Sardinia is the Italian region with the highest number of candidates failing the driving test.
This is what emerges from the report " Statistics of activities carried out in 2025 for obtaining driving licenses" released recently by the Ministry of Transport with figures relating to the exams - theory and practical - taken last year in Italy by over 2.3 million aspiring drivers.
Looking at regional data, a total of 54,615 male and female candidates attempted the exam in the island over the past twelve months, and, as mentioned, the failure rate (taking into account the combined theory and practical data) is the highest in Italy: 36.4% (equal to 19,899 people) , compared to the national average of 26.7% (equal to approximately 618,000 candidates). Therefore, nearly four out of ten Sardinians failed the exam.
Immediately behind Sardinia is the autonomous province of Trento, with 33.7% of students failing their exams, followed by Liguria, with 32.3%. By contrast, in Sicily, only 18.6% of students failed their exams, a better result than in Puglia (21.6%) and Calabria (23%).
Speaking of rejections, Sassari and Cagliari are first and second, respectively, in the ranking of provincial capitals with the highest number of rejections: in Sassari, 39.8% of candidates were rejected in 2025, while in Cagliari, the figure was 36.67% . Messina, on the other hand, stands out, with 84.7% of candidates passed.
Sassari also has the highest percentage of failures, regardless of whether they are in the theory or the practical exam. Below are the failure rates on the island in 2025, broken down by exam and city:
- Failed the theory exam:
- Sassari 43.31%
- Nuoro 40.54%
- Cagliari 37.88%
- Oristano 35.63%
- Failed the driving test:
- Sassari 36.32%
- Cagliari 35.58%
- Oristano 25.04%
- Nuoro 22.90%