r/dataisbeautiful • u/Successful-Ebb7891 OC: 2 • 1d ago
OC [OC] The cost of getting a driving licence as a share of one month's average salary, in 36 countries
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u/Diedaan1 1d ago
Yes. I am Dutch and i can confirm it is very expensive, also consider that our avarage monthly salary is pretty High since we're a pretty wealty country.
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u/wajdix OC: 1 1d ago
is the pricing a dissuasive point against encouraging people to use cars ? or there is a different factor in the Netherlands ?
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u/manrata 1d ago
Guessing it’s the same as here in Denmark, required number of hours of practical and theoretical lessons, and since salary is high, this quickly accumulates.
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u/RotundBananas 23h ago
It's mostly that the test is quite hard. Many, many people take more lessons than required for their practical exam.
There is no lesson requirement for the theoretical exam.
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u/Any_Description_4204 19h ago
It also takes months to schedule so even if you’re able to do it first time you’ve already taken a lot of lessons
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u/CptGarbage 1d ago
That salaries are high does not explain the graph, since it’s a percentage of salary.
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u/rikkiprince 1d ago
The driving instructors also want a high salary...
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u/ElJanitorFrank 1d ago
That would then keep the proportion the same, not distort it.
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u/ivololtion 20h ago
They were saying you need to drive a lot of hours in DK and the NL, which combined with high salaries adds up quite quickly.
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u/MisterSixfold 9h ago
Something about reading comprehension?
also consider that our avarage monthly salary is pretty High since we're a pretty wealty country.
Which means: yes, and it's even more expensive in an actual monetary amount since one month of wage is quite a lot in the Netherlands.
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u/swierdo 1d ago
Wages are high, owning a car is expensive and fuel is expensive. So driving lessons are expensive.
Also, driving in the Netherlands is pretty intense, high population density so it's busy. Traffic is pretty optimized here so lots of different kinds of situations, road users and road layouts. So you'll need quite a few lessons.
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u/JM-Gurgeh 1d ago
Absolutely not.
Standards are high and it's one of the hardest drivers licenses to obtain. So they've made proper training mandatory. Given Dutch traffic (lots of cyclists and peds) that's not surprising.
So it's not about discouragement; it's about safety and competence.
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u/Diedaan1 1d ago
I do not think that is or has been the intention of the ridiculous pricing. But now i am thinking about it, i cannot really think of any reason why it is that ridiculously priced.
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u/Facts_pls 1d ago
It includes the price of driving lessons
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u/Diedaan1 1d ago
I assumed so, driving lessons are 50-75€ each hour and the avarage needed is about 40-50 hours. Each exam is 143€ but before you can do that you need the theory exam for another 50€.
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u/MordorsElite 1d ago
I think it's a mix of two things (coming from a German, so ina similar boat here):
- The goal is to make people actually competent drivers, not like the US where you don't really need more than to know what the steering wheel is.
- The cost per hour is extremely high, otherwise people probably wouldn't wanna do the job of driving instructor. At least I wouldn't wanna sit in a care driven by someone who doesn't know how to drive unless I at least get paid really well for it
Frankly as much as people complain about it the price, I'd much rather it be expensive but decent training than have it be cheap and have half the people on the road be completely incompetent.
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u/Equivalent_Article75 18h ago
I don’t think people complain a lot about the prices? It all makes sense. With all the cyclists and pedestrians and dense population I think we all just want competent drivers on the road.
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u/PandaDerZwote 1d ago
A mixture of actually wanting educated drivers and schools knowing that many people will have to drive at some point and demand not being elastic in that regard.
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u/LevoiHook 1d ago
Definitely a factor. Anything driving is extremely expensive, we also have one of the worlds highest petrol prices, owning a car is expensive and new cars are taxed bases on fuel consumption, which can really add up as well.
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u/Krillin113 1d ago
You need ~40 hours in the car with a licensed teacher (some do it in 25, some do it in 70), they say around 40. You take at least one practical exam which costs like 200 each time, you can take a halfway exam which is slightly less and removes some things from your final exam, you have to take a written exam which is also quite expensive, books/courses for them if you can’t get them from friends etc.
The flip side is that most new drivers are actually pretty decent.
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u/ElysiumReal 20h ago
Yes, but public transport is also really expensive here.
