Parallel parking, reversing into a bend or the slope test, these are not exactly the favorite parts of a novice driver during driving lessons. However, from January 2026, students in the north of the country will have the opportunity to practice those skills again during an interim driving test at the Central Driving License Agency (CBR).
That test disappeared on April 1, 2025, but will return from January in Drenthe, Groningen, Friesland and Overijssel.
The test will return even earlier than expected in the northern provinces. This has everything to do with the waiting times for the practical exam, which have decreased in recent months.
“For a long time, the reservation periods were too high to be able to offer the test,” says Sigrid Ebbinge, exam manager at the CBR. “But now that they are stable under eight weeks, we can bring back the interim test.”
The northern provinces follow Limburg and Zeeland, where the CBR already gave the green light earlier this autumn.
Abolishing the interim test was not an optional choice. Since corona, the CBR locations have had significant backlogs. By temporarily removing the test from the system, no fewer than 75,000 additional exam places were created.
“We had to do something,” says Ebbinge. “We have tried a lot to reduce waiting times. Temporarily canceling the interim test was the last resort. We agreed that this would take a maximum of one year.”
This approach proved to be effective, because waiting times in the northern provinces have now fallen significantly.
The temporary disappearance of the test did have consequences. It is an accessible way for students to get used to the exam situation, without anything immediately being at stake.
“It’s actually a kind of test exam,” Ebbinge explains. “People with exam anxiety in particular benefit a lot from it. We saw that the pass rate dropped a bit after the abolition. Driving schools even started exchanging students with each other in order to be able to offer a kind of trial experience.”
In addition to less tension, the test provides a practical advantage, because those who do the special tasks well no longer have to do them during the real exam.
Scrapping the interim test also had positive side effects. There was more room for other exams, such as motorcycle and trailer exams. “Trainers asked for this a lot,” says Ebbinge. “We will continue to do that. By bringing back the interim test in phases, we can clearly see where there is the greatest need and at what time.”
The CBR expects that the interim test will be back everywhere in the Netherlands by the end of April. “But if we can do it sooner, we will do it,” Ebbinge emphasizes.