Hartlepool test centre: 51.0% pass rate, £316 to get through it.
DVSA conducted 5,847 car practical tests here between April 2025 and March 2026, and 2,984 candidates passed. On the expected-attempts arithmetic that is 1.96 attempts, £121 in DVSA fees and £195 of retake lessons before a licence.
- Pass rate
- 51.0%
- Tests conducted
- 5,847
- National rank
- 179
- Median wait
- 13.4 wk
+1.0 pts vs national
2,984 passes
of 308 ranked centres
July 2026
What passing at Hartlepool costs
Expected cost of the test cycle for the average candidate at a 51.0% centre.
- Expected attempts (1 ÷ pass rate)1.96
- DVSA fees at £62 weekday£121
- Retake lessons (0.96 × 7 hr × £29)£195
- Test cycle at this centre£316
- Against a national-average centre-£11
- Extra queue time from retakes12.9 wk
Add the parts that do not change with the centre and the full bill from provisional to licence at North East lesson rates is about £1,678: £34 provisional, £23 theory, 45 hours of tuition at £29 (£1,305) and the test cycle above. Full cost stack.
What 51.0% at Hartlepool actually means for your budget.
Over 2025/26 the examiners at Hartlepool conducted 5,847 car practical tests and issued 2,984 passes. The resulting 51.0% makes it a mid-sized centre sitting 179th of 308 on the national pass-rate table and 6th of 11 in North East.
That lands within 1.0 percentage points of the 50.03% national figure and 2.6 points above the 48.4% North East average, which makes Hartlepool an ordinary centre on the DVSA table and puts the cost question back on preparation rather than location.
Turn 51.0% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 1.96 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Hartlepool pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 1.96 times, or £121. Add 0.96 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the North East rate of £29 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £195. The test cycle at Hartlepool is therefore about £316. That is within £11 of what the same cycle costs at a centre on the national average, so Hartlepool is close to cost-neutral as a choice.
A fail at Hartlepool costs time as well as money. The median wait between booking and testing was 13.4 weeks in July 2026, 1.5 weeks above the 11.9-week national median. At 0.96 expected retakes that is about 12.9 weeks of additional queueing, and most learners keep paying for an hour or two a month through it. In the same month DVSA offered 2,756 standard slots inside the booking window here and 26.1% of them were still free to book.
First attempts track the headline closely: 1,478 passes from 2,847 first tests at Hartlepool, 51.9% against 51.0% for all attempts. 108 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 3.79% of them.
Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Hartlepool has fallen by 6.8 points, from 57.9% to 51.0%. Test volume has grown over the same span, from 4,395 to 5,847 tests a year. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £61 to the average candidate.
Male and female candidates are within a point of each other at Hartlepool, 51.0% against 51.1%. Automatic tests made up 21.1% of the workload and passed at 45.3%, 5.7 points below the manual-inclusive rate, worth knowing before paying the automatic lesson premium. Month to month the rate ran from 45.8% in January 2026 to 58.5% in April 2025, a 12.7-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.
None of the similarly sized centres in North East runs more than five points ahead of Hartlepool on pass rate, so travelling elsewhere is unlikely to pay for itself once you add an unfamiliar route, the travel and the settling-in lessons. The cheaper lever here is preparation on the roads your instructor already knows.
Hartlepool vs its region and the country.
- Rank in North East
- 6 of 11
- First-attempt rate
- 51.9%
- Zero-fault first passes
- 108
- Automatic pass rate
- 45.3%
- Male candidates
- 51.0%
- Female candidates
- 51.1%
+2.6 pts vs region
2,847 first tests
3.79% of first attempts
21.1% of tests here
3,146 tests
2,701 tests
Down 6.8 points since 2021/22.
Dashed line: the 50.03% national pass rate for 2025/26.
Weeks between booking and taking the test, DVSA table DRT122F. Latest reading 13.4 weeks, 1.5 above the 11.9-week median across all centres.
A 17-year-old passes at 61.0% here. A 25-year-old passes at 54.9%.
DVSA publishes Hartlepool broken down by single year of age, and the two ends of that range behave like different centres. 1,156 tests were taken here by 17-year-olds and 61.0% of them passed; 142 were taken by 25-year-olds and 54.9% passed. That is 6.1 points, against 14.9 points between the same two ages across Great Britain.
