Changing driving school in Estonia: continue where you left off

You have already paid. You have lessons behind you, maybe the theory done, maybe even the test in sight. And there is a thought in your head you have not said out loud yet: I want to leave.

Two things straight away. Changing driving school is allowed: the law neither forbids it nor asks anyone for permission. And you do not have to start from scratch.

Below is what we credit from what you have already done, which document stays valid for how long, what takes time and what costs money. There will not be a single sentence here about where you studied before — that is not our business.

How changing driving school works — four steps

  1. Ask your old school for a certificate of the training you have completed (tõend läbitud õppe kohta). That is the document that shows how much theory is done and whether first aid, skid training and night driving have been completed. In the same e-mail ask for the study card (õpingukaart) too — issuing that one is the school’s legal duty. They will not give it? Write to us, we help you draft the enquiry, free of charge.
  2. Send them to us. We look at what is already done and put in writing only what is missing. The offer is written and free.
  3. Contract and register entry on the same day. All of it digital, you do not need to come in. Paperwork 0 €.
  4. Within one to two weeks you are in the training schedule. The condition: at least 30% of the theory course completed, or the school theory exam already passed.

The only step whose length we cannot promise is the first one — it does not depend on us but on your current school. The other three are in our hands.

Is changing driving school even possible?

Yes, and the answer is shorter than you think.

Neither the Traffic Act nor the driver training regulation says anything at all about changing driving school. No ban and no permission. No notice period. No limit on how many times you may change. No obligation to justify your decision to anyone. The law simply stays silent.

In practice that silence means two things. First: nobody has to approve your move — it is not an application that someone decides on. Second: because no procedure is written down anywhere, every school arranges it its own way. The paperwork fee, the order in which documents are issued and the deadlines are each school’s own decision, and that is exactly why the answers you hear in different places differ. That is not somebody’s attitude — the law just does not say anything here.

What we credit from what you have done

Driving lessons taken. We go through your certificate and study card and make an offer for exactly the volume that is still missing. If 12 of your 30 lessons are done, we have no reason to sell you 30 again.

Theory. There are three situations here, and three different answers.

What you have What we do
Theory completed in a classroom, you have a certificate from the old school, but the school theory exam is not done You do not have to repeat the theory as a whole. The regulation still requires at least six contact lessons in initial-stage theory (regulation no 60 § 32 (5)) — with us those run as live web lectures counted as contact learning, teacher and student present at the same time. The rest we credit on the basis of your certificate, and you sit the school theory exam in the Liikluslab environment — you do not need to come to a classroom for it
Theory started but left unfinished We add online theory to your individual package: you finish it and sit the school exam online. Here too those six contact lessons (§ 32 (5)) have to take place
You already started your theory in Liikluslab Your package stays valid until its end date and does not expire — you carry on with the same package

Our theory runs in Liikluslab e-learning anyway, at your own pace, plus three web lectures. For someone changing school that detail matters: you do not have to fit yourself into the timetable of a group that is already running.

How the school theory exam works and at which moment we forward your data to Transpordiamet is written out on the page Transpordiamet theory test.

First aid. If you have completed motor vehicle driver first aid training — at another driving school or with another provider — we credit it and you do not pay again. What matters is that it really is driver first aid training: 16 hours, one third of it practical, with a knowledge check (Minister of Social Affairs regulation no 80). An ordinary first aid course does not always meet that requirement — send us the certificate and we will tell you straight whether it fits. The age of the certificate does not matter: neither the Traffic Act nor either regulation sets an expiry date for it (Traffic Act § 100 (3) and (8); driver training regulation § 11 (5); regulation no 80). So we credit a certificate that is years old, and you do not pay again. If the training is not done, it is one of the blocks to be completed; see first aid course.

Initial stage and final stage. The two stages may be completed at different schools: you may have done the initial stage anywhere and do the final-stage training with us. For that you need a valid provisional licence. There is no need to wait: you can do the training as soon as the provisional licence is in your hand. Only one deadline matters — the training has to be completed before you exchange the provisional licence for a full one (regulation no 60 § 17 (3)). The final stage itself lasts 23 months (§ 16 (2)), but that is the window within which to get it done, not a waiting time.

What we cannot promise

The other half of the same list.

The money you have already paid your previous school does not pass through us and we cannot promise anything on its behalf. But do not stop at the wording of the contract alone: in a consumer contract you cannot be signed out of the law. The Law of Obligations Act allows an authorisation agreement to be terminated (§§ 630 and 631), an unreasonably harmful standard term is void (§ 42 (3)), and a contract concluded by means of distance communication can be withdrawn from within 14 days without giving a reason (§ 56 (1)). Start by checking what your own training contract says about termination and refunds; if the school refuses, the place for the dispute is the Consumer Disputes Committee.

