Theory Test Centres in the South West: 47.90% pass rate
22 DVSA car theory test centres, 208,634 tests and 99,933 passes in April 2025 to March 2026. At the flat £23 fee that is £48.02 of test fees for every pass, against £51.29 across Great Britain.
DVSA conducted 208,634 car theory tests across 22 centres in the South West in the year to March 2026, and 99,933 of them ended in a pass. That is a rate of 47.90%, which puts the South West 1st of the 11 regions and countries used in this directory, 3.06 points above the national 44.84%.
The theory test fee is £23 everywhere in Great Britain, so the regional difference is not a price difference. It is a count of attempts. At 47.90% a pass in the South West takes 2.09 sittings on average and therefore £48.02 in fees, £3.27 less than the national figure. The 108,701 failed tests in the region account for £2.5m of the £4.8m paid in theory fees here.
Within the region the spread is wider than the gap between regions: Bodmin recorded 52.60% and Swindon 43.50%, a spread of 9.10 points, worth £9.16 per pass in fees. Centre rates track who books rather than how hard the test is: the question bank, the clips and the 43-out-of-50 pass mark are national.
By recorded gender, women in the South West passed at 50.47% and men at 45.69%, a gap of 4.78 points. For budgeting alongside the theory fee, this site's lesson table puts the South West at about £35 an hour. See the total cost page.
South West over time
| Year | Tests | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 208,634 | 47.90% |
| 2024/25 | 200,469 | 47.81% |
| 2023/24 | 186,054 | 47.84% |
| 2022/23 | 180,460 | 47.44% |
| 2021/22 | 165,803 | 52.85% |
| 2020/21 | 45,785 | 56.68% |
| 2019/20 | 88,432 | 47.96% |
| 2018/19 | 88,069 | 48.56% |
| 2017/18 | 101,690 | 50.24% |
| 2016/17 | 111,685 | 50.18% |
Summed from the centres in this region that DVSA published in each year, so earlier rows can cover fewer centres.
All 22 theory test centres in the South West
| Centre | Tests | Passes | Pass rate | Fees per pass | Spent on fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bristol | 44,554 | 21,783 | 48.89% | £47.04 | £523,733 |
| Swindon | 20,767 | 9,033 | 43.50% | £52.88 | £269,882 |
| Bournemouth | 15,930 | 7,484 | 46.98% | £48.96 | £194,258 |
| Gloucester | 14,291 | 6,361 | 44.51% | £51.67 | £182,390 |
| Exeter | 13,994 | 7,084 | 50.62% | £45.44 | £158,930 |
| Plymouth | 13,278 | 6,500 | 48.95% | £46.98 | £155,894 |
| Frome | 11,497 | 5,738 | 49.91% | £46.08 | £132,457 |
| Truro | 10,246 | 5,144 | 50.20% | £45.81 | £117,346 |
| Taunton | 9,757 | 4,524 | 46.37% | £49.60 | £120,359 |
| Cheltenham | 9,110 | 4,550 | 49.95% | £46.05 | £104,880 |
| Yeovil | 8,678 | 3,964 | 45.68% | £50.35 | £108,422 |
| Torquay | 7,758 | 3,807 | 49.07% | £46.87 | £90,873 |
| Salisbury | 7,710 | 3,877 | 50.29% | £45.74 | £88,159 |
| Barnstaple | 5,190 | 2,338 | 45.05% | £51.06 | £65,596 |
| Weymouth | 4,806 | 2,157 | 44.88% | £51.25 | £60,927 |
| Axminster | 2,350 | 1,187 | 50.51% | £45.53 | £26,749 |
| Blandford Forum | 2,047 | 1,072 | 52.37% | £43.92 | £22,425 |
| Penzance | 1,909 | 934 | 48.93% | £47.01 | £22,425 |
| Launceston | 1,535 | 743 | 48.40% | £47.52 | £18,216 |
| Bodmin | 1,460 | 768 | 52.60% | £43.72 | £15,916 |
| Kingsbridge | 1,117 | 583 | 52.19% | £44.07 | £12,282 |
| Williton | 650 | 302 | 46.46% | £49.50 | £8,004 |
Compare with the rest of Great Britain
| Region | Centres | Tests | Pass rate | Fees per pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| South East | 24 | 371,516 | 47.31% | £48.62 |
| Scotland | 45 | 212,395 | 46.02% | £49.98 |
| East of England | 18 | 270,776 | 45.81% | £50.21 |
| London | 8 | 481,311 | 44.60% | £51.57 |
| North West | 14 | 356,059 | 44.07% | £52.19 |
| East Midlands | 14 | 223,311 | 43.87% | £52.42 |
| North East | 7 | 105,784 | 43.77% | £52.55 |
| Wales | 17 | 125,666 | 42.98% | £53.51 |
| West Midlands | 11 | 305,240 | 42.89% | £53.63 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 13 | 263,516 | 42.87% | £53.65 |
Full national picture on the directory hub, and the headline figures on theory test pass rates.
Where these figures come from
Test volumes, passes, pass rates and gender splits on this page are published statistics from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, taken from the GOV.UK statistical data set Driving test and theory test data: cars:
- DRT112A, Car theory test pass rates by gender and month: test centres. Updated 2026-07-17, covering April 2007 to March 2026.
- DRT111A, Car theory tests conducted, passed and pass rates by financial quarter and financial year: Great Britain. Updated 2026-09-03, covering April 2007 to June 2026.
Centre-level figures cover the April 2025 to March 2026 financial year, the most recent full year DVSA publishes at centre level. Snapshot taken 2026-09-05. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
DVSA publishes no region or address for theory test centres. Each centre is named after its town, and the town's country, region, county and centre point come from OS Open Names. Source: Ordnance Survey Open Names, via postcodes.io, Open Government Licence v3.0.
Every pound on this page is theorytestcost.com's own arithmetic on the £23 DVSA fee and the cost figures published elsewhere on this site. DVSA publishes no prices and none of the money here comes from DVSA.
theorytestcost.com is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the DVSA, the DVA or GOV.UK. Pass rates are DVSA published statistics reproduced under the Open Government Licence, not our assessment of any centre. Great Britain only: theory tests in Northern Ireland are run separately by the DVA. DVSA cautions that centre figures below about 100 tests a year are not robust for comparison, and withholds a centre's figures entirely where publishing them could identify an individual.