Put that through the same arithmetic the rest of this page uses and the gap stops being academic. A 17-year-old at Hartlepool expects 1.64 attempts, £231 in fees and retake lessons. A 25-year-old expects 1.82 attempts and £279, £48 more on identical £62 fees and the same £29 North East lesson rate. The only thing that moved was the pass rate.
17-year-olds here pass 2.6 points below the 63.6% that 17-year-olds manage nationally. Against North East, where the same age passes 62.5%, they are 1.5 points behind. Either way, budgeting a 17-year-old against this centre's all-ages 51.0% is pessimistic by 10.0 points.
DVSA withheld the counts for ages 16 and 24 at Hartlepool, which it does where a cell is small enough that publishing the numbers could identify candidates. For age 24 the agency still printed a pass rate; those rates appear in the table below exactly as published, and are used for nothing else on this page, because a percentage with no denominator cannot carry a cost estimate.
None of this says a 17-year-old drives better. DVSA counts who passed, not why. The most likely reading is course continuity: a candidate testing at 17 is usually mid-course with weekly lessons behind them, while an older first-timer more often books a test after a gap. That is a lever, not a birthday, and it is the one part of this page you can actually change.
- Age 17 here
- 61.0%
- Age 25 here
- 54.9%
- Age gap
- +6.1 pts
- Age 17 vs country
- -2.6 pts
1,156 tests
142 tests
national gap +14.9 pts
63.6% nationally
Pass rate by age at Hartlepool
DVSA table DRT122D, April 2025 to March 2026. Dashed line is the same age across Great Britain.
What each age costs at Hartlepool, on the same arithmetic as the rest of this page.
Expected attempts is 1 ÷ the pass rate for that age, fees are £62 an attempt and retake lessons are 7 hours at the North East rate of £29. Ages where DVSA withheld the counts are shown as withheld and are not priced: a rate the agency would not put a denominator against is not a rate to budget from.
| Age | Tests conducted | Passes | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | withheld | withheld | not published | not priced | not priced |
| 17 | 1,156 | 705 | 61.0% | 1.64 | £231 |
| 18 | 895 | 508 | 56.8% | 1.76 | £264 |
| 19 | 421 | 225 | 53.4% | 1.87 | £293 |
| 20 | 294 | 146 | 49.7% | 2.01 | £331 |
| 21 | 214 | 114 | 53.3% | 1.88 | £294 |
| 22 | 195 | 98 | 50.3% | 1.99 | £324 |
| 23 | 191 | 103 | 53.9% | 1.85 | £288 |
| 24 | withheld | withheld | 46.4% | not priced | not priced |
| 25 | 142 | 78 | 54.9% | 1.82 | £279 |
| Under 26 | 3,647 | 2,042 | 56.0% | 1.79 | £270 |
| All ages | 5,847 | 2,984 | 51.0% | 1.96 | £316 |
The under-26 row is DVSA’s own block total from DRT122D and counts the withheld cells, so it will exceed the sum of the ages printed above it wherever a cell is withheld (here: ages 16 and 24). The all-ages row is DRT122A, the figure the rest of this page uses. Nothing on this table is estimated or back-filled.
What the age gap is worth at Hartlepool
- Expected attempts, age 171.64
- Expected attempts, age 251.82
- Test cycle at age 17£231
- Test cycle at age 25£279
- Cost of waiting from 17 to 25+£48
- Extra queue time from the extra retakes2.4 wk
Pass rates are DVSA’s. The pounds are ours, on the same fee and lesson rate the rest of this page uses, applied to each age’s published rate and nothing else. Age is not the cause: the DVSA figures describe who passed, not why, and a 17-year-old mid-course typically arrives with recent, continuous tuition behind them. The national age curve.