What does not come with you: your current instructor, your place in the old school’s driving timetable, and the result of another school’s internal exam. And no driving school — ours included — issues a licence or influences the result of the state test; the school teaches, Transpordiamet examines.

Study card, training card, certificate — which document is which

This is the piece of paper that causes the most confusion, and often a person does not even know what to ask for. In everyday speech it has several names: study card, training card, certificate of completed training.

The regulation distinguishes two different documents here (regulation no 60 § 48). The study card is the one the school must issue you (§ 48 (1)): it carries the dates and topics of your driving lessons, the number of lessons, the instructor’s assessment and the marks about being allowed into traffic and about finishing the driving training (§ 48 (1¹)). What is taught and in which order is set out in the curriculum. The course certificate is issued by the school only once the course is completed — you cannot demand it for training that was left unfinished.

And now the most important sentence on this page: your study card is your document. It is not a favour done to you, nor something to bargain over. You are not asking for it — you are asking for what is already yours.

The study card does not contain the data on theory, first aid and skid training: those go into the traffic register, where the school submits them (§ 50 (2)). So ask in writing, by e-mail, for the study card, and ask in addition for a free-form certificate about the rest — when the course started, how much theory has been completed, and whether first aid, skid training and night driving are done. The school is not obliged to give that last one — you are asking for it, not demanding it. A written request is not rude — it simply has a date you can point to later.

If the old school will not hand the documents over

This is where people get stuck most often, so here there is a concrete action rather than sympathy.

If you have asked for the document and no answer comes, send us what you do have — info@kindelrool.ee. We will help you put together an enquiry to Transpordiamet. It is free.

Note the choice of word: an enquiry. This is not a conflict — it is simply a question worded correctly and sent to the right address.

Who gets this help? People who intend to continue their studies with us. You do not sign a contract for it — which means that if, after our help, you decide to go somewhere else entirely, you go. We know that and we do it anyway: if we held you here over one piece of paper, everything else on this page would be worth nothing.

An honest limit alongside it: without the certificate we cannot take you on as a student. That is why this step comes first in time, and why the whole timeline depends on it.

What changing driving school costs

All five actions involved in the change are free with us:

  1. admission and the training contract;
  2. going through the certificate and study card from your previous school;
  3. assessing what is done and putting together what remains;
  4. the entry in the traffic register and in a study group;
  5. issuing a new study card.

No date, no “until the end of the month” and no asterisk — this is a standing policy, not a campaign. We send you the training contract digitally and you do not need to come in; you can start from the registration form.

That zero covers the paperwork. The training itself costs money: the missing volume goes into your personal offer and the full package price is 1390 € — all prices are in the price list. And you pay the state fees yourself in any case: theory test 30 €, driving test 50 €, first licence 23 € in the e-service or 33 € at an office. That is not the school’s money and no school can make it cheaper for you — see driving test and licence state fees (checked 07.09.2026).

And one more thing that matters in your situation: a money-back guarantee. If after your first driving lesson with us you feel this is not for you, say so before the second — and you get all your money back except 50 € for theory. No reason needed. You do not have to choose wrong a second time.

Your old school’s side is a separate bill. Take out your existing training contract and check whether it contains a fee for issuing training documents if you leave before the course ends. Such a clause may be worded, for example, like this: „Koolitusdokumentide väljastamise koolist enne koolituse lõppemist lahkumise korral on tasu 50,00 €.“ — a fee for issuing training documents when leaving before the training is finished. That is not a state fee and not our money — it is an agreement between you and that school, and we can neither cancel it nor pay it. Check that clause before you go asking for documents, so the bill does not come as a surprise. If the term seems unreasonably harmful to you, the law says such a standard term is void (Law of Obligations Act § 42 (3)) — whether this particular clause is one, a dispute would be decided by the Consumer Disputes Committee, not by us and not by that school.

Mandatory blocks: check them against your own documents

Take the certificate and study card from your old school and go through this list. What is done is done; what is not done goes into the offer.

Blocks required by law — the volumes are in annex 4 of regulation no 60:

  • theory course — minimum 28 lessons;
  • driving lessons — minimum 30 lessons;
  • first aid;
  • skid training — we run it all year round, so changing school in spring does not mean waiting for winter;
  • night driving.

Our school’s own requirements on top:

  • the school theory exam;
  • the school driving exam — without those we do not book you a Transpordiamet test slot.

Those two are not prescribed by the regulation, they are each school’s own decision — and they are probably not written on your old school’s study card.

A valid medical certificate is needed too, and someone changing school usually already has one; where to get it is written on the page driver health certificate.

