newtownards | Down | 52.9% | +1.1 | 51.9% | 54.3% | 5,634 | |
| Cookstown | Tyrone | 52.0% | −1.1 | 52.1% | 51.9% | 5,018 | |
| Londonderry (Altnagelvin) | Londonderry | 49.9% | +0.2 | 50.5% | 49.4% | 4,166 | |
| Ballymena | Antrim | 49.8% | −1.2 | 48.7% | 51.3% | 3,704 | |
| Coleraine | Londonderry | 49.3% | −0.5 | 51.4% | 46.9% | 3,440 | |
| Belfast (Balmoral) | Antrim | 48.0% | −1.7 | 48.0% | 48.1% | 5,734 | |
| Newry | Down | 47.0% | −4.7 | 47.1% | 46.9% | 3,337 | |
| Lisburn | Antrim | 44.8% | −7.7 | 43.9% | 45.9% | 3,736 | |
| Hydebank | Down | 43.0% | −9.1 | 41.1% | 45.4% | 5,156 |
Pass rate, men and women: DfI's car test pass rate for the four quarters July 2025 to June 2026; Northern Ireland 52.5%. On year: change in points from the four quarters before. Tests: car tests in the same four quarters. Trend: the four-quarter rate at each quarter since June 2022. No waiting times: the DVA doesn't publish them by centre. Source: Department for Infrastructure (DVA Statistics), OGL v3.0.
Northern Ireland over time
Show these figures as a table
| Period | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|
| Four quarters to June 2026 | 52.5% |
| Four quarters to March 2026 | 52.3% |
| Four quarters to December 2025 | 52.9% |
| Four quarters to September 2025 | 53.6% |
| Four quarters to June 2025 | 54.9% |
| Four quarters to March 2025 | 55.8% |
| Four quarters to December 2024 | 56.2% |
| Four quarters to September 2024 | 56.0% |
| Four quarters to June 2024 | 54.7% |
| Four quarters to March 2024 | 53.7% |
| Four quarters to December 2023 | 53.2% |
| Four quarters to September 2023 | 52.9% |
| Four quarters to June 2023 | 53.3% |
| Four quarters to March 2023 | 53.7% |
| Four quarters to December 2022 | 54.5% |
| Four quarters to September 2022 | 55.5% |
| Four quarters to June 2022 | 57.0% |
Alongside Great Britain and Ireland
In 2025–26 (April to March), 52.3% of car tests in Northern Ireland were passes; DVSA's figure for Great Britain for the same year was 50.0%. The RSA's figure for Ireland over the 12 months to September 2026 was 52.3%. These are three agencies running three versions of the test, so treat the comparison as context, not a ranking. DfI's own statistics compare Northern Ireland with Great Britain and put part of the gap down to local conditions such as traffic and road layouts.
Source: Department for Infrastructure, Driver, Vehicle, Operator and Enforcement Statistics, quarterly, published 25 September 2026; centre addresses from nidirect. Open Government Licence v3.0. One release (July to September 2025) printed its centre rows out of line; we corrected it so the figures match DfI's own four-quarter rates. DfI also lists Belfast (Dill Road), Londonderry (Newbuildings), Mallusk and Belfast (Ladas Drive), which held no car tests in the last four quarters, so they have no page.