Research and analysis

DVLA customer satisfaction 2025 to 2026

Published 9 September 2026

Details

Overall customer satisfaction

Overall customer satisfaction was 91.79%, down 0.41% from 2024 to 2025.

DVLA main services

The following shows the percentage of customers who were satisfied with DVLA’s main services:

• renew my driving licence – 93.1% (down 2.1%)
• notify DVLA of a medical condition – 64% (down 9.4%)
• tax my vehicle – 91.7% (down 0.4%)
• notify a change of details on your V5C – 91.2% (up 1.7%)

Reputation

The reputation score was 68.9, down from 70.6 in the previous year.

Customer expectations met or exceeded

The following shows the percentage of customers who said their expectations were either met or exceeded:

• renew my driving licence – 96.2% (down 1.7%)
• notify DVLA of a medical condition – 74.1% (down 10%)
• tax my vehicle – 97.9% (down 0.2%)
• notify a change of details on your V5C – 95.7% (up 1.5%)

Customer effort score (CES)

The following shows the CES of DVLA’s main services:

• renew my driving licence – 88
• notify DVLA of a medical condition – 68
• tax my vehicle – 94
• notify a change of details on your V5C – 90

Overview

Survey name: DVLA customer satisfaction 2025 to 2026

Report date: April 2026

Objectives

The purpose of this survey was to measure current levels of:

• satisfaction against a breakdown of DVLA drivers, vehicles and drivers medical services
• customer reputation against a breakdown of DVLA drivers, vehicles and drivers medical services

Methodology and target audience

The survey was distributed monthly by post, to customers that had recently transacted with DVLA.

Sample

The sample was based on annual transactions across the 4 main driver, vehicles and drivers medical services, which were weighted proportionately according to volumes.

Response rate

From 66,415 surveys sent out, the overall response rate was 10%. As with all surveys, there is a non-response bias accepted as part of the approach. This means that we are accepting the views of 6,470 customers that had chosen to complete the survey, and not the views of the entire outgoing sample of 66,415.

Customer effort

Customer effort results are presented throughout this report alongside other results. This is a measurement of how easy or difficult customers found it to use DVLA services and is derived by subtracting the percentage of customers who reported the service as difficult or very difficult from those who reported it as easy or very easy. Scores are rounded to the nearest whole number and reflect customer experience across all channels. Higher scores indicate that customers found the service easier to use.

Executive summary – findings

The overall customer satisfaction score for 2025 to 2026 was 91.79%.

Customers scored DVLA’s reputation as 68.9 out of 100. The reputation score is based around customer views of how well DVLA understands and meets their needs, their trust in DVLA, whether they feel valued as a customer, how much they are an advocate of our services and if they believe DVLA takes customer views seriously.

The customer satisfaction scores for the main services were:

• I want to renew my driving licence – 93.1%
• I want to notify DVLA of a medical condition – 64%
• I want to tax my vehicle – 91.7%
• I want to amend my vehicle registration details – 91.2%

Renew my driving licence

Expectations

For the service to renew a driving licence, 64% (966 of 1,510) of customers’ expectations were met and 32.2% (486 of 1,510) were exceeded.

Satisfaction – of those very satisfied or satisfied

The following are satisfaction levels among respondents who were very satisfied or satisfied with the:

• quality of service received from DVLA – 93.9% (1,364 of 1,452)
• quality of information received from DVLA – 91.8% (1,291 of 1,406)
• ease of access to the service – 91.2% (1,289 of 1,413)
• ease of access to information – 90.8% (1,248 of 1,374)
• effectiveness of our communication – 90% (1,111 of 1,235)
• time taken to get through to staff on the telephone – 74.2% (294 of 396)
• time taken to process the application – 94.2% (1,248 of 1,325)
• politeness or courtesy of staff – 83.2% (311 of 374)
• helpfulness of staff – 81.7% (291 of 356)
• professionalism of staff – 82.4% (294 of 357)
• knowledge of staff – 82% (292 of 356)
• accuracy of the product or service – 91.3% (1,023 of 1,120)

