Short answer
Check the licence first — driving schools must be licensed in every state. Then check that the business is who it says it is: of the 625 Australian driving schools in this directory, only 8.8% publish an ABN you can confirm, and 4.2% list a phone number that contradicts the one on their own website.
Driving Schools handle learner lessons, test preparation, overseas licence conversions and refresher driving. This is what to check before you put a learner in a car with someone, and what the evidence says about the category as a whole.
Driving Schools must be licensed
Driving instructors must be accredited in every Australian state and territory, without exception. It is a specific instructor authority, separate from an ordinary driver licence, and it requires a police check and in most states a Working With Children Check. An instructor who cannot produce their accreditation number is not legally able to charge you for a lesson.
Each state road authority maintains the instructor register: Transport for NSW, VicRoads in Victoria, the Department of Transport and Main Roads in Queensland, and the equivalent agency elsewhere. Ask for the accreditation number and check it with the road authority in the state where you are learning — not the building or trade regulator, which has nothing to do with driving instruction.
What 625 Australian driving schools actually publish
We check every business in this directory the same way, and publish the result whether it flatters the trade or not. For driving schools:
| What we checked | Driving Schools | All trades |
|---|---|---|
| Publish an ABN we could confirm | 8.8% | 9.8% |
| Listed phone matches their own website | 45.4% | 39.2% |
| Listed phone contradicts their own website | 4.2% | 4.8% |
| Website responded when we checked | 63.8% | 64.7% |
| Corroborated by two or more sources | 99.8% | 94.1% |
| Median number of Google reviews | 44 | 29 |
What goes wrong with driving schools
- Instructing without a current accreditation, which also affects insurance
- Lesson packages paid up front with no refund terms if you stop
- Dual controls absent or non-functional in the training vehicle
- Test-day car hire quietly billed as an extra on the day
What to ask before the work starts
- What is your instructor accreditation number, and which state issued it?
- If I buy a package, what happens to unused lessons?
- Is the car available for the test itself, and is that included or extra?
A driving instructor who answers all three of those without hesitating is telling you something useful. One who is vague about a licence number is telling you something too.
The median matters more than the average
The median driving instructor in this directory has 44 Google reviews. That is the number to hold in your head when you see a perfect five-star rating: five stars from four reviews and 4.6 from three hundred are not comparable, and the second is almost always the safer hire.
It is also why the ranking here weights review volume more heavily than review score. A business cannot buy its position, and a handful of glowing reviews does not move it far.
Where the driving schools are
Sydney (57), Melbourne (42), Brisbane (39), Perth (33), Gold Coast (23), Newcastle (21). A shortlist for your own area is more useful than a national ranking — the best driving instructor in the country is no help if they are four states away.
Where to check a licence, by state
There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state where the work is happening.
- NSWNSW Fair Tradingbuilders, electricians, plumbers and specialist trades
- VICVictorian Building Authority, and Energy Safe Victoria for electricalbuilding practitioners and plumbers; electricians are Energy Safe Victoria
- QLDQueensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC)building and most trade contractor licences
- WABuilding and Energybuilders, electricians, plumbers and gas fitters
- SAConsumer and Business Servicesbuilding work contractors and supervisors
- TASConsumer, Building and Occupational Services (CBOS)building and occupational licences
- ACTAccess Canberraconstruction occupations licensing
- NTNT Government building practitioner registrationbuilding practitioners and electrical workers
Common questions
- Do driving schools need a licence in Australia?
- Yes. Driving instructors must be accredited in every Australian state and territory, without exception. It is a specific instructor authority, separate from an ordinary driver licence, and it requires a police check and in most states a Working With Children Check. An instructor who cannot produce their accreditation number is not legally able to charge you for a lesson.
- How do I check a driving instructor's licence?
- Each state road authority maintains the instructor register: Transport for NSW, VicRoads in Victoria, the Department of Transport and Main Roads in Queensland, and the equivalent agency elsewhere. Ask for the accreditation number and check it with the road authority in the state where you are learning — not the building or trade regulator, which has nothing to do with driving instruction.
- What percentage of Australian driving schools have a verifiable ABN?
- 8.8% of the 625 driving schools in this directory publish an ABN we could confirm against the national register, against 9.8% across all trades.
- How many reviews should a driving instructor have?
- The median driving instructor here has 44. Treat a five-star rating from a handful of reviews with more caution than a slightly lower rating from hundreds.
Compare driving schools near you
625 driving schools, ranked on the evidence described above rather than on advertising.
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