Get your provisional licence

Yes. You can apply for your provisional licence from the age of 15 years and 9 months, which is 3 months before your 16th birthday. You can ride a moped at 16, but you cannot drive a car on public roads until you turn 17.

A first provisional driving licence costs £34 if you apply online at GOV.UK, or £43 if you apply by post with a D1 form. A replacement for a lost, stolen or damaged licence costs £20.

Online applications usually arrive within 1 week. Postal applications take up to 3 weeks. It can take longer if the DVLA needs to check your health or personal details, or during busy periods like summer.

You can still apply online. When you sign in you may be asked to prove your identity, and a passport is only one of the ways to do it. You can also use a non-UK passport with a biometric chip or a UK biometric residence permit in the GOV.UK One Login app, answer security questions about your own bank account with no photo ID at all, or have your ID scanned in branch at a Post Office that offers verification. If none of those work, apply on paper with a D1 form instead, sending original documents such as a UK birth certificate with proof of your National Insurance number.

For the online application you need something that proves your identity: a UK or biometric non-UK passport, a UK biometric residence permit, residence card or Frontier Worker permit, or a UK bank account if you are answering security questions instead. You also need the addresses you have lived at for the last 3 years and your National Insurance number if you know it. A UK photocard driving licence is on the DVLA list too, but if this is your first licence you will not have one yet.

Not the application itself, but the Post Office helps with two parts of it. Larger branches stock the paper D1 form, and branches offering in branch verification can scan your photo ID to prove your identity for the online application, which is usually confirmed within a day. Note that the Post Office document certification service is not accepted for a postal application, which needs original documents.

Yes. In the UK the document is called a provisional driving licence, and it is what other countries call a learner licence or learner permit. There is no separate learner licence to apply for. The same green photocard lets you start lessons with an instructor and, once you pass the theory test, book your practical test.

No. You need your provisional licence number to book the theory test, so the provisional licence always comes first. Apply for the licence, then book the theory test while you start revising.

Only if you get, or have applied for, the enhanced rate of the mobility component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP). In that case you can hold a provisional licence and drive a car from your 16th birthday. Everyone else must wait until 17.

You must be able to read a standard UK number plate from 20 metres away. Glasses or contact lenses are fine, but you must wear them every time you drive. Your instructor will check this at the start of your first lesson, and the examiner checks it again on test day.

The photocard is valid for 10 years. Once you pass your practical test you exchange it for a full licence, so most learners only use it for a year or two.

Apply for a replacement on GOV.UK for £20. It normally arrives within a week. If your name or address has changed, update the details at the same time, which is free.

No. Northern Ireland has its own licensing agency, the DVA, and you apply through nidirect rather than GOV.UK. This guide covers England, Scotland and Wales.