Reputation – of those that strongly agreed or agreed

The following shows the percentage of customers who strongly agreed or agreed that:

• DVLA meets their needs as a customer – 91.2% (1,372 of 1,504)
• they trust DVLA as an organisation – 86% (1,256 of 1,461)
• they feel they are treated as a valued customer by DVLA – 62.8% (908 of 1,445)
• they would recommend DVLA services to others – 72.8% (1,048 of 1,439)
• they believe DVLA takes customer views seriously – 61.2% (874 of 1,429)
• they believe DVLA understands their needs – 65.3% (939 of 1,437)

Customer effort

The customer effort score for renewing a driving licence was 88.

Notify DVLA of a medical condition

Expectations

For the service to notify DVLA of a medical condition, 62.5% (1,168 of 1,869) of customers’ expectations were met and 11.6% (217 of 1,869) were exceeded.

Satisfaction – of those very satisfied or satisfied

The following are satisfaction levels among respondents who were very satisfied or satisfied with the:

• quality of service received from DVLA – 67.7% (1,210 of 1,786)
• quality of information received from DVLA – 66.8% (1,167 of 1,746)
• ease of access to service – 65% (1,122 of 1,726)
• ease of access to information – 62.6% (1,072 of 1,713)
• effectiveness of our communication – 60% (1,011 of 1,686)
• time taken to get through to staff on the telephone – 45.1% (556 of 1,234)
• time taken to make a decision – 49.1% (798 of 1,625)
• politeness or courtesy of staff – 83.1% (1,023 of 1,231)
• helpfulness of staff – 75.5% (935 of 1,238)
• professionalism of staff – 77.8% (966 of 1,242)
• knowledge of staff – 71.4% (878 of 1,230)
• accuracy of the product or service – 66.1% (935 of 1,415)

Reputation – of those that strongly agreed or agreed

The following shows the percentage of customers who strongly agreed or agreed that:

• DVLA met their needs as a customer – 68% (1,217 of 1,790)
• they trust DVLA as an organisation – 73.1% (1,294 of 1,770)
• they feel they are treated as a valued customer by DVLA – 55.2% (965 of 1,749)
• they would recommend DVLA services to others – 56.1% (982 of 1,751)
• they believe DVLA takes customer views seriously – 57.1% (1,004 of 1,757)
• they believe DVLA understands their needs – 58.8% (1,032 of 1,756)

Customer effort

The customer effort score for notifying DVLA of a medical condition was 68.

Tax my vehicle

Expectations

For the service to tax a vehicle, 82.6% (1,147 of 1,388) of customers’ expectations were met and 15.3% (213 of 1,388) were exceeded.

Satisfaction – of those very satisfied or satisfied

The following are satisfaction levels among respondents who were very satisfied or satisfied with the:

• quality of service received from DVLA – 90.7% (1,215 of 1,339)
• quality of information received from DVLA – 91.1% (1,181 of 1,297)
• ease of access to service – 91.2% (1,220 of 1,337)
• ease of access to information – 88.6% (1,124 of 1,269)
• effectiveness of our communication – 87.1% (1,029 of 1,181)
• time taken to get through to staff on the telephone – 63% (302 of 479)
• time taken to process the application – 88.7% (953 of 1,074)
• politeness or courtesy of staff – 78.7% (359 of 456)
• helpfulness of staff – 77.9% (346 of 444)
• professionalism of staff – 78.5% (346 of 441)
• knowledge of staff – 75.7% (334 of 441)
• accuracy of the product or service – 88% (869 of 987)

Reputation – of those that strongly agreed or agreed

The following shows the percentage of customers who strongly agreed or agreed that:

• DVLA meets their needs as a customer – 89.3% (1,253 of 1,403)
• they trust DVLA as an organisation – 83% (1,138 of 1,371)
• they feel they are treated as a valued customer by DVLA – 56.8% (768 of 1,352)
• they would recommend DVLA services to others – 66.4% (897 of 1,351)
• they believe DVLA takes customer views seriously – 55.9% (756 of 1,353)
• they believe DVLA understands their needs – 60.4% (819 of 1,355)

Customer effort

The customer effort score for taxing a vehicle was 94.

