Spain’s driving schools are facing a financial squeeze as exam backlogs at the DGT force students to pause lessons. Owners warn that fixed costs keep mounting, pushing many small businesses to the brink.
Jesús, who runs a family-owned driving school, is watching his business unravel as Spain’s traffic authority, the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), struggles to keep up with demand. With a shortage of examiners and administrative staff, the system has ground to a halt, leaving aspiring drivers waiting months for a chance to take their practical tests. For driving schools, this bureaucratic gridlock is more than an inconvenience—it’s an existential threat.
“Students don’t want to pay for lessons if they know they can’t take the exam for months,” Jesús explains. The logic is simple: why invest in ongoing classes when the final hurdle is nowhere in sight? As a result, many learners are suspending or postponing their training, creating a sudden drop in revenue for driving schools across the country.
But while students can pause their spending, driving school owners cannot pause their bills. Vehicles sit idle in parking lots, yet the monthly payments for car loans, insurance, maintenance, and municipal taxes remain unchanged. The financial pressure is relentless, and the fixed costs do not wait for the DGT to resolve its staffing crisis.
The most acute challenge, however, is payroll. Instructors and administrative staff depend on their salaries, and social security contributions must be paid in full every month, regardless of how many lessons are actually taught. For small business owners like Jesús, the fear of missing payroll or being forced into layoffs is a constant worry. “We have to keep paying our staff, even if there’s no work,” he says.
This situation has created a damaging cycle. Students who continue with lessons often end up taking more classes than necessary, simply to avoid losing their driving skills during the long wait for an exam slot. This drives up the total cost of getting a license, making it even less attractive for new learners. On the other hand, those who stop lessons risk losing their proficiency, which increases the likelihood of failing the test and further clogging the system.
Driving school owners have repeatedly called on the Ministry of the Interior and the DGT to implement an emergency plan to address the chronic shortage of examiners. They argue that retirements are not being replaced quickly enough, and that the number of new positions offered in public exams falls far short of what is needed to meet demand. The sector, which supports thousands of jobs, is warning that the current crisis could push many small businesses into technical bankruptcy if authorities do not act swiftly.
The impact of these delays extends beyond the driving schools themselves. Young people who need a license to access job opportunities are left in limbo, and the economic ripple effects are being felt in communities across Spain. The DGT’s struggles with staffing and exam scheduling have become a national issue, as highlighted by recent calls for broader reforms in Spain’s traffic management system, including proposals for new tolls to address congestion and funding shortfalls—an issue explored in detail in this analysis of Catalonia’s push for nationwide highway tolls.
According to industry estimates, the driving school sector is a significant contributor to Spain’s economy, generating both direct and indirect employment. The current bottleneck not only threatens the viability of these businesses but also risks undermining road safety by disrupting the training pipeline for new drivers. Unless the DGT and government move quickly to expand examiner capacity and streamline exam scheduling, the crisis facing Spain’s driving schools is likely to deepen.
