Spanish driving theory test in English: 2026 rules and pass rates

You can take the Spanish theory test for a car licence in English, in the same format as in Spanish, and the DGT form does not limit English to any region. It is not an easy test. The DGT's exam microdata give a 50.3% pass rate for category B theory exams in 2025 and 46.6% for January to August 2026. Candidates who applied without a driving school passed 38.3% of the time in 2025. The driving test that follows is in Spanish only. Below are the rules from the regulation and the DGT, and our count of the DGT's own figures.

Do you need the test at all?

That depends on where your licence was issued, not on your passport.

• EU and EEA licences stay valid in Spain (Reglamento General de Conductores, art. 15). If yours has no expiry date, you must renew it once you have been resident for two years.
• Licences from countries with an exchange agreement are valid for six months after you become resident and can then be swapped for a Spanish licence. For cars and motorcycles you take no test and pay €28.87. The DGT list (updated 26 June 2026) has 33 countries, among them the UK, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, the Philippines, Ukraine, Morocco and most of Latin America.
• Every other licence is valid for six months from the date you become resident, and after that it is not (art. 21.2.c). That covers the US, Canada, Australia, India, China, Russia, Venezuela, Mexico and Pakistan. You then need a Spanish licence, with a theory test and a driving test.

One DGT condition catches people out: a licence obtained in your home country while you were already legally resident in Spain cannot be exchanged.

How many people does this affect? We matched the DGT list against INE resident population by nationality on 1 January 2025. Of 5.15 million non-EU nationals living in Spain, 1.39 million (26.9%) hold the nationality of a country with no exchange agreement. Another 0.26 million belong to INE groupings that mix both kinds of country. Nationality is only a proxy, because what counts is the country that issued the licence.

UK licences after Brexit

The UK–Spain agreement (BOE-A-2023-8050) has applied since 16 March 2023. A UK licence holder who becomes resident in Spain can exchange it with no practical or theory test. Two limits apply. A UK licence issued after the agreement took effect must have been issued while you were resident in the UK. A UK licence that was itself exchanged from a non-EEA country's licence is not covered, unless both Spain and the UK have an exchange arrangement with that country (paragraph 12).

The theory test in English

The language is chosen on the application form, DGT Mod.04, under «Idioma de la prueba teórica»:

Castellano, lenguas cooficiales, inglés, francés y alemán: A1, A2, B y RPV.

The same form restricts Catalan to Catalonia and the Balearics, Basque to the Basque Country and Navarre, Galician to Galicia and Valencian to the Valencian Community. It sets no such limit for English. The form also has boxes for headphones («Auriculares») and extra time («Ampliación de tiempo»).

The format is the same in every language:

The regulation (annex VI, B) sets a minimum of 30 questions, one minute per question and no more than 10% wrong answers. In October 2025 the DGT announced a compulsory video question on hazard perception, planned for the last quarter of 2025. We found no DGT notice confirming it was in use by 6 October 2026. Separately, amendments to the traffic rules (Real Decreto 518/2026) took effect on 1 October 2026, so practice questions from earlier years may be out of date.

Cost, attempts and how long a pass lasts

Sources: DGT, obtaining a licence for the fee, attempts and two-year validity; RGC art. 53.1 and annex VI, A.2 for the rules behind them; DGT Sede for the medical certificate. Non-EU applicants identify themselves with a valid residence authorisation. Driving-school fees come on top.

Without a driving school: what the data shows

You can apply for the theory test directly, without a school. The DGT records these candidates as turno libre. The DGT Sede puts it this way: «también puedes realizar tu solicitud por libre».

The driving test is different. Article 41.2 of the regulation bars from the on-road test anyone who has not trained at an authorised driving school, unless they have previously held an equivalent or higher licence. The microdata show what that means in practice:

"Passes on the first attempt" is the share of passes recorded at the first sitting. It is not a first-time pass rate, because the DGT does not publish how many people sat for the first time.