If you started on an automatic and now want a manual, that is a separate matter rather than part of the change — read how to get rid of code 78.

Three deadlines already running against you

A Transpordiamet theory test result is valid for 12 months from the day you sat it (regulation no 50 § 8 (7)). That deadline does not apply to the school’s own theory exam. This is the most expensive sentence on the whole page. If you have passed the Transpordiamet theory test and then got stuck on the driving part, you are not waiting — you are racing the clock. The driving test has to be done within that time, otherwise the theory has to be taken again.

The medical certificate is valid until its own expiry date. If the pause has turned into a year or more, check the date before you make any other plans.

Four weeks. The initial-stage course has to last at least four weeks (regulation no 60 § 11 (3)). The regulation does not say what happens to that period when you change school; in practice it is counted from the start of studies in the new school’s registered study group. If you are in a hurry, then: we submit an application to Transpordiamet to have the training time completed at your previous school taken into account. We have had such cases. The decision is made by the authority, not by the school, so we cannot promise anything — but we do submit the application, and the practice exists.

Why someone changing school does not have to wait for a new course to start

Here is a mechanism most people do not know, and it explains why changing school takes weeks at a school with calendar-based course start dates.

A school has to submit the study group data to Transpordiamet within three working days of studies starting (regulation no 60 § 50 (1)). The regulation does not lay down whether and how a group already submitted can be added to later — that depends on how the traffic register works in practice.

Our solution does not depend on that at all. We have no fixed course start dates: we do not assemble groups by the calendar, every student starts on a day that suits them, so there is simply no reason to wait.

How long it really takes

The honest answer is not one number but a chain — because one link in it does not depend on us.

  1. The documents are not given → write to us, we help draft the enquiry. Free. How long that takes is not ours to decide.
  2. The certificate is in your hand → training contract and register entry on the same day. Our administrator does it, and it is all digital — you do not need to come in.
  3. After thatwithin one to two weeks you are in the training schedule. The condition is that at least 30% of the theory course is completed — or that the school theory exam is already passed. Driving training starts at exactly that point for all of our students.

Do not confuse two different events: the register entry happens on the day of the contract, whereas forwarding your data to Transpordiamet so a test slot can be booked happens only once the school theory exam is passed. How booking a driving test slot works is written out separately.

Is changing school the right move at all?

Not every problem needs a change of school.

If the problem is one person — you do not dare to ask, mistakes are not explained, at the end of the lesson you do not know what went wrong — then there is a smaller step available: asking your current school for a different instructor. The law does not regulate how instructors are changed, it is a matter of each school’s internal arrangement, so it is worth asking. If that helps, you have solved it more cheaply than by changing school.

But if lesson times cannot be agreed, answers do not come, the study card is not in order, or you simply are not moving forward month after month — then it is not a question of the instructor, and changing driving school makes sense.

If you have failed the driving test several times

If you have failed the state driving test three times, this is no longer a question of changing school but of continued training — a separate course with a minimum volume of two driving lessons (regulation no 60 § 22¹ (3)). It is not optional: after every third failed driving test you can only register for a new attempt once the continued training data has been forwarded to Transpordiamet (§ 22¹ (2)). We sort that out with you in the same conversation, but things have to be called by their right names, otherwise you buy the wrong thing.

Three things you can check about us

Our students’ driving test pass rate is 61.8 %, the Tallinn average for the same period 42.7 % (Transpordiamet public driving school statistics, category B, period last 60 months, data as of 01.09.2026).

Paperwork 0 €, five items, with no date attached.

And you have a specific person to call: Alexey Katuntsev, +372 5544 007. The school answers every day 7:00–21:00, Alexey personally 9:00–20:00.

Two of our students have written themselves about what was left unfinished at their previous school. The reviews are given as they were written — in Estonian; the English in brackets is our explanation, not the writer’s words.

„Alustasin aastaid tagasi teises autokoolis lubade tegemist aga sain sealt väga negatiivse kogemuse, mille tõttu jätsin pooleli.“
— Elys E. (Years ago she started working towards a licence at another driving school, had a very negative experience there and dropped out.)

„Olin autokooli peaaegu juba lõpetanud, kui otsustasin minna Kindlasse Rooli.“
— Isabella P. (She had almost finished driving school when she decided to move to Kindel Rool.)

Send us the certificate of your completed training

One request, with no obligations: send us your old school’s certificate of completed training and the study card — and we will put in writing which blocks you still have left and what they cost. The offer is written and free, so is the contract — and if the offer does not suit you, that is where it ends.

Write to info@kindelrool.ee or call +372 5544 007; all contacts are on the contact page. What exactly happens after you send your enquiry is described on Getting started — what happens next.

