Eliminatory Faults: What Instantly Fails You on the DGT Practical Exam
A single eliminatory fault ends your DGT practical exam on the spot — there is no points budget for it. Running a red light or a stop sign, failing to yield, crossing into the oncoming lane, going more than 30 km/h over the limit, or forcing the examiner to brake or steer all count as one eliminatory fault, and one is enough to be marked No Apto. Smaller errors (deficient and minor faults) only fail you when they accumulate.
The three fault tiers: eliminatorias, deficientes, leves
Every Spanish practical driving exam is scored against the DGT's official Criterios de Calificación, and the current version in force is dated March 2026 (Marzo 2026). The examiner sits beside you with a coded scoresheet and classifies every error into one of three tiers. Understanding the tiers is the difference between losing your head over a small wobble and actually failing.
The official definitions are precise:
- Eliminatory fault (falta eliminatoria, E) — any behaviour or rule-breach that creates a danger to the safety of you or other road users, plus, in general, breaking traffic signals classed as a serious or very serious infraction under the Traffic Law. One is an automatic fail.
- Deficient fault (falta deficiente, D) — behaviour that notably obstructs other road users, seriously affects safety distances, or breaks a regulatory signal without rising to eliminatory level.
- Minor fault (falta leve, L) — any other breach of the rules, or clumsy handling of the vehicle's controls, that doesn't reach the deficient or eliminatory threshold.
The key mental model: eliminatory faults are about danger; deficient faults are about obstruction and loss of control; minor faults are about polish. You can pass with several minor faults. You cannot pass with one eliminatory fault.
Eliminatory faults: the instant-fail list
These are the errors that end the exam regardless of how well you have driven for the previous 24 minutes. The official criteria spread them across the scoresheet under specific codes, but the practical ones you must never commit are these.
| Eliminatory fault | What it means on the road |
|---|---|
| Disobeying a priority signal | Failing to yield at a CEDA EL PASO (give way), not making a real stop at a STOP, or ignoring a "priority to oncoming traffic" sign |
| Running a red light | Crossing on red (intervalo rojo); note that running a solid amber when you could have stopped safely is a deficient fault, not eliminatory |
| Failing to yield to who has priority | Not giving way at a junction so that another vehicle, cyclist or pedestrian has to brake or swerve |
| Invading the opposite lane | Crossing into oncoming traffic, especially on a blind bend or where it obstructs vehicles behind or in front |
| Exceeding the limit by more than 30 km/h | Going more than 30 km/h over the generic speed limit for the road |
| Examiner intervention | The examiner having to act directly on the controls — braking or steering — to keep you safe |
| Not yielding to pedestrians | Failing to give way to pedestrians on a marked crossing or in the pedestrian zone you're turning into |
| Dangerous manoeuvres | Any reckless or hazardous move that endangers you or others |
Two of these deserve a closer look because they trip up well-prepared candidates.
The STOP sign. A rolling stop is not a stop. The criteria are explicit: where there is a solid transverse line, you must come to a complete halt at that line. If there's no visibility there, you make a second stop where you can see. Miss the first line and you collect a minor fault; miss the actual mandatory stop and it becomes eliminatory. Foreigners used to "treat it as a give-way if it's clear" lose here constantly — in Spain you stop your wheels, every time.
Examiner intervention. If the instructor or examiner has to take direct action on the controls — touch the dual-control brake or grab the wheel — to alter the course of the test, that is an eliminatory fault by the rules. There is an important nuance the official notes spell out: it is not counted against you if the examiner's intervention was itself incorrect or unnecessary. But you cannot rely on that. Treat any need for the examiner to step in as a fail.
The speed threshold is also worth memorising precisely, because the same act is scored differently depending on the margin. Exceeding the generic limit by more than 30 km/h is eliminatory; by 20 to 30 km/h it's deficient; by 10 to 20 km/h it's minor. Speeding is not a single offence on the DGT exam — it's a sliding scale.