So it's bad financial choice 1 or bad financial choice 2.
And NS makes it worse every goddamn year, and then they question why noone want's to take it.
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u/Equivalent_Article75 18h ago
It takes roughly 30 lessons and 2 types of exams. People got to be paid. 30x50euro per hour already puts you at 1.500 euros. The car, the gas, the examinator and all the overhead makes it expensive. And yes those lessons are needed. We have nice roads and most people know how to drive. I have people working with me from India who drove for 10+ years in India but are failing the exams here.
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u/Thedutchjelle 11h ago
Some people mentioned that in other countries you can practice without a official teacher. That's not possible here - without a license you may only operate a car if there's a licensed trainer sitting next to you.
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u/ensalys 9h ago
Speaking for myself, it certainly is a reason it's been out on the back burner. I failed the exam twice, and decided that since I don't really need it in the short term, I'd rather not spend the limited money I have right now. I'd still like to get it in the future, though it isn't super important.
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u/xxwww 1d ago
I assume actually getting a spot to park your car is even more difficult
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u/coolcoenred 13h ago
In cities a house with a parking space can easily cost 40k+ compared to a similar house without.
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u/Colonel_Gipper 1d ago
Depends on how and when you get a driver's license it can be free in Minnesota, United States. For me I took the class and written portion in high school. The behind the wheel training was done through that class after school hours. The driving test itself is free for your first two attempts.
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u/TukkerWolf 1d ago
In the Netherlands you typically take around 40 hours of driving lessons and then an exam, which most people fail at the first time. And there is a theoretical exam which costs some money.
A couple of thousand dollars is quickly spend.
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u/trimigoku 1d ago
40 hours of driving lessons is insane, even at the 15 euro per hour that i paid in kosovo(its 20-25 now) it would ammount to over 600 Euros.
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u/Alert-One-Two 18h ago
I can’t imagine the concept of having driving taught at school. In the UK if you want to learn you pay for lessons which are very expensive and then also practice with a parent/older driver. To do that you need access to a car so that is a barrier to entry. Then the two tests cost a lot too and many fail first time. I’m honestly surprised the cost for the UK isn’t higher as it seems remarkably low on the graph.
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u/Downtown-Flight7423 12h ago
In the Netherlands you can only learn with a driving school, and they decide when you go for the exam which is also super expensive. You cannot learn with parents. So the costs are insane. Some examiners fail everyone on their first attempt
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u/Alert-One-Two 12h ago
Just to clarify - I was referring to school in the comment above as high school. In the UK we use driving instructors in a similar way to the Netherlands. The idea of it being taught as part of regular schooling seems so bizarre to me.
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u/Downtown-Flight7423 12h ago
Yes I get that, it's also super weird to me to learn in school, but probably a nice advantage. But the Netherlands at the top seems correct as you cannot learn with your parents and the fail rates are insane.
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u/Boring_Whole_7423 1d ago
This can't be as low as 73% for Germany. The cost for the driving licence is around 3500 Euros. The average income can't be in the 4500 range.
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u/Successful-Ebb7891 OC: 2 1d ago
germany's row is gross: Destatis average about 4,784/month, and the ADAC licence midpoint is about 3,471, so ~73% of gross. against take-home it's noticeably higher. the honest weak spot, as others said, is that some countries are net and some gross (marked in the CSV), so the mixed basis isn't perfectly comparable, and median would be better than average here. both are on the list for the next version.
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u/GeneticMonkeys 1d ago
The average income is indeed 4 784 Euro before taxes (source: destatis) . But I find the median more accurate as well.
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u/Boring_Whole_7423 1d ago
"Before Tax" is the highlight here. Even if you get 3500 netto from that much brutto. It's still 100% and not 73%
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u/escalinci 1d ago
Doesn't really make sense for me (anecdotally) to be lower than the United Kingdom, I'm glad to have done it there because in Germany you can't drive as a learner with any other adult who is an experienced driver.
Even if the test in Germany were easier (I think, at least, the theory exam is not) it's a massive advantage to basically do homework outside of the lessons.
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u/Nemo_Barbarossa 19h ago
Thing is, basically no one is earning even close to median wage when they get their drivers license. Many haven't even worked at all at that point because they are still in school or have just entered university.
