Spain, We Need to Talk

The Dark Reality Behind the Spanish Driving Test Industry

By Max Milano (Travel Writer)

Spain, we need to talk.
I know that we expats, particularly those of us from the United States, are often seen as privileged, maybe even entitled. And sure, many of us arrive with advantages. But the truth is that Americans and Northern Europeans who choose to make Spain their home bring a lot into the economy. We spend locally, we pay taxes, we hire professionals, we enroll our kids in schools, we buy homes and cars, and we contribute exactly as we should.

And I also believe that as expats from the U.S., we must do our best to follow Spain’s rules, no matter how strange, bureaucratic, or downright Byzantine they may be.

Whether we’re buying an apartment, purchasing a car, enrolling in public or private healthcare, or navigating Spain’s semi-opaque real estate, tax and social security systems, we accept that this is part of the deal. We hire lawyers, we ask questions, we adapt, we learn the language, and we promote the country to friends and family back home. We don’t expect Spain to work like the U.S., that’s precisely why we moved here.

But there is one aspect of the expat experience in Spain so dysfunctional, so needlessly abusive, and so utterly broken that it must be called out: the insane process that U.S., Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and other non-EU adults must endure to obtain a Spanish driver’s license.

We are one of the few groups who cannot simply exchange our licenses, unlike EU citizens and many Latin American citizens. So, as Americans, we are forced into Spain’s full, from-scratch licensing system. A system that, after going through it ourselves, I can only describe as a nationwide, profit-driven racket run by complicit driving schools and examiners whose behavior crosses the line from psychological manipulation into what feels like outright abuse. And no, I’m not being hyperbolic. Read on and see why.

When my wife and I began this process, we naïvely assumed it was just another one of Spain’s bureaucratic quirks. I even wrote a blog post about it after spending more than a thousand euros, only to be failed. Then we heard the rumors about Cuenca (three hours away and supposedly “the easiest place to pass in Spain.”) The system there requires you to stay one to two weeks, take intensive theory (if needed) and endless practical classes, and then attempt the test.

But after our experience with the Cuenca driving schools and examiners, on top of the four driving schools we had already tried locally, we can now safely say with absolute certainty that Spain’s licensing process for adult expats is not a quirky inconvenience. It is a nationwide racketeering industry built on systematically flunking adults for profit. Especially expats as they are seen as they can afford it.

I am not exaggerating: the system is broken beyond repair. And it doesn’t just harm newly arrived foreigners, it also punishes expats who have lived here for decades. In Cuenca, my driving-test companion was a middle-aged woman from Barcelona who had to leave her family for two full weeks because Barcelona, Spain’s second-largest city, had no available driving test appointments for years.

She was forced to spend money on daily driving lessons, a two-week hotel stay, and expensive registration fees, only to be callously failed by an examiner who berated her publicly over trivial “infractions” that had nothing to do with safe driving, or with breaking any actual rule of the road.

I was in the back seat during her driving test (another quirk of the system), and after watching her drive, I would have happily handed this woman my own car keys. She was a perfectly safe, cautious driver. But that didn’t matter. The examiner launched into a five-minute tirade without identifying a single specific mistake. It was pure gaslighting, abusive, arbitrary, and ultimately profitable only for the driving schools.

Once all four students taking the test that day failed, i.e. 0% pass rate, the instructor simply shrugged and offered to drive everyone back to the school for more lessons, conveniently extracting more money. And when we complained, they tried to gaslight us further by saying we should “be grateful” they even got us a spot for a driving test. That flippant remark completely ignores the fact that no one would give them a single euro if they weren’t in the business of securing driving-test appointments in the first place.

Are we now supposed to feel grateful for a blatantly corrupt business model in which the more students fail, the more money they make?

If you think I’m exaggerating, here is a detailed breakdown of my and my wife’s experiences across multiple driving schools in Spain.

Driving School 1

When we visited the first driving school, we explained that we had recently moved to Spain and held valid U.S. driving licenses. The receptionist told us we needed residency cards to register (ours were being processed by our lawyer). She then stepped outside after being summoned by a colleague to “discuss” and, upon returning, informed us that if we paid €50 in cash each, we would receive study materials (while not being officially registered in the driving school). The entire exchange felt irregular and unprofessional. They were clearly going to pocket the money and give us a pamphlet. So, we walked out.

Driving School 2

Once we had our residency cards, we went to a second driving school and made it clear we needed an automatic car for lessons and the driving test. They assured us this was fine. After paying €300 per person, and making us wait for several months, they finally admitted they did not have automatic cars and had already transferred our registration to another school that did have automatic cars without our consent. That school would require a €350 transfer fee for each of us.

We did manage to pass the theory exam through driving school 2, but the experience of being lied to for months about their availability of automatic cars and then being pawned off to another school, forcing us to pay again, was already setting off alarm bells about the whole process.

Driving School 3

The manager of this driving school told us outright that examiners treat non-Spanish speakers with hostility and that we would need near-native fluency to have a hope of passing. To “test” my wife’s Spanish, he asked her absurd questions such as:

“How many sheep do you own?”

