Driving test failure rate: The success rates for Bavaria

A new survey provides results about the nationwide failure rates in theoretical and practical driving tests. This is how novice drivers perform in Bavaria.

Bavaria – Numerous questions to memorize, numerous driving lessons and the fear of the practical driving test: the driving test costs a lot of nerves for novice drivers. Since October 1, 2024, the official questionnaire for driving tests has included 57 new questions. It is not yet known whether this addition affects the success rates of the examinees. In order to be able to draw up an appropriate year-on-year comparison, it was worth it Allianz Direct A closer look at the figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority for 2023. This is how the federal states performed in the tests for class B driving licenses and these results are available for Bavaria.

Across Germany: average failure rate is almost 50 percent

A total of 1.77 million practical exams and 1.97 million theoretical exams were taken in Germany in 2023, as Allianz Direct informs. This corresponds to an increase of one percent in the practical exams and eight percent in the theory exams. But not all tests were passed. The nationwide average failure rate for the practical exam is 42.7 percent, and for the theory exam it is 49.6 percent.

Failure rate of the practical exam: sometimes over 50 percent

A look at the failure rate in the practical driving test provides interesting results. The numbers range between 36 and 52 percent in the twelve federal states. The 2023 practical exams were most successful in Schleswig-Holstein. The novice drivers here only failed 36.2 percent of the tests. With a failure rate of 52.7 percent, the examinees in Saarland performed the worst.

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Practical test: Bavaria in the top 5

In Bavaria, the failure rate for the 2023 practical exam is 41.4 percent. The Bavarian examinees are therefore among the top 5 federal states with the weakest failure rates. In the previous year, slightly fewer exams were passed, at 41.8 percent.

Bavaria has the sixth highest failure rate in Germany

Allianz Direct also provides current figures for the theory tests in 2023. The failure rate for the questionnaire is between 38.6 and 55.6 percent in all federal states. Thuringia performs worst with 55.6 percent, Hamburg is in first place with 38.6 percent. Bavaria has the sixth highest failure rate in Germany in the theory test, which will be 53 percent in 2023. This means that over half of all practical exams were failed last year.

It is still unclear whether the 57 questions in the theory test questionnaire will continue to influence the success rates of the examinees. New studies are likely to contain interesting results about 2024.