Frequently asked questions

Are you allowed to change driving school?

Yes. Changing driving school is not regulated in law: no permission is needed, there is no notice period and the number of times is not limited.

What is the difference between a study card and a training card?

There is none: training card and study card are the same document in everyday speech. A separate document is the course certificate, which the school issues only once the course has been completed. From the study card check the dates and topics of your driving lessons, the number of lessons and the instructor assessment; the data on theory, first aid and skid training sit in the traffic register.

Do the driving lessons I have already taken count?

We credit the lessons taken and make an offer only for the missing volume. The basis is your old school certificate of completed training and the study card, which records the number of lessons and the instructor assessment.

Do I have to do the theory again?

If the theory is completed and you have a certificate for it, then not as a whole — you sit the school theory exam with us in the Liikluslab environment, without coming in. The regulation still requires at least six contact lessons in initial-stage theory (driver training regulation § 32 (5)); with us those run as live web lectures counted as contact learning, teacher and student present at the same time. If the theory was left unfinished, we add online theory to your package.

The driving school will not issue my study card. What can I do?

The study card is your document and the school is obliged to issue it (driver training regulation § 48 (1)). Ask in writing and write to us — we help you draft an enquiry to Transpordiamet, free of charge.

Can I change driving school if I studied elsewhere in Estonia?

Yes. Our driving lessons and exams take place in Tallinn, but where you studied before is not an obstacle — we credit what has been done from the documents of any Estonian driving school.

I had a year-long break from driving school. Can I continue where I left off?

Usually yes, but check the dates first: a passed Transpordiamet theory test is valid for 12 months and the medical certificate has its own expiry date too. The rest we put together into an individual package.

Does changing driving school cost anything?

On our side the paperwork costs nothing — admission, the contract, going through the old documents, the register entry and a new study card are 0 €. You pay for the training itself and for the state fees. What happens to the money you paid your previous school is decided by your contract with that school.

Do I have to wait for a new course to start?

No. We have no fixed course start dates and no groups assembled by the calendar — once the certificate is in hand we draw up the contract and the register entry on the same day, and within one to two weeks you are in the training schedule.

Can I choose my driving instructor?

You are not tied to one instructor here: with Classic you can book lessons with several instructors. The difference with Premium is not a right to switch but planning ahead — your lessons and your instructor are agreed well in advance and put in the calendar.

Does the four-week minimum start again?

The initial-stage course has to last at least four weeks (driver training regulation § 11 (3)). The regulation does not say what happens to that period when you change school; in practice it is counted from the start of studies in the new school registered study group. If you are in a hurry, we submit an application to Transpordiamet to have the training time completed at your previous school taken into account; the decision is made by the authority, not the school, but we have had such cases.

Can I get my money back if I change my mind?

Yes. If you tell us before the second driving lesson, you get the full amount back within 14 days, except 50 € for theory. We do not ask why. The certificate of completed training is free.

Read on

Sources

Traffic Act (Liiklusseadus), Riigi Teataja — version in force: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/122032022004?leiaKehtiv (read 14.09.2026)
Conditions and procedure for the training of motor vehicle drivers and the training curricula, Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications regulation no 60 of 27.06.2011 — §§ 11, 16, 17, 22¹, 32, 48, 50 and annex 4; Riigi Teataja: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/128062011039?leiaKehtiv (read 14.09.2026)
Procedure for examining motor vehicle drivers and granting the right to drive, Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications regulation no 50 of 21.06.2011 — § 8; Riigi Teataja: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/128062011018?leiaKehtiv (read 14.09.2026)
Requirements for motor vehicle driver first aid training, Minister of Social Affairs regulation no 80 of 14.12.2010 — § 3; Riigi Teataja: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/131122010037?leiaKehtiv (read 14.09.2026)
Law of Obligations Act (Võlaõigusseadus), Riigi Teataja — version in force: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/961235?leiaKehtiv
Transpordiamet, driving school statistics: https://www.transpordiamet.ee/autokoolide-statistika (read 14.09.2026)
Transpordiamet, state fees and paying them: https://www.transpordiamet.ee/uudised-ametist-ja-kontakt/dokumendid-ja-riigiloivud/riigiloivud-ja-nende-tasumine (read 14.09.2026)

Do not want to change school, just want more lessons? You do not have to switch for that: driving lessons for students of other schools; your course and exam stay with your school.

Autokool Kindel Rool teaches category B in Tallinn: the whole course in one price, theory in e-learning and a money-back guarantee. You can start on a day that suits you.

Register for the courseFree trial lesson
Scroll to Top
I answer personally, 9 am to 8 pm. Aleksei.