In Ukraine, practical driving training must be done at an accredited driving school. After the course you take the school's internal practical exam, which gives you a certificate valid for two years, and then the state practical exam at a service centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There is no way to practise on public roads with a relative or a friend before that, so your lessons are where your preparation happens.
The good news is that you know where the exam will go. This guide explains how the published routes work, how booking and the exam car work, and how to turn the route into a lesson plan.
The exam routes are published
Ukraine is one of the few countries where the practical exam routes are public. The Main Service Centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs says practical exams follow clearly defined routes, with a separate route for each vehicle category, and it publishes them for each service centre on hsc.gov.ua: open the driving licence section, then the list of exam routes, and choose your service centre. You can study yours before the exam.
Booking and the exam car
You book the practical exam yourself in the service centres' online queue on hsc.gov.ua. When you book, you choose either a service-centre car or your accredited driving school's car fitted with video recording. The exact car and the examiner are assigned automatically, and the exam is recorded on video.
Practical exams are held at service centres that act as exam hubs. In some areas exams can be suspended or moved for security reasons, so check the current status of your service centre on hsc.gov.ua before you book.
What the numbers say
In 2025, service centres held 795,441 practical exams across all categories, and 148,583 candidates passed at the first attempt, which the Main Service Centre puts at 19%. In the same year 220,102 people received their first driving licence, which is issued for two years as a probationary licence.
Turning the published route into a lesson plan
- Get your route. Find the route for your category and service centre on hsc.gov.ua and show it to your instructor early in the course.
- Break it into sections. Mark the hardest parts, such as busy junctions, roundabouts, tram tracks, lane changes and pedestrian crossings, and work on them one or two at a time.
- Drive it more than once. Drive the whole route in several lessons, at different times of day, so that traffic and light do not surprise you.
- Think about the car. Your school's car is the one you know from your lessons. If you choose a service-centre car, ask your instructor how to adjust quickly to a car you have not driven.
- Know the roads around it. Traffic, roadworks and the examiner's instructions mean the drive never goes exactly as planned, so get to know the streets around the route as well.
- Preview before you drive. Look at the route at home before each lesson, so lesson time goes on driving rather than on finding your way.
Common mistakes on the exam drive
- Lane choice. On wide roads, get into the correct lane early and check your mirrors and blind spot before every lane change.
- Trams and pedestrians. Know where trams have priority, and look for pedestrians at every crossing.
- Speed changes. Watch for the signs at the start and end of built-up areas and be at the new speed as you pass them.
- Hesitation. Waiting too long when it is safe to go holds up traffic. Knowing the route helps you judge gaps with confidence.
SteerClear practice routes in Ukraine
SteerClear has more than 450 practice routes around 65 service centres in 24 regions, including TSC 8041 Kyiv, TSC 4651 Lviv, TSC 6341 Kharkiv, TSC 1242 Dnipro and TSC 0541 Vinnytsia. A typical route is about 15 km and takes just over half an hour. These are SteerClear practice routes on the same local road network, not the official exam routes, so drive the official route with your instructor too, and use SteerClear for scored drives on the roads around it.
Bring SteerClear to your lessons
Pick your service centre in the SteerClear app and preview its routes at home, so you know where the tricky junctions and speed changes are before you get in the car. At the start of a lesson, show your instructor the route you would like to drive and drive it together, with turn-by-turn navigation and live scoring. The score after each drive shows you both what improved and what to work on in the next lesson, and Mac, your AI driving coach, helps you decide what to practise next.
Find your centre among the 65 on the Ukraine service centres page, read the Ukrainian practical driving test guide, and download SteerClear to plan your next lesson.