The school refused to enroll us, claiming that my wife’s Spanish wasn’t good enough, even though her level is more than sufficient to follow driving instructions.

Driving School 4

At the fourth school, we again paid €350 per person. Despite their assurances that their teachers would help my wife practice the driving test in Spanish, she was assigned an Italian instructor who gave all driving instructions in Italian and who barely spoke any Spanish at all. It was at this point that we began to realize that the whole process of getting a driver’s license as expats in Spain was a farce. Besides the lack of a Spanish-speaking instructor, the scheduling was chaotic: weeks passed between lessons and the exam.

When lessons did happen, they were wildly inconsistent. Two different instructors gave us contradictory instructions on blind spots, roundabouts, and pedestrian crossings.

Then came the infamous double-stop rule, a dangerous maneuver required by examiners. It forces drivers to stop twice at intersections, surprising other motorists behind and creating real hazards.

When we finally took the practical exam, we were failed for reasons that had nothing to do with safety or breaking any actual rule of the road, like allowing pedestrians “too much time” to cross.

We were also failed because the examiner “felt” we might have been driving too fast, despite never exceeding 30 km/h.

During both our exams, the examiner and instructor chatted nonstop, making it difficult to discern actual instructions. That was bad enough for concentration, but making matters worse, when I took the test, me and the other student in the car were forced to listen to the driving school owner and the examiner’s anti-foreigner and homophobic comments during the whole exam. It was unprofessional to say the very least, and that is before even mentioning the dictatorial, inconsistent, gaslighting tirade that passed for our failure “explanation,” delivered by a so-called examiner who behaved more like a loud guy ranting with his buddies in a bar than a public servant conducting a serious exam for adults who need their driver’s licenses to drive to work and make a living.

Driving School 5 (Cuenca Intensive Program)

Everyone told us Cuenca was “the place to pass.” Celebrities supposedly go there. Influencers. Public figures. The system is:
• Pay transfer fees (another €350 per person).
• Pay for a hotel for 1–2 weeks.
• Pay €50 per lesson, often 2–4 per day.
• Pay for the exam.
• Pray.

I enrolled first to test the waters before we both invested further.

Then on exam day, all four students failed.
Every single one.

We were each subjected to nearly identical angry rants from the examiner: too fast, too slow, indicating too early, indicating too late. The list of “mistakes” was absurdly identical across all four of us. Then he fled before anyone could even speak.

The instructor simply shrugged and asked if we wanted to go back to the school to schedule (and pay for) more lessons. I refused.

The supposed “high pass rate” of Cuenca is a lie. Or rather, I suspect it’s reserved for locals and VIPs.

Meanwhile, adults with decades of clean driving history are forced to take time off work, leave their families, and throw money into a black hole.

Additional Observations

One school admitted privately that the exam isn’t about driving skills at all. “They know you can drive,” they said. When I asked what the exam measures, they shrugged.

Another instructor warned me not to drive my own car to the exam, because if an examiner saw me driving confidently, he would be more likely to fail me.

A Cuenca local told me examiners are effectively instructed who to pass or fail. His teenage nephew passed after a ten-minute exam despite openly admitting he drove terribly.

Driving tests start and end in random locations, far from any official DGT office, making it impossible to file an official complaint on the spot. And honestly, how are we even supposed to know whether these examiners actually work for the DGT when we only ever meet them on some anonymous side street and watch them disappear down another one immediately afterward?

There’s no official DGT building where the tests begin or end. No signage. No accountability. No transparency. So how exactly are we meant to trust that these people are legitimate examiners, rather than participants in some strange, unofficial side hustle?

The whole process feels less like a serious, professional driving exam and more like a furtive street transaction, examiners waiting for cars on random corners before disappearing just as quickly into another backstreet.

And it makes you wonder, maybe the “bug” is a feature. Maybe holding exams in scattered, unofficial side streets makes it easier for corruption and collusion between driving schools and examiners to go unnoticed, kept conveniently out of sight from any official oversight.

Conclusion: If It Walks Like A Duck, Quacks Like a Duck…

To any reasonable person, this system is not simply disorganized or inefficient; it feels abusive, opaque, and corrupt. It resembles a mafia, essentially indistinguishable from classic racketeering, preying disproportionately on foreigners and working adults who need a driver’s license just to go to work, take their kids to school, or function normally in daily life.

These are our true experiences trying to get a driver’s license in Spain, and also based on the hundreds of similar stories circulating among expats and even native Spaniards, I know we are far from alone.

Spain, we love you. That’s why we moved here and invested here.
However, this part of your system is broken, has degenerated into a criminal-style industry, and desperately needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, because it mostly affects expats, I doubt there will ever be any real incentive from the authorities to address it.

We are deeply disappointed by the blatant gaslighting of adults we witnessed in the driving schools and by the examiners’ rants after failing numerous students for inconsistent, flimsy reasons, not to mention the obvious money-grab. If this isn’t outright corruption or collusion between the driving schools and the examiners, it certainly looks indistinguishable from corruption and collusion from where we stand.