Driving License Reform 2027 What really changes for your license.

No, that claim is false. The fixed number of special drives is being dropped entirely – but it is not reduced to three across the board. Cross-country, motorway and night drives remain mandatory topics. How many hours you need depends on your progress – in dense Munich city traffic, on the Mittlerer Ring and the A8/A9 motorways this varies from learner to learner.

That is the goal of the reform, but not a guarantee. Less bureaucracy can lower fixed costs. Because the practical training becomes performance-based, your final price will depend even more on your individual learning effort. Munich is among the most expensive cities for a license anyway – you should not count on a guaranteed saving.

No, the legal in-person attendance requirement is set to be dropped. You will then be able to learn everything for the theory exam fully digitally via app. The exam requirements and the required knowledge, however, stay strictly the same.

The official question pool is being cut from 1,169 questions by about a third – to roughly 840. Mainly outdated and non-EU-compliant questions are removed.

An experimental clause is planned: after passing your theory exam, you will be allowed to gather additional practice on public roads under the guidance of close relatives (such as your parents). This is meant as a supplement and does not replace professional driving instruction. Important for Munich: an experimental clause is a time-limited trial – the concrete conditions, and whether it is available in Bavaria right at the start, will only be set by the still-pending ordinance and the federal states. So you should not rely on it for your planning.

The draft bill now names a concrete date: the reform is set to come into force on 1 July 2027 – as laid down in Bundesrat document 330/26 of 29 May 2026. This is not final yet, though: the draft still has to pass the Bundestag and Bundesrat. If the procedure is delayed, this date can shift as well.

Because the reform consists of two legal acts: the amendment of the Driving Instructor Act (covering professional rules and transparency duties) has been adopted as a draft bill and is currently before the Bundesrat. The concrete training and exam rules – such as digital theory or the special drives – sit in a separate ordinance modernising driving school training, which so far only exists as a draft. That is why some detailed rules are not final yet – as soon as that changes, we update this page.

No, for most Munich learners waiting does not pay off. Under the current draft bill the reform is not due to come into force before 1 July 2027 – until then today’s rules apply unchanged, and a saving is not guaranteed even after that. Whoever starts now will most likely finish under the familiar rules. In Munich there is a practical factor on top: the wait for a practical exam slot at the TÜV is currently around two months. This could get worse: if many people who are waiting all start at once after the reform, a rush is likely – with even longer waiting times at the licensing office, the TÜV and the driving schools. Whoever starts early secures their place in the system and is finished before the backlog hits. Ongoing training is automatically adapted to the new law if it changes – so you lose nothing and gain time.

Yes, and that is exactly what we recommend. The reform is not yet law – anyone who waits for it postpones their mobility indefinitely. You can start straight away at any of our three Munich locations; what you learn keeps its full validity after the reform, too.

For you, little changes in everyday terms – for a good reason: at our locations in Haidhausen, Giesing and Haar we already train in a performance-based way and use modern, digital learning tools for theory. Exactly what the reform wants to make the nationwide standard has long been standard with us. As soon as the new rules apply, we adapt your ongoing training seamlessly – with no extra effort for you.

Yes, the pure driving time in the practical exam is to be reduced from 30 to 25 minutes – matching the European minimum requirement.

Yes, here too the rigid number requirement for special drives is being dropped. The professional driver qualification (Code 95) remains unaffected.

The Mobilithek is the state data platform that the transparency register envisaged in the draft bill is set to run on: driving schools will have to publish their prices and pass rates there. This duty is now part of the draft legislation – so it is more than a mere announcement. It creates transparency and makes choosing the right driving school much easier.

No. The reform only modernises the path to the license through more digitalisation. The driving ability you must demonstrate in the exam stays at exactly the same high safety level.

No, converting a foreign driving license still follows its own rules and runs through the driving license office of the KVR Munich. The reform mainly concerns regular initial training. If you are converting from a non-EU country and have to take a theory or practical exam, we guide you through the process at Peters in both German and English.