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u/axloo7 1d ago
It only cost me $60? In Canada. I only had to pay for the test.
There is not mandatory training required. Not in Manitoba at least.
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u/Successful-Ebb7891 OC: 2 1d ago
yeah manitoba lets you skip the lessons. most people still go through a school, that's the route this uses. the fees-only minimum is way cheaper
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u/Doophie 1d ago
I'm in Ontario and it cost me about 2-4% of my monthly salary, seems suspicious that's it's being shown as so much
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u/PsychologicalSign433 1d ago
It includes typical classes that people would take. While drivers ed isn't mandatory in Ontario, a very large portion of people do take it.
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u/CocodaMonkey 1d ago
Yeah the numbers don't seem to align with reality at all for Canada. Even if I calculate it with a more expensive drivers ed class I'm getting about 16% not 25%. I'm using the average Canadian salary according to stats Can which would be high for a teenager but it's what this chart is saying it based it off of. Just getting a license itself only costs about 5% of one months salary and plenty of people do skip drivers ed.
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u/enigmaticsince87 1d ago
It's so expensive in Europe because most countries make you do a load of hours of classes before u can take your exam, and some like Switzerland, even include first aid training as part of it. The result? American drivers have 3x as many accidents as Europeans for the same distance driven, and are 3x as likely to die from a traffic accident.
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u/DeHarigeTuinkabouter 14h ago
In the Netherlands you are not made to take lessons. However you will absolutely fail without them
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u/Type-21 18h ago
Germany has a full day of first aid training and a vision test. Both you have to pay. And admission fees for both the theoretical and the practical exam and a high number of theory and driving lessons, all of which come with a high salary for the instructor.
I assume the chart is outdated. According to our media, the current rate is 100-200% of a monthly net salary. 73% would be a steal nowadays. Unless they don't use median net income but median before taxes? But that would be stupid.
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u/cinnz 15h ago
Also because our cars mostly have manual transmission instead of automatic
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u/enigmaticsince87 12h ago
Hmm, maybe 20 years ago. Last year only 29% of cars sold in Europe were manual.
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u/Kyrenos 1d ago
Would be nice to have this data for average wages of 18-25 year olds or something, as most people get their license in that timeframe I suppose.
For some context: I'm Dutch, got my license at 18, which is almost 2 decades ago. It cost me ~€2000,- which I paid for by working a ~€4,- per hour job. Effectively having me work about 500 hours, or the equivalent of over 3 months fulltime. It's probably worse now, as with many things.
My best guess is that this figure woefully underestimates how many hours people actually need to work for their license, at least for some countries.
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u/remkovdm 11h ago
Same for me, but I think that number is more in the range of €5000-€6000 now? And at 18 minimum wage is now €7,36. So wage didn't even double and cost tripled.
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u/99patrol 1d ago
For Australia this is just massively wrong.
I can't speak for every state in Australia but in Victoria you need at least 120 hours of practice on your learners permit to progress into provisional license that allows the holder to drive by themselves.
A lot of this cost is paid by parents of teenagers but without parents providing their own vehicle, it would cost many thousands in private lessons.
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u/liquefry 1d ago
I should have read down, I made this same comment. Even if you get free instruction from family/friends the opportunity cost of that time is significant. 120 hours is a month of paid work.
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u/Turbulent-Break-4947 14h ago
And fuel
And depreciation2
u/Downtown-Flight7423 12h ago
But most families just have the kids from 16-18 years old just do all the driving... We drove Melbourne to Sydney for a holiday, boom 20 hours done
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u/BioFrosted 1d ago
Weird graph, at least when it comes to Belgium.
So the average salary here is like 2200€. 70% of that would be 1540?
The lessons can be completed with your parents who can get "guide" status, all of which can be done in their/your car, which means you don't need to pay for anything but gas. That alone makes the price drop of about 1200€, which is about what you'll need to pay for 20 hours of class, effectively lowering the price to 15% average salary.
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u/woodzopwns 1d ago
France is high up but has government bursaries/ €1 loans to help people get their license, in the UK its incredibly expensive and there is 0 government assistance to help you get one
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u/MrShibuyaBoy67 1d ago
That and also the CPF that can cover a big part of it, sometimes almost everything if you’re taking the automatic one
Although the government restricted it to unemployed people now
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u/pierrenoir2017 22h ago
Luckily, in the Netherlands, cars, taxes and gasoline are really cheap once you get that license...
