Driving Exam Routes in Brussels: Practise Before Your Belgian Practical Exam

Searching for Brussels driving exam routes in English usually means you are one of the city's many international residents preparing for the Belgian practical exam — the examen pratique in French or praktijkexamen in Dutch. No official routes exist, but Brussels has just two exam centres and each draws on a fixed set of surrounding roads. They are listed below.

Last reviewed 2026-09-10 · by SteerClear editorial · also available: Examenparcours (Dutch / French)

Where you take your driving exam in Brussels

SteerClear has 20 practice routes that start and finish at Brussels's 2 exam centres. For each centre, the roads below are the ones that appear on the most routes — the local network every exam from that centre is drawn from.

Route facts come from SteerClear's practice routes, which are built on the real road network around each centre. They are not a copy of any examiner's route — GOCA-approved exam centres do not publish one.

What the Brussels exam involves

Practical exams in the Brussels region are run by approved exam centres under GOCA, the federation of Belgian inspection and exam bodies: one in Anderlecht in the west and one in Schaerbeek in the north-east. You can reach the exam either through a driving school or, after a period of supervised practice on a provisional licence, on your own initiative — Belgium allows both routes.

The exam itself is around 40 minutes of driving on public roads, including manoeuvres, plus a set of checks around the car. Brussels adds its own texture: the whole region has been a 30 km/h zone by default since January 2021, priority-to-the-right junctions are common, trams share the road, and the routes from Schaerbeek in particular run along multi-lane boulevards such as Boulevard Auguste Reyers.

Taking the exam if you don't speak the language

Brussels is officially bilingual, and the exam is conducted in French or Dutch — you choose when you book. English is not an exam language, so the practical step for most international residents is to sit it in whichever of the two you can follow simple directions in: à gauche / links, à droite / rechts, tout droit / rechtdoor, garez-vous ici / parkeer hier. The vocabulary is small and worth learning cold.

Whether you need the exam depends on your current licence. EU and EEA licences remain valid; licences from many other countries can be exchanged without an exam, while others cannot and require the full theory and practical exams. Your commune's licensing desk can confirm which applies to yours.

How to practise your Brussels exam routes

1. Start at the centre. Every route begins and ends at the exam centre's exit, so learn that junction — which lane, where the sight lines are poor, what the traffic does at your exam time.
2. Drive the recurring roads in both directions. The lists above are your syllabus. A junction that is easy turning one way is often the hard one turning the other.
3. Practise at your exam time of day. A route at 08:00 with commuters and school traffic is a different exam from the same route at 11:00.
4. Rehearse the directions in the exam language. Have your supervising driver give instructions the way the examiner will, so the words stop costing attention.
5. Finish with a full-length scored drive. A mock driving test of exam length shows whether faults cluster late, when concentration dips.

SteerClear builds these practice routes on the roads above and scores each drive live — speed, braking, cornering, lane position and observation — so a repeated hesitation at one junction shows up as a pattern you can fix before the exam.

Brussels roads and rules that catch people out

30 km/h by default

Since January 2021 every road in the Brussels region is 30 km/h unless signed otherwise, with 50 km/h only on a limited set of major axes. Learn where the 50 stretches are on the roads above; exceeding 30 on an unsigned residential street is a clear fault.

Priorité de droite

Priority to the right applies at a great many Brussels junctions, including some that feel like main roads. Unless you see a priority sign or markings, assume traffic from the right has priority and slow down enough to stop.

Trams and tunnels

Trams run through Schaerbeek and along several boulevards, with priority over turning traffic. Brussels also has road tunnels on its inner ring; keep your lane and your speed steady inside them.

Bilingual signs and roads

Every street has a French and a Dutch name, shown together on the signs. The roads listed above appear under their French name with the Dutch alongside where our route data records both; either name is the same road.

Frequently asked questions

More on driving exam routes

Our international guide to driving exam routes covers what the practical exam is called in 31 countries and whether routes are published anywhere. All Belgian centres are listed at Belgium test centres. Other city guides in English: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Amsterdam.