The DL25 Marking Sheet Explained in 2026: How Your Driving Test Is Actually Scored

Almost every learner has watched an examiner make a small mark on a clipboard and felt their stomach drop. That clipboard holds the DL25 — the Driving Test Report. It is the single document that decides whether you pass, and most candidates sit their test without ever having seen one properly.

Understanding the DL25 will not make you a better driver on its own. What it will do is remove a large chunk of the mystery, stop you catastrophising over a single tick, and help you use your debrief properly if things do not go your way. Here is how it works in 2026.

The Three Types of Fault

Driver faults

A driver fault is a mistake that did not create danger and was not part of a repeated pattern. Stalling once at a junction, a slightly wide turn, a signal given a fraction late. You can accumulate up to 15 of these and still pass. They are marked as a tally in the relevant box.

Serious faults

A serious fault is something that had the potential to cause danger, or a driver fault repeated so often that it becomes a habit rather than a one-off. Emerging at a junction without properly looking is the classic example: nothing happened, but it easily could have. One serious fault ends the test as a fail, though the examiner will normally let you complete the drive.

Dangerous faults

A dangerous fault is one where actual danger was caused to you, the examiner, the public or property. If the examiner has to intervene physically or verbally to prevent something happening, that is recorded too — and it is why you will see boxes marked “ETA” for examiner took action.

The important nuance: a serious fault and a dangerous fault carry the same consequence. There is no “slightly worse” fail. Both mean you return another day.

What Is Actually on the Form

The DL25 groups your driving into competencies. You do not need to memorise them, but knowing what they are helps you understand what the examiner is watching. The main groups include:

• Eyesight test — reading a number plate from 20 metres before you get in the car.
• Precautions — whether you are properly seated, belted and set up before moving off.
• Control — accelerator, clutch, gears, footbrake, parking brake and steering, each with its own box.
• Move off — assessed separately for safety and for control.
• Use of mirrors — specifically before signalling, changing direction and changing speed.
• Signals — necessary, correctly timed, and cancelled properly.
• Clearance and obstructions — how much room you leave passing parked cars and hazards.
• Response to signs and signals — traffic signs, road markings, traffic lights, other road users and, where relevant, directions from officers.
• Use of speed — appropriate for the road, conditions and limit.
• Following distance — leaving a safe gap and adjusting it in poor conditions.
• Progress — marked both for appropriate speed and for undue hesitation.
• Junctions — approach speed, observation, turning right, turning left, cutting corners.
• Judgement — when overtaking, meeting oncoming traffic and crossing the path of others.
• Positioning — normal road position and lane discipline.
• Pedestrian crossings — approach, observation and correct response.
• Normal stops — choosing a safe, legal and convenient place.
• Awareness and planning — anticipating what other road users are about to do.
• Ancillary controls — demisters, wipers, lights and heating, used without losing control of the car.
• Vehicle checks — the show me, tell me questions.
• Controlled stop — if you are one of the candidates asked to do it.
• Manoeuvres — parallel park, bay park (forward or reverse) or pull up on the right and reverse, assessed for control and observation.
• Independent driving — following a sat nav or road signs.

What 15 Driver Faults Actually Looks Like

Learners often imagine 15 faults as a catastrophe. In practice, most passes involve somewhere between two and eight. Fifteen is a lot of small imperfections, and it is genuinely rare to pass on exactly fifteen.

What matters far more is the pattern. Three driver faults spread across three different competencies is fine. Three driver faults in the same box — say, mirrors before changing direction — starts to look like a habit, and habits get upgraded to serious faults. This is why instructors nag about the same thing repeatedly: not because one instance fails you, but because a pattern does.

Reading Your Report After the Test

You keep the DL25 whether you pass or fail. If you passed, read it anyway. Those minor faults are a free, personalised list of what to work on as a new driver, and the first six months after passing are statistically the riskiest of your driving life.

If you did not pass, the report is the most useful thing you will get that day. Take it to your next lesson and work through it with your instructor. A serious fault in “junctions — observation” tells you exactly what to spend the next three lessons on. Guessing what went wrong is a waste of the money you already spent.

Five Practical Ways to Keep the DL25 Clean

1. Fix patterns, not incidents. If your instructor mentions the same thing twice, that is the fault most likely to be upgraded to serious on test day.
2. Make your observations visible. The examiner marks what they can see. A genuine mirror check that involves moving your head is worth more than a flick of the eyes they cannot verify.
3. Treat progress as a real competency. Being too cautious is marked. If the road is clear and the limit is 30, drive at 30.
4. Do not audit yourself mid-test. Trying to count your faults while driving is how a small error becomes a large one. Drive the next section, not the last one.
5. Practise on real test routes so that the roads themselves are not adding to your cognitive load on the day.

How the Exam Routes App Can Help

Most faults on a DL25 come from candidates dealing with an unfamiliar road at the same time as managing nerves. Remove the unfamiliarity and you free up attention for the things the examiner is actually marking.

The Exam Routes App gives you real UK driving test routes with turn-by-turn navigation, so you can practise the specific roads, junctions and roundabouts around your test centre before the day. The more automatic the route feels, the more of your concentration goes into observation, planning and control — the exact boxes on the form.

Frequently Asked Questions