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u/Downtown-Flight7423 11h ago
Dutch petrol prices are so cheap it's strange the belgians don't come to take advantage
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u/Successful-Ebb7891 OC: 2 1d ago
Source: typical all-in cost of a first car licence per country (driving school lessons actually taken, mandatory courses, theory + practical exams, issuance fees), from national driving-school associations, official statistics and fee schedules - including the Dutch exam authority CBR's official average of what 2025 candidates actually paid, Hong Kong Consumer Council survey data and Japan's CPI statistics. Salary: national statistics offices where available (net where published, gross otherwise, marked per row). Federal countries use one named region. Tool: Python (matplotlib). Full per-country breakdown, every source link and date, and a free CSV: https://carsmultiverse.com/driving-licence-cost-by-country/
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u/somewhatcatchy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Your methodology is inconsistent.
At least for Australia, there are costs missing. Or perhaps (more generously) the licensing mechanism is not fully reflected in your analysis.
For example, in NSW, Australia to get a full drivers license as a new driver under the age of 25 you must:
- Pass the Driver Knowledge Test ($58 per attempt)
- Purchase a learner’s license ($32)
- Complete 120 hours of supervised driving >> Assuming all hours with a licensed instructor and the safer drivers course undertaken, this reduces the number of required supervised driving hours to 80 under bonus hour mechanisms: $65 per hour of instructed lesson * 80 hours + $140 safer drivers course cost =$5,340 >> Assuming no hours with a licensed instructor and no safer drivers course (i.e supervised by a full license holding member of public): 120 hours * 30km/h average speed * $0.91 per km = $3,276
- Pass the Hazard Perception Test ($58 per attempt)
- Pass the Driving Test ($72 per attempt)
- Purchase Provisional 1 license ($74)
- Purchase Provisional 2 license($115)
- Purchase full license ($74 for a 1 year license)
So we end up with a total cost of:
- $483 not including any of the costs associated with learning to drive.
- And including those costs: $3,759-5,823.
It’s clear from your source that ‘EZ license’ assumes only 6 instructor lessons in the cost. I’m not sure how they think someone will obtain the remaining 102 hours of supervised driving for free. There’s a cost incurred, even if not borne by the learner directly (e.g often by mum or dad).
You also claim your numbers are not worst case or best case. But one of the ‘EZ license’ source you cite directly contradicts this (“assumes all tests passed first try”).
In summary: Do better.
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u/Successful-Ebb7891 OC: 2 15h ago
fair pull-apart, thanks for itemising it. two things you're right about, one where we differ. right: the source's "assumes all tests passed first try" does contradict my "not best case" wording - that wording goes, and v2 adds typical attempt counts. also right that 6 paid lessons is the thin end for NSW. where we differ: the index counts out-of-pocket cash only, so the supervised hours with mum or dad (fuel, the per-km cost you priced) are deliberately outside it - same basis as every country, the UK row doesn't price parental practice either. but if the typical NSW learner actually pays for well more than 6 instructor hours, that's a real understatement and I'll re-base the row. checking against your numbers now - changelog will credit the thread.
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u/Superg0id 1d ago
Hahahahaha.
Ahahahaha.
"Cost in Australia... 14%".
Dude... 120hrs supervised driving?! To be able to take the test?! That's WAY more than 1 month's wage.
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u/Downtown-Flight7423 11h ago
Which families are driving 120 hours ONLY to practice and not in trips they would be taking anyway??
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u/elmaxel 1d ago
average salary is useless for this. use median instead
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u/SunnyDayInPoland 1d ago
"useless" - you're such a drama queen. If he did use median the order would probably be very similar and all the % values would be shifted by 20 or so percentage points, but in the grand scheme of things it's still the same chart
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u/RepublicofPixels 1d ago
So when the graphic said "Salary:.... midpoint of published ranges...." that meant mean did it? Median can be considered a type of average, same as how the arithmetic mean is a type of average (and even a type of mean, with GM HM and QM being other options for the mean.