Turno libre is growing: 4.4% of theory exams in 2023, 5.5% in 2025 and 6.0% from January to August 2026. Its pass rate has stayed between 36% and 39%, while the driving-school rate has fallen, from 53.2% in 2023 to 47.1% in January–August 2026. The gap has narrowed from 16.4 points to 8.6. The data cannot say why, and people who skip a school may differ in other ways, so the gap is not a measure of what a school adds.

Is the practical test in English?

No. Mod.04 offers a language choice only for the theory test. Article 55 of the regulation says that during the road test «las instrucciones precisas serán dadas exclusivamente por el examinador». It allows only candidates, examiners and instructors in the car, and forbids the instructor from giving instructions «con signos, palabras o de cualquier otra forma». Nothing in it provides for an interpreter, and we found no DGT page offering an English-speaking examiner. Learn the Spanish driving instructions during your lessons.

Pass rates: the trend and the expat provinces

The number of theory exams grew by 26.3% between 2023 and 2025, and the pass rate went down. In 2026 it was lower than in the same month of 2025 in all eight months published so far, by 0.6 points in January and 5.2 in August. The fall is among driving-school candidates: 50.5% to 47.1% for January–August, while turno libre went from 37.2% to 38.5%. Of the 537,881 passes in 2025, 62.5% came at the first attempt and 5.1% at the fifth or later.

These are the ten provinces with the highest share of foreign residents (INE, 1 July 2025):

The Balearic Islands have the lowest pass rate of any province except Melilla. Las Palmas (40.5%) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (44.0%) are also well below average. Across all 52 provinces, those with more foreign residents tend to have lower pass rates (correlation −0.43). This compares provinces, not people. It does not show how foreign candidates score, because the DGT does not publish results by nationality or exam language.

What the DGT does not publish

How many people take the theory test in English, and how they do, is not public. The monthly microdata have no language field (record layout). The 2025 statistical yearbook breaks exams down only by province and test type (table 110). We found no DGT press release with the figure. Getting it would take a request under the transparency law.

Methodology

• Exam results: DGT, Microdatos de exámenes por Sección/Autoescuela (mensual), 44 monthly files from January 2023 to August 2026 (file list), downloaded 6 October 2026. Filters: TIPO_EXAMEN = PRUEBA TEÓRICA or PRUEBA CONDUCCIÓN Y CIRCULACIÓN, NOMBRE_PERMISO = B. Exams = NUM_APTOS + NUM_NO_APTOS. Turno libre = rows with school name «TURNO LIBRE» (school code = province code + 0000). First-attempt share = NUM_APTOS_1conv / NUM_APTOS.
• One masked cell: in the September 2025 file, Barcelona / turno libre / theory B shows #### for fails, which means 1,000 or more. We counted it as 1,000. The 2025 exam totals are therefore minimums, and the 2025 pass rates for Spain, Barcelona and turno libre are maximums. If that cell is left out, the 2025 total is 1,069,167.
• Exchange countries: DGT list dated 26 June 2026. Population: INE, Estadística Continua de Población, table 56936 (nationality, 1 January 2025, final) and table 59591 (province, 1 July 2025, provisional). INE groupings such as "other Asian country" were not assigned to either side.
• Correlation: Pearson's r between the share of foreign residents and the 2025 theory B pass rate, 52 provinces. Rows with province «N.D.» (2,686 exams) are excluded.

Practising in English

The theory test is the part you can prepare for on your own. Our free DGT mock test uses the exam format: 30 questions, 30 minutes, three mistakes allowed. Each question is shown in Spanish with an English translation underneath. The Carnet de Conducir B Test 2026 app has 9,419 questions across the 17 syllabus topics. It shows each question in the exam language, Spanish or English, and every answer comes with an explanation. It is an independent app, not a DGT product. If Russian is your first language, there is a separate guide in Russian.

Rules and fees change. Check the DGT pages above before you apply.