Driving Licences: Health
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average processing time is for DVLA medical licence renewals where the applicant's condition has been clinically stable for two or more consecutive years.
Answered by Simon Lightwood
In 2025/26, the DVLA received 1,003,453 driving licence applications, renewals and notifications where a medical condition needed to be investigated before a licence could be issued. Of these, 15 per cent were made via the DVLA’s online service.
Until the end of March 2026, only a limited number of single medical conditions could be notified via the online DVLA’s Fitness to Drive Service. These included diabetes, Parkinsons, epilepsy, stroke, visual impairments or heart conditions. Notifications or renewals of all other medical conditions required applications to be submitted by post.
However, the DVLA’s new online medical services portal was launched on 31 March 2026 and most customers can now notify or renew online through the DVLA’s driver and vehicles account.
Driving licence applications where a medical condition(s) must be investigated before a licence can be issued can take longer as the DVLA is often reliant on information from third parties, including medical professionals, before a licence can be issued.
The information requested about the average processing time for licence renewals where the applicant’s condition has been clinically stable for two or more consecutive years is not available as the DVLA is not required to hold information about periods of clinical stability. In 2025/26, the average processing time for all driving licence applications where a medical condition needed to be investigated was 56.66 working days.
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