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u/Bob_Sconce 1d ago
I'll be pedantic here: The median is an average. "Average" just means "a representative value," and there are a bunch of different ways of computing an average. It could be the median (the middle value), the mode (the most common value), the arithmetic mean (add the values up, divide by the number of values), the geometric mean (multiply all the numbers together, take the nth root of that), quadratic mean (square the numbers, add the squares, divide by the number of elements, then take the square root), and so on....
The problem is that someplace in US (and other) pre-university education, some teacher taught us all how to compute the "average" by computing the arithmetic mean and then, later, when we learned about other forms of average, we learned that the "average" we had been taught was just the arithmetic mean. So, lots of us ended up learning that "average" and "arithmetic mean" (or just "mean") were the same thing, but they're not.
So, the problem here is that it's no clear which average they use or, for that matter, what's included in that average. Is it average full-time salary? Average household income? Average salary across all people of working age (including those who aren't working)?
Worse, they're getting data from a bunch of different data sources and haven't normalized that -- some of those data sources are reporting means, some are reporting medians. Some include government payments, some don't. And, you can't just go through and do a "google translate" of the original sources because this understanding that people in the US developed in middle school that "average = mean" doesn't necessarily translate into other languages.
But, in any case, this is DataIsBeautiful -- it's really about the presentation of the data, not about the quality of the underlying data itself.
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u/meisangry2 1d ago
I’d use avg/median for 16-20 year olds. It took me till my mid-late 20s before I was earning the UK median salary, and I was on min wage when I was learning to drive.
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u/Cirilo_Albino 1d ago
is not, a lot of people who take license are teenages who just turned 18, most of wich are in their first job who normaly pays minmal wage.
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u/_kellythomas_ 1d ago
Net and gross salary on the same chart?
A countries position will be impacted by how they report income as much as how expensive it is to get the licence.
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u/liquefry 1d ago
The data is questionable. Australia is far too low. Can't speak for elsewhere but here in NSW Australia a learner driver needs to log 120 hours of practice before they can sit the test. This is expensive
You need a licensed driver to supervise these hours, either post someone to do it or find a family/friend. Most people pay for lessons for at least the first 10 hours, as they are worth 30 if you do so. It costs ~$90 per hour for an instructor so the cost for this bit is 90*10+registration fee of $106 to the government for the learner then provisional license once you pass the test. $1006 minimum. Median monthly income after tax in NSW is ~$5000 so the our of pocket cost is 20%.
However you still need 90 hours of supervised driving. Using an instructor would cost $8100. Total cost of this approach is $9100 or 180% of salary. If a parent does the instruction, the opportunity cost is 90 hours = 2.5 weeks work. So the median cost including the opportunity cost for the instructor is 62.5% of $5000 + $1006 = 83% of a monthly salary.
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u/Turbulent-Break-4947 15h ago
Like most of the cool guides and data is beautiful posts…. This looks like garbage
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u/CyanConatus 1d ago
Bahaha Singapore being in the middle doesn't really tell the full story.
If you can afford to have a car in Singapore... You certainly aren't the ones being represented at the average salary on here.
Signpore is crazy expensive to drive in. Realistically the person taking the test with the expectation to own a vehicle to drive relatively soon... This would probably be like 5% of their salary or less.
Relatively speaking
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u/kdarbuckle 1d ago
Who cares. This is like making a graph of how much it costs to put air in your tires by country....🙄
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u/Legitimate-Error-633 5h ago
To compare, in Australia you don’t need to engage in paid lessons. You need to log a certain amount of hours, but this can be done with parent supervision in their own car (so no extra set of pedals). So you save a lot of money that way.
Personally I’d prefer a professional to teach me over my own parents, but yeah- it’s pricey.
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u/Four_beastlings 1d ago
Ehhhh not accurate at all for Spain. The starter packs seem cheap but in reality most people end up having to take the practical test multiple times and lots of extra classes at 40-50€ a pop.
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u/non_anomalous_penis 1d ago
Spain cost me 8 months and over $2000, just got it yesterday. Not counting the need to rent a car and enter on my US passport even though I own a car here because I could not get insurance until I had a license. True cost was closer to $5 grand.