Notify a change of details on your V5C

Expectations

For the service to notify a change of details on a V5C, 69.7% (867 of 1,244) of customers’ expectations were met and 26% (323 of 1,244) were exceeded.

Satisfaction – of those very satisfied or satisfied

The following are satisfaction levels among respondents who were very satisfied or satisfied with the:

• quality of service received from DVLA – 91.8% (1,104 of 1,202)
• quality of information received from DVLA – 90.9% (1,045 of 1,149)
• ease of access to the service – 90.9% (1,075 of 1,183)
• ease of access to information – 90.5% (1,047 of 1,157)
• effectiveness of our communication – 86.9% (916 of 1,054)
• time taken to get through to staff on the telephone – 67.9% (338 of 498)
• time taken to process the application – 89.1% (1,010 of 1,134)
• politeness or courtesy of staff – 82.2% (375 of 456)
• helpfulness of staff – 81.7% (374 of 458)
• professionalism of staff – 82.3% (382 of 464)
• knowledge of staff – 79.1% (364 of 460)
• accuracy of the product or service – 88.8% (842 of 948)

Reputation – of those that strongly agreed or agreed

The following shows the percentage of customers who strongly agreed or agreed that:

• DVLA meets their needs as a customer – 90% (1,109 of 1,232)
• they trust DVLA as an organisation – 86.4% (1,051 of 1,217)
• they are treated as a valued customer by DVLA – 65.4% (793 of 1,213)
• they would recommend DVLA services to others – 75.8% (917 of 1,210)
• they believe DVLA takes customer views seriously – 64.2% (774 of 1,206)
• DVLA understands their needs – 67.6% (819 of 1,211)

Customer effort

The customer effort score for notifying a change of personal or vehicle details on the vehicle registration certificate (V5C) was 90.

Annex A – Sample frame

	Volumes	%	Sample (records)
I want to amend my vehicle registration details	3,886,810	/	2,000
V-V5 changes on a registration document KFI	1,140,539	29	587
V-V5 changes on a registration document VSS	1,193,358	31	614
V-V5 change of address online	1,552,913	40	799
I want to tax my vehicle	48,147,856	/	1,600
V-Direct Debit initial mandate EVL	6,581,575	14	219
V-Direct Debit initial mandate Post Office	312,333	1	10
V-Direct Debit renewal	10,159,938	21	338
V-V10 licence application EVL	11,512,783	24	383
V-V10 licence application Post Office	2,849,802	6	95
V-V11 fleets	1,027,680	2	34
V-V11 licence renewal reminder EVL	13,590,520	28	452
V-V11 licence renewal reminder Post Office	2,113,225	4	70
I want to renew my driving licence	6,040,523	/	1,000
D-manual renewals	223,358	4	37
D-renewal after disqualification	38,010	1	6
D-renewals web 1 stage	1,495,421	25	248
D-renewals web 2 stage	55,232	1	9
D-ten year renewal	205,595	3	34
D-ten year renewal Post Office route	474,396	8	79
D-ten year renewal vanity exchanges	112,274	2	19
D-ten year renewal web	223,049	4	37
D-ten year renewal web vanity exchanges	238,678	4	40
D-turnround renewals	880,668	15	146
D-vocational manual renewal ODL/VOC entitlement	4,772	0	1
D-vocational manual renewal VOC entitlement	287,642	5	48
D-vocational renewal after disqualification	2,529	0	0
D-vocational turnaround reminder	1,248	0	0
D-ten year renewal DPRN	1,646,354	27	273
D-ten year renewal vanity DPRN	151,297	3	25
I want to notify DVLA of a change to my medical status	125,227	/	1,000
DM-CEG notis	52,400	42	418
DM-medical notifications (ODL & VOC)	28,781	23	230
DM-online notifications	44,046	35	352
	58,200,416	/	5,600