I received my driving license, after 8 months
A great deal of time has passed since my previous article How to get a driver’s license in Spain, where I explained the process of studying and passing exams to obtain a driving license in Spain. The article finished by indicating, that, although I passed all exams and I received a temporary license for 3 months, I’m waiting for the real driving license (a plastic card).
Time passed by and today, 8 months later, I finally received it! With the article, I want to share my experience and portray my pain and disappointment from the process.
Temporary driving license
When you pass a practical exam, you receive temporary permission (autorizacion temporal para conducir), that covers 3 following months, while you are waiting for the permanent one.
With this printed page (a .pdf page), you can drive cars from rental services, except car-sharing (services with per-minute payment in the city), such as WiBLE, ShareNow, etc. According to their support (I messaged all of them), they just don’t accept the page and require an actual card with a photo.
Rental services are fine, but I prefer and used carsharing for years before, as they give numerous advantages:
- You don’t have to pay for the whole day if you need a car for a couple of hours. For short trips, it’s cheaper. Even though you rent a car for a couple of days, they have pleasant discounts.
- You don’t need to fuel your car and spend time at gas stations.
- You don’t need to wash a car, before finishing a trip. I hate this requirement of regular rental services the most. Every time I experience the inconvenience on the day of returning a car. You spend around 30 minutes at least on it. In addition, you have to choose the car wash in advance, as some may be closed by the time you return the car.
- You don’t need to pay for parking — it’s already in the price.
Besides, with a temporary driving license, you cannot drive a car abroad!
All in all, until you have your own car, possession of the temporary certificate imposes several rather critical restrictions, so I was motivated to exchange it as fast as possible.
A driving license journey
In Spain, the process of receiving a driving license is unlike and is slowed down without a reason.
After you pass the exam and an inspector fills the report in a local Dirección General de Tráfico, DGT (General Directorate of Traffic) office, the procedure of issuing the driver's license is initiated. The DGT office sends your documents to the National Mint and Stamp Factory (Fábrica Nacional de la Moneda y Timbre), where all licenses in Madrid are manufactured centralized. After the license is made, it is sent to your home address in an envelope by Correos (a state-owned company responsible for providing postal service). If, for any circumstances, Correos cannot deliver the license to your home address, it is obliged to send it to the local DGT office, where you passed the practical exam. In this case, you are responsible to go there and pick it up.
Usually (so they say), the process takes about 2 months: from passing the exam to having the driving license in your mailbox, nonetheless, all my friends in Spain I spoke with experienced 3 months and more.
My exceptional story
At this point, when you are familiar with the process and understand my strong desire to receive the treasured card as soon as possible, it’s time to share my pain and the heartbreaking story.
As I passed the exam on 30 June, I expected to have a driving license until September. In August the status of the application on the DGT website (yes, you can view it online!) changed from “issuing” to “in delivery”. I was beside myself with happiness. I know Correos very well and they deliver packages pretty fast (my packages are delivered always in 1 week or less, even from abroad). After 2 weeks of waiting I was worried, in 4 weeks I was alarmed and decided to visit the DGT office, where I passed the exam, located in another city, by the way. There they informed me that the postal service was unable to deliver the letter to my home and now I have to wait for it here, but it hasn’t arrived yet.
From that day, every 1–2 months I kept returning to the office (which is an hour’s drive away) to verify if my letter had arrived, and every time they checked several boxes with undelivered letters (which seemed to hint that the situation when Correos cannot deliver a driving license is not so rare in the end), and shook their heads sadly. On the bright side, every time, when my temporary permission was about to expire, was renewed, so I could (theoretically) drive a car.
Workers at DGT were not impolite or rude, they actually double-checked the letters they received every time, my information, and consulted with colleagues. But seeing that only a few months had passed since the day of my exam, they smiled friendly, told me not to worry, and that I should wait another month or two.
In December everything changed. I, as before, went to the office and as before, asked for my permission. The same painfully familiar boxes were checked and seeing, that my permission wasn’t there, they finally proposed to re-issue my permission. At that point, It was clear that the letter was lost being delivered to my home address or the to DGT office. I filled out the form and requested delivering it here, to collect it from the office by myself now. Long story short, in about 2 months, after a fabulous trip to Barcelona, recharged and inspired I walked through the doors and greeted the office worker I already knew. After a couple of minutes, he finally gave me the long-awaited letter! It was the 29 of February.
Without one day 8 months, I waited for my driving license to arrive. All this time while I was waiting my life changed a lot: I found and rented a new apartment, and extended my residence permit. In the end, it turned out that updating your residence is much faster than getting a driving license.
Summary
I want to finish the article with encouragement. When you pass the exam in Spain or considering taking it and you are waiting for a letter with your driving license to arrive, don’t exaggerate expectations. If the letter doesn’t arrive in a couple of months, keep in mind, that you are not the only one and there are people, like me, who are even more unlucky to wait for it for the whole 8 months.
If I could start over again, I’d ask the DGT to not send the letter to my home address and, instead, specify the address of the DGT office, where I could collect it.
After waiting for so long I am still grateful for this incident. This story taught me humility and patience. Don’t worry about what you can’t change, everything has its time, and as they say in Spain: no pasa nada.