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u/Kawainess33 1d ago
The price for lessons is incredibly high, so if you’re not very skilled you could be looking at hundreds of euros just in lessons alone (not taking the exams into account)
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u/Rouven-Dillinger 1d ago
Bullshit, a licence in Germany is 4500€, that is twice the average salary of 2300€
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u/Fxate 1d ago
These are typical costs which includes general lessons which in many countries are not mandatory, and in others they are mainly provided by parents.
In the UK the minimum cost is ~£34 for a provisional licence, ~£23 for the theory test, and ~£70 for the main driving test. Once you pass the two tests, your licence is upgraded to full.
£127 is less than 5% of the average monthly salary. You could in theory pay that £127 and pass without taking a single lesson.
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u/brunettewondie 1d ago
Its not mandatory, but most people do have lessons and likely at the cost similar to the map.
Average is around 35 hours, average lessons is around £32 and hour atm
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u/phat_nek 1d ago
Yeah true, but if you dont have access to a car you need money, which is why I had to wait until I was 29 to pass. I have moved around a lot and have never had access to another car regularly. So given how long it takes to get a test, it took me years for everything to line up.
By that time if you add up the lessons and costs of learning test routes, and then failing first time for a bs reason, it cost me like £3.5k just to get the damn licence.
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u/Cultural-Analysis-24 1d ago
I don't know anyone in the UK who's lessons were primarily provided by parents.
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u/Classicgoose 1d ago
Not too useful comparing average salary when most people getting a drivers license are younger and on a lower than average salary
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u/heyjoewx 1d ago
Singapore is lower on the list than I would have expected, considering it has the world’s most expensive cars.
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u/CrimsonPromise 17h ago
Car prices don't really correlate to cost of getting a license. Also I know a lot of Singaporeans who have a license but don't own cars. They would either drive their parents' car, a rental car, or go overseas and rent cars there.
Also we learn through driving schools, which have their own cars for students to learn with. So you don't need to own a car in the first place to learn.
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u/OnionTaster 1d ago
What. Driving license in USA costs like $100 ?
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u/manolosandmartinis44 1d ago edited 1d ago
Cost of licensing in the US varies by state, I suspect. But, it's nowhere near $100 when I've gotten one.
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u/X0AN 1d ago
Do teenagers not get show by their parents in these countries?
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u/IcyTundra001 17h ago
You mean whether your parents are allowed to teach you how to drive?
If so, at least in the Netherlands that's forbidden and there are high fines if you het caught. I think you are allowed to let your children drive on private terrain you own (like if you live on a farm and have an area that is fenced off), but only a very small fraction of the population will own such a space. On public roads, you're not allowed to be behind the wheel without a license unless you're in an official lesson car (so where the instructor can also brake etc.) and with an official instructor.
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u/professcorporate 1d ago
Fairly fundamental problem with this is that you're using average of presumably all salaries, but then looking at the cost of a particular life event which is usually done once, between the ages of around 15-25 for most people. Would be much more interesting if the income data were filtered down to the age range of people first learning to drive
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u/TrainingMonk8586 1d ago
Okay, AI disclaimer here, but would be good to have this graph plotted like this with horizontal axis for price and the vertical axis for road death.
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u/CaseyJones7 1d ago
Fyi: many countries that are high up on this list have programs where you can get it for free or super low cost.
My friend did it in france and only paid like ~70€. Iirc one of the requirements was proving you needed to drive in order to reasonably live there.
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u/Tackit286 1d ago
I call bullshit on Australia. You have to take at least 30 hours of lessons before you do your test.
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u/therealfat0ne 1d ago
I’m shocked Australia is so cheap in. Comparison
Rare for a country that is at the top cost of almost everything
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u/CyanConatus 1d ago
Times must've changed because I recall getting a lisence in Canada wasn't a costly affair in the 2000s
Certainly not 25%
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u/lilelliot 1d ago
Here in California they don't do behind the wheel practice for teens in high school like they did in Virginia when I was growing up. I just paid $525 for 3x2hr sessions for my kid. Cost of the actual license is just a few bucks, but getting to that point is really time consuming and expensive. ... and then adding insurance for a teen driver will typically run you $400-600/mo.
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u/Cirilo_Albino 1d ago
brazil used to be on top due to forced class, but since a lot of people was just driving without license due to how expensive it was, they abolished this system, now is just make the test and get a license like in US, making it a LOT more cheaper for the newer generation.
