DVSA Withdrew 288 MOT Testers and 145 Authorised Examiners in a Year

• DVSA withdrew the authorisation of 288 MOT testers and 145 authorised examiners, the people who run MOT garages, in the 2025 to 2026 financial year.
• A further 176 testers and 247 authorised examiners received formal warnings, so DVSA logged 856 withdrawals and warnings in twelve months.
• Both withdrawal figures are lower than a year earlier (307 testers and 155 examiners), but tester withdrawals have stayed between about 190 and 350 a year in every year from 2018 to 2019 onwards.

DVSA Removed 288 MOT Testers and 145 Garage Operators From the Scheme in a Year

Every car more than three years old needs an MOT each year, and the certificate depends on a tester doing the work properly. DVSA’s own enforcement table shows how often that trust fails. In the 2025 to 2026 financial year the agency withdrew the authorisation of 288 MOT testers and 145 authorised examiners across Great Britain.

The figures come from the “Action against authorised examiners and testers” data set on GOV.UK, updated on 10 September 2026. It is DVSA’s official record of formal disciplinary outcomes in the MOT scheme, and it runs back to 2013 to 2014, which makes it possible to see whether the latest year is unusual.

What the 2025 to 2026 Numbers Show

An authorised examiner is the person or company legally responsible for an MOT test station. A tester is the individual who carries out the test. DVSA can act against either, and the table counts each separately.

For 2025 to 2026 the data set records:

• 288 MOT testers withdrawn, and 176 warned
• 145 authorised examiners withdrawn, and 247 warned
• 6 cases of intent to refuse, and 3 refusals after appeal

DVSA also logs a “withdrawn after appeal” figure. That row reads 59 for testers and 57 for authorised examiners in the latest year. The table does not explain what the figure covers or why it is so much lower than the headline withdrawals, so it should not be read as the number of people who were reinstated.

The wording has changed as well. In earlier years the table used the word “disqualified” for testers. The 2025 to 2026 rows say “withdrawn”. DVSA does not say whether the change alters what is being counted.

Lower Than Last Year, Still Well Above the Old Baseline

Set against 2024 to 2025, the latest figures are a modest improvement. Tester disqualifications were 307 that year, so 288 is a fall of about 6 percent. Tester warnings dropped from 205 to 176, a fall of 14 percent. Authorised examiner withdrawals eased from 155 to 145, about 6 percent, and their warnings from 264 to 247, about 6 percent.

Look further back and the trend looks different. In 2023 to 2024 DVSA disqualified 326 testers and withdrew 150 authorised examiners. In 2021 to 2022 the numbers were 337 testers and 172 examiners. In 2013 to 2014 the table shows 195 testers and 86 examiners. The most recent year is lower than the recent peak, but it sits well above where the scheme stood a decade ago.

The largest fall in the whole series is in warnings, not withdrawals. Authorised examiner warnings were 785 in 2020 to 2021 and tester warnings were 654. They are now 247 and 176. DVSA does not say whether that reflects better compliance, a change in how it enforces, or something else, and the table cannot answer that question.

The split between withdrawals and warnings also shows how DVSA treats the two groups. Of the 464 formal actions against testers in 2025 to 2026, 288 were withdrawals, about 62 percent. Of the 392 against authorised examiners, 145 were withdrawals, about 37 percent. Formal action against a tester ends in withdrawal far more often than a warning, while garage operators are more often given a warning.

Refusals are rare by comparison. DVSA recorded 6 cases of intent to refuse in 2025 to 2026, down from 8 the year before and 18 in 2023 to 2024, and 3 refusals after appeal in each of those last two years.

Why This Reaches Every Driver

An MOT is meant to be an independent check that a car is safe to drive. A tester who cuts corners or issues a certificate for a car that was never inspected removes that check. Most drivers would never know, as the paperwork looks the same as any other.

DVSA’s disciplinary framework runs on a points system. Minor slips normally lead to advice or counselling. Repeated problems, or serious ones, can end in formal action and, in fraud cases, prosecution. The agency has been building extra safeguards around the test itself. It began a national rollout of photographs taken at the time of the test in August 2026, which we covered in DVSA Rolls Out MOT Photos Nationwide After 1,809 Cases of Fraud.

A rule that came into force on 9 January 2026 also closed a gap that let a barred tester keep working in another role at the same station. That change is explained in Every Driver’s MOT Is Safer After DVSA Barred Rogue Testers In January.

What Drivers Can Do About It

Drivers cannot see DVSA’s disciplinary files. A few checks are free and take a few minutes, and they apply to every car.

First, use the government’s MOT history service online. It shows every test on a registration, including the mileage recorded at each one and the reasons for any failure. A mileage figure that falls, or a test that is missing from the record after you paid for one, is worth raising with the garage.

Second, keep your certificate and note the date and time of the test. If a garage says your car passed but the online record shows something different, that is a mismatch you can report to DVSA.

Third, be wary of a test that finishes in minutes with no defects on an older car. A short test is not proof of fraud, but it is a good reason to check the online record the same day.

Buyers of used cars have more reason to check. A certificate on a car that was never properly tested can hide brake, tyre or corrosion faults. The MOT history is the quickest way to see whether a seller’s story matches the record, and the check is worth doing alongside a look at whether the car has outstanding finance, which we explain in How to Check if a Used Car Has Outstanding Finance Before You Buy.

What the Data Does Not Tell You

The table does not name any garages or testers, and it does not say why each person was withdrawn. It gives no split between fraud, poor test standards and administrative breaches, so it cannot show how many of the 288 withdrawals involved a certificate for a car that was never tested.

Those limits matter for how the figure is read. Withdrawals are a sign that DVSA is finding and acting on problems. They are not a measure of how many MOT certificates are unreliable, and 288 withdrawals set against the size of the testing network should not be read as evidence that most tests are faulty.

What the record does show is steady enforcement. DVSA has withdrawn between roughly 190 and 350 testers in each of the last eight years, and the latest year sits inside that range. For drivers, the message is simple: the annual test depends on the person doing it, and DVSA is still removing hundreds of them every year.

Added together, the eight financial years from 2018 to 2019 to 2025 to 2026 record 2,297 tester disqualifications or withdrawals and 1,169 authorised examiner withdrawals. Those are the running totals behind each single year, and they show the scale of the scheme’s disciplinary work over time.

Sources

Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, Action against authorised examiners and testers, statistical data set, GOV.UK, updated 10 September 2026.

Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, MOT testing guide: Discipline, GOV.UK.