What requirements must a driving instructor meet?
Driving instructor is a certified profession: the age, licence-seniority, criminal-record and training conditions are set by the ARR norms, not by each school.
Short answer
- 1. A driving instructor must be at least 25 years old and have held a driving licence for at least 5 years.
- 2. They must have a clean criminal record: no convictions for traffic offences or other serious crimes.
- 3. Their licence must not have been revoked in the last 10 years, nor repeatedly suspended for alcohol.
- 4. They must be medically and psychologically fit and obtain the driving-instructor certificate from ARR, after a course at an authorised centre.
The legal conditions, in short
The certification conditions are set in Annex 2 to OMT 733/2013 (the norms on certifying road-legislation teachers and driving instructors), based on OG 27/2011. The certificate is obtained through an ARR examination.
The requirements for driving-instructor certification
| Criterion | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Age | At least 25 years old |
| Licence seniority | At least 5 years for categories A, B, BE; at least 3 years of holding the higher categories (C, CE, D, DE) |
| Criminal record | No convictions for traffic offences or other serious crimes |
| Licence history | No revocation in the last 10 years; no repeated suspensions for alcohol |
| Fitness | Medically and psychologically fit for instructor work |
The concrete steps to the first student
- The candidate checks the age, licence-seniority and criminal-record conditions.
- They obtain the medical and psychological clearance for instructor work.
- They take the training course at an authorised centre and sit the ARR certification exam.
- They are hired on an employment contract by an authorised driving school, for the categories on their certificate.
- They renew their certificate and clearances periodically — their validity is limited, and an expiry takes them out of activity.
Common mistakes
- Hiring an instructor on their licence alone: without a valid ARR certificate for that category, the lessons taught are not legal.
- Assigning an instructor to a category their certificate does not cover — a frequent error in schools teaching B and C in parallel.
- Losing track of expiries: the certificate, the medical and the psychological clearance expire on different dates for every instructor.
How 4driving helps you
In 4driving, every instructor has a profile with their certificate, clearances and teachable categories (B, BE, C, D), and lesson scheduling only pairs them with cars and students from their categories.
Document-expiry alerts work just like the fleet’s technical-inspection and insurance alerts — no one teaches on an expired certificate out of oversight.