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My experience getting a driving license for my wife in UAE

13th February 2025, 12:23 by Ananth Iyer

There are 2 locations one can open the DL file and get classes. (a) Nassiriya which is in downtown and (b) Wasit area / Muroor (roughly translates to Traffic RTO)

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Full Circle Complete!

A family is not complete without 2 kids, err In India maybe - Here in UAE A family is not complete without 2 Driving Licenses. Both Miya/Biwi have to have the DL for better prospects (if both are working), or ease of taking kids around soccer/extra classes if one is a home maker.

Sharing my wife's Sharjah Driving License story - All 61 days of it! We reside in Sharjah and since we have a Sharjah Visa wife could open her DL file only in Sharjah. In the Emirate of Sharjah, SDI - Sharjah Driving Institute is the sole licensing authority (with a small clarification - read on) unlike choice of 4-5 big players in neighboring Dubai.

There are 2 locations one can open the DL file and get classes. (a) Nassiriya which is in downtown and (b) Wasit area / Muroor (roughly translates to Traffic RTO). Nassiriya houses about 20-25 privately owned driving schools (Yellow cars seen around) who are sort of proxies licensed under SDI. The file controller is SDI under the police dept, but the minor players compete against themselves for business. Cars are owned by the instructors themselves but they have to operate under the gamut of the private school owner - who in turn is controlled by the SDI. Not relevant info - but you can draw a parallel to a typical Indian Driving School under the RTO but the car is owned and maintained by the ustaad.

Since we live about 1km away from Nassiriya, we opened the file there. We opened the file on 9Dec24, got the eye test done (Mobile phone with UAE Pass APP + your Emirates ID must) and you can pay by card. Once you open the file, you can walk into any of the 20odd school rooms inside the complex and it is some amount of old school paper work and cash payments. It felt a world different from my Dubai experience.

9 Dec2024

100AED - Eye test
240AED - File opening
682AED - Theory classes + test

The theory classes had a choice of Online learning, I dissuaded wifey from reading anything online and it was helpful. She attended the in-person theory class on 15Dec24 and at the end of the 3 hour session cleared it with 100% marks.

Temporary DL

Theory Class passed

Temp DL was printed with your UAE traffic file number - BUT remember, you cannot drive a car with the temp DL here!

15Dec2024

530Aed - Parking test charges

Wifey started yard parking classes on 17th Dec, 1 hour a day, and by 28th dec the Parking test was scheduled. Note - All official tests - Parking/ Internal & Final are conducted in Wasit/Muroor SDI Head quarters. This place is pretty far from home, about 6 kms and I had to drop wifey off and was waltzing around the place. Now - SDI H.O I can say is equal to any Dubai driving school and I could instantly connect with that place. Large campus, all cars well maintained, uniformed staff, pretty much the works!

Wifey failed in her 1st attempt at parking - I wasnt surprised at all, She was genuinely upset because it is money down the drain, and I asked her would she like to be trained by this place because it felt nicer. It was a short eye contact, and we just walked into the admin building and asked us to transfer the file from Nasriya to here.

Dunk!!

The process is to go to your existing Driving school, get an NOC (basically no fees is to be outstanding) and the old school gave it away, no questions asked, and we opened the file in this place the same evening.

NOC from Old School