Every published financial year at Hartlepool.
| Financial year | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate | Expected attempts | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 5,847 | 2,984 | 51.0% | 1.96 | £316 |
| 2024/25 | 5,725 | 2,847 | 49.7% | 2.01 | £330 |
| 2023/24 | 7,964 | 3,838 | 48.2% | 2.08 | £347 |
| 2022/23 | 7,571 | 3,972 | 52.5% | 1.91 | £302 |
| 2021/22 | 4,395 | 2,544 | 57.9% | 1.73 | £255 |
| 2020/21 | 890 | 510 | 57.3% | 1.75 | £259 |
| 2019/20 | 5,018 | 2,716 | 54.1% | 1.85 | £287 |
| 2018/19 | 4,838 | 2,620 | 54.1% | 1.85 | £286 |
| 2017/18 | 4,866 | 2,645 | 54.4% | 1.84 | £284 |
| 2016/17 | 5,952 | 3,158 | 53.1% | 1.88 | £296 |
Cost columns apply today’s £62 fee and the current £29 lesson rate to each year’s pass rate, so the column isolates what the pass rate does to the bill. The fee itself has moved over time; see fee history.
A 12.7-point swing across the year.
Monthly figures are why a single quarter is a poor guide. Nothing about the centre changed between January 2026 and April 2025; the mix of candidates did.
| Month | Conducted | Passed | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 398 | 233 | 58.5% |
| May 2025 | 349 | 182 | 52.1% |
| June 2025 | 247 | 124 | 50.2% |
| July 2025 | 290 | 150 | 51.7% |
| August 2025 | 294 | 171 | 58.2% |
| September 2025 | 411 | 212 | 51.6% |
| October 2025 | 379 | 213 | 56.2% |
| November 2025 | 616 | 328 | 53.3% |
| December 2025 | 587 | 307 | 52.3% |
| January 2026 | 733 | 336 | 45.8% |
| February 2026 | 771 | 370 | 48.0% |
| March 2026 | 772 | 358 | 46.4% |
The five North East centres closest in size to Hartlepool.
Matched on annual test volume rather than distance, because a centre doing 5,847 tests a year faces a comparable road and traffic mix. Cost column uses the North East lesson rate of £29 throughout, so the only variable is the pass rate.
| Centre | Pass rate | Tests | Median wait | Test cycle cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hartlepool (this centre) | 51.0% | 5,847 | 13.4 wk | £316 |
| Blyth | 50.9% | 6,973 | 13.5 wk | £317 |
| Middlesbrough | 47.7% | 8,854 | 14.3 wk | £353 |
| Durham | 53.2% | 9,451 | 15.7 wk | £295 |
| Gateshead | 37.5% | 9,512 | 7.1 wk | £503 |
| Hexham | 53.0% | 1,388 | 16.9 wk | £297 |
Higher pass rate in North East
- Sunderland51.1%
- Hexham53.0%
- Durham53.2%
- Berwick-On-Tweed53.9%
Lower pass rate in North East
- Blyth50.9%
- Gosforth48.4%
- Middlesbrough47.7%
- Darlington47.1%
Source and provenance
Pass rates, test volumes, gender splits and waiting times on this page are published statistics from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), taken from Driving test and theory test data: cars, tables DRT122A (Car driving test pass rates by gender and month: test centres, updated 2026-06-25), DRT122C (Car driving test pass rates by first driving attempt and gender, including zero faults: test centres, updated 2026-06-25), DRT122D (Car driving test pass rates by age (17 to 25 year olds), year and test centre, updated 2026-06-25), DRT122E (Automatic car driving test pass rates by gender: test centres, updated 2026-06-25) and DRT122F (Car driving test waiting times and availability by driving test centre, updated 2026-08-12). Centre-level figures cover the April 2025 to March 2026 financial year; the national quarterly series runs to June 2026. Snapshot taken 2026-09-04.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Cost figures are drivingtestcost.com’s own, from the GOV.UK fee schedule and our regional lesson survey; DVSA publishes no prices and none of the money on this page comes from DVSA.
drivingtestcost.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; Northern Ireland tests are run separately by the DVA. DVSA cautions that centre figures below about 100 tests a year are not robust for comparison.
Age figures are single years of age from DRT122D and are reproduced exactly as published, withheld cells included. DVSA replaces the counts in small age cells with “..”, in most cases while still printing that cell’s pass rate; those cells are shown here as withheld and are excluded from every comparison, ranking and cost figure on this page. Nothing withheld is reconstructed from the block total.