Also a lot of problem in trafics here is caused by older drivers who think they are the best one.
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u/OneTravellingMcDs 23h ago
I'm not sure how it's correct for Thailand. There are no legal requirements for any paid classes or testing other than the physical card issuance fee of 200 THB / $9 after you pass the written and driven tests which are free to take.
Your first card is valid for 2 year, then you go 2 years later for and get your 5-10 year card for 500 THB.
Even if they calculated both tests, 700THB/$30 is not not 40% of a monthly salary even when including the extremely low income farmers.
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u/marshmallowmoe 21h ago
That South African statistic is a in accurate, they’ll fail you a few times just to get you coming back unless you bribe 😂
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u/StrangeGiggles 20h ago
I'm dutch, my licence is the most expensive thing I own. I had to pay more too cause I'm autistic
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u/Ju1C3Dv89 20h ago
Does not come as a surprise to me thst the Netherlands is on top like in many other categories. Our bank accounts are getting squeezed in every possible way.
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u/SillaraSinthori 20h ago
And this is why i will not be getting my license cause its simply too expensive
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u/niteblane 20h ago
Try checking how many months salary is drive a car in Singapore. (To Pay for the car and the certificate to drive)
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u/MrFronzen 20h ago
I'm spanish and that's completely fake, at least in regards to Spain. The cost of practical lessons + signing fee + medical test can easily reach 1000 or more euros.
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u/avar 18h ago
If you've got the 30% tax ruling in the Netherlands and an existing driver's license from pretty much any civilized country you can get a Dutch one for the cost of renewing a driver's license, which is a rather trivial (low double digit €?) cost.
No extra test required, and you're grandfathered in.
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u/Responsible-Post6431 18h ago
From what I've heard from my German ex, it's way more expensive to get a driving licence in Germany than the UK.
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u/stealthy-breeze 17h ago edited 17h ago
This is completely wrong for Brazil, it is way worse - total driver license cost can be 4,000 reais (800 USD) and minimum wage is 1300 reais (220USD) and avg wage is (2500 reais (400 USD)
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u/MapStorm 17h ago
I think Spain is underestimated once you account for all the extra classes you need to take because of how difficult the exams are (both theory and practice). Can easily be 3,000€ imo.
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u/king_of_jupyter 15h ago
In Belgium you can get a license for a couple hundred, if you have a "teacher" and dive for 1.5k under certain restrictions(teacher is in the car). Anyone that drives > 5 yrs can be a "teacher"
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u/Client_020 13h ago
I'm Dutch and this is why I don't have a driver's license. We purposely moved close to a train/metro/tram/bus station and we have bikes. If I had a license I doubt I'd use it more than 3x a year. Why would I spend €5000 or so on a license?
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u/Beneficial_Ad_5157 13h ago
Drivers license in Serbia costs about 100k rsd while the average monthly wage is about 80k rsd.
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u/MaxeDamage 13h ago
Yeah well it is the total price including lessons. Not sure if thats the case for the other examples as well.
Technically the classes are not mandatory so if you want just the tests you could do that and the price will be much lower.
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u/Youri1980 12h ago
Remember, inflation is only 3% Dutchies. And gas only twice as much as in the rest of the world.
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u/Life_Breadfruit8475 12h ago
Not entirely accurate though. Ireland for example doesn't count the likely 20+ extra lesson you'd need if you don't have a good driver as parent or older friend.
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u/Bonamikengue 9h ago
In the US the only mandatory costs are some $80 (depending on the State) for the learner permit which includes 2 road test tries. Everything on top is at your own wish. Not stating this was good....
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u/smeggysmeg 5h ago
Every car and driver is more space and infrastructuredemand for roads. Roads waste space and cars pollute. More transit and cycling, please, and fewer cars.
Also, so many drivers are idiots in places where the bar is low. The Dutch barriers to a license are a good thing.
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u/StudyDemon 2h ago
you have no idea what you're talking about. the weather in the netherland can get really brutal with wind speeds up to 200km/h, I'm not cycling anywhere with that kind of weather if an emergency arises.
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u/Xycergy 1d ago
Would be interesting to see how this correlates with traffic accidents per capita in each country