Cardigan test centre: 41.0% pass rate, £473 to get through it.

Cardigan is a small centre by DVSA standards: 1,192 car practical tests in 2025/26, of which 489 were passes, giving 41.0%. At that volume a run of two or three unusual weeks moves the annual figure visibly, so treat the number as a guide to the roads rather than a precise ranking. It sits 290th of 308 nationally and 21st of 21 in Wales.

That is 9.0 percentage points below the 50.03% national figure, and 11.4 points below the 52.4% average for Wales. Low pass rates cluster where test routes carry heavy traffic, multi-lane junctions and frequent bus lanes. The examiners are not stricter; the roads give a candidate more chances to make a serious fault.

Turn 41.0% into money. One divided by the pass rate gives 2.44 expected attempts before a first pass, so the average candidate at Cardigan pays the £62 weekday DVSA fee about 2.44 times, or £151. Add 1.44 expected retakes at 7 hours of extra tuition each, charged at the Wales rate of £32 an hour, and the extra lessons come to £322. The test cycle at Cardigan is therefore about £473. Testing here therefore costs about £125 more than the same candidate would spend at a centre sitting on the 50.03% national average, purely because of the extra attempt the pass rate implies.

Waiting time at Cardigan ran to a median 7.1 weeks between booking and test in July 2026, 4.8 weeks below the 11.9-week national median. Across 1.44 expected retakes that is roughly 10.2 weeks of extra queueing before a licence arrives. In the same month DVSA offered 438 standard slots inside the booking window here and 27.4% of them were still free to book.

The first-attempt picture is harder here than the headline. 582 candidates sat their first test at Cardigan and 230 passed, 39.5%, which is 1.5 points below the all-attempts rate. 1 of those first tests were passed with no driving faults recorded at all, 0.17% of them. Budget for the second booking from the start rather than treating it as the exception.

Since 2021/22 the pass rate at Cardigan has fallen by 11.3 points, from 52.3% to 41.0%. Test volume has shrunk over the same span, from 1,405 to 1,192 tests a year. On the cost model above, that shift alone is worth about £150 to the average candidate.

Male candidates passed at 40.0% and female candidates at 42.1%, a gap of 2.1 points across 610 and 582 tests. Month to month the rate ran from 33.3% in February 2026 to 48.6% in October 2025, a 15.3-point swing that shows how little a single month proves.

Among centres of a similar size in Wales, Monmouth runs 9.9 points higher at 51.0%. On the same arithmetic that is roughly £136 of expected difference. Before moving, price the switch: a new instructor or extra travel for route familiarity typically costs £60 to £120 plus two settling-in lessons, which eats most of a gap under about eight points.