Inverness Theory Test Centre: 46.71% pass rate

Inverness is a mid-sized centre, taking about 489 candidates a month. Across April 2025 to March 2026 it conducted 5,864 car theory tests and issued 2,739 passes, a pass rate of 46.71% against the national 44.84%. That is the 65th highest pass rate of the 165 centres with enough tests to compare, and 11th of 26 in Scotland.

Fees are the same £23 nationwide, which makes the pass rate the whole of the cost story. Every theory pass at Inverness takes 2.14 sittings on average, so £49.24 of DVSA fees, a little under the £51.29 national figure. Put another way, 53.3% of the £135k paid in theory fees at Inverness last year bought a test that did not end in a pass, or £72k.

DVSA publishes the split by recorded gender. Women passed at 48.33% here against 45.28%, a difference of 3.05 points, where the national gap is 4.20 points. In fee terms the group with the lower rate spends about £3.21 more per pass at this centre.

Month to month the rate moves about. March 2026 was the strongest month here at 49.2%, November 2025 the weakest at 43.2%, and March 2026 the busiest with 559 sittings. A swing of 5.9 points across one year is normal in a sample this size and is not a reason to time a booking.

The direction of travel matters more than any single year. Inverness slipped 1.41 points from 2024/25, and across the 15 years DVSA publishes for this centre the rate has moved from 69.42% in 2007/08 to 46.71% now. Applying today's £23 fee to both, the expected cost of a pass has gone from £33.13 to £49.24.

Inverness sits 14 miles from Strathpeffer, its closest neighbour, which recorded 53.85%. None of the five nearest centres records a higher rate than Inverness, so there is nothing to chase even on paper. Travelling changes nothing you can bank: every centre runs the same question bank and the same 43-out-of-50 pass mark, and DVSA charges the same £23 wherever you sit it.

What does change the bill is preparation. One retake costs £23, which is 5 times the £4.99 price of the official DVSA revision app and more than the £15 print book. On the April 2025 to March 2026 figures for Inverness, the average candidate here needs 2.14 sittings, so budgeting for one attempt and nothing else is optimistic. Set against the wider learner bill, with lessons at about £31 an hour on this site's Scotland band, the theory fee is 3.3% of the £1,470 minimum.

Across Scotland as a whole, DVSA recorded 212,395 car theory tests at 45 centres over the same twelve months, a pass rate of 46.02% and £49.98 of fees per pass. Inverness is above that regional figure by 0.69 points.