Deficient faults that accumulate to a fail
Deficient faults won't end the exam by themselves, but two of them will. A deficient fault is one that notably obstructs other road users, badly compromises safety distances, or breaks a regulatory signal without being outright dangerous. Typical examples drawn from the criteria include:
- Stopping unnecessarily or braking so abruptly that you obstruct traffic behind you
- Exceeding the generic limit by more than 20 and up to 30 km/h
- Failing to keep a safe frontal-lateral distance when passing parked vehicles, obstacles or cyclists
- Carrying out a manoeuvre — a lane change, a turn, an overtake — that notably hampers other drivers without endangering them
- Failing to take the measures needed to let priority and emergency vehicles pass
The pattern to internalise: a deficient fault is a real mistake that affects other people but stops short of creating danger. Two of those, and you are No Apto.
Minor faults
Minor faults are the cushion. They cover clumsy control of the car — jerky clutch work, a stall, a hesitant gear change, drifting slightly within your lane — and small rule breaches that endanger nobody. Crucially, the same physical error can be graded up if circumstances make it worse, so "it was only minor" is the examiner's call, not yours.
You are allowed to make minor faults and still pass. What you cannot do is let them pile up, because the failure thresholds combine the tiers.
How faults are scored under the 2026 criteria
The March 2026 criteria declare a candidate No Apto (not fit / failed) under any one of the following. This is the complete failure baremo — there is no separate "points total" you need to track beyond these four lines.
| You fail with… | Shorthand |
|---|---|
| One eliminatory fault | E |
| Two deficient faults | D + D |
| One deficient fault plus five minor faults | D + 5L |
| Ten minor faults | 10L |
You'll sometimes see this described as a 10-point system (eliminatory = 10, deficient = 5, minor = 1, fail at 10). That arithmetic is a useful memory aid and it matches the official thresholds exactly — but the actual rule the DGT applies is the four-line table above. Note the asymmetry: one deficient plus five minor faults fails you, but it takes a full ten minor faults on their own. The system punishes seriousness, not just quantity.
The on-road test runs for a minimum of 25 minutes of driving on roads open to general traffic, and the baremo is designed around that. That's plenty of time to give the examiner several chances to see a fault, which is why consistency matters more than a single brilliant manoeuvre.
The observation faults English-speaking expats lose on
Most foreign candidates arrive already able to drive. They don't fail on car control — they fail on observation, because Spanish examiners grade what they can see you doing with your head and eyes, not just where the car ends up. The criteria contain entire "Observación" sub-sections for moving off, lane changes, turns, junctions and overtaking. These are where habits from your home country quietly cost you.
- The blind-spot check. Before moving off and before every lane change, the examiner wants to see a clear shoulder check over the correct side. Mirrors alone are not enough. A lane change "without checking" is graded as an observation fault and, if it endangers someone, escalates.
- Pedestrian checks before moving off and turning. Pulling away without verifying there's no pedestrian, or turning into a side street without scanning the crossing you're entering, is exactly the kind of observation failure the criteria single out. Failing to actually yield to a pedestrian on a marked crossing is eliminatory.
- Transverse observation at junctions. At intersections the examiner expects deliberate left-and-right scanning before you commit. "Looking" briefly while already rolling reads as not observing.
- The exaggerated, visible check. This frustrates experienced drivers, but it's the reality: a subtle glance you genuinely make may not be credited because the examiner can't be sure you made it. Move your head visibly. In the exam, observation you can't be seen doing didn't happen.
The practical takeaway: drive as if narrating your safety checks with your head. Mirror, signal, shoulder-check, then act — every single time, even when the road is empty.
How to prepare
Eliminatory faults are mostly about discipline, not skill: full stops at STOP signs, real yielding, never crossing the centre line, holding well under the +30 km/h margin, and visible observation. The fastest way to build that discipline is to fix the rules cold in theory first — priority, signals and speed limits — so that on the road your attention is free for observation rather than rule-recall.
Practising real exam-style questions on priority, road signs and speed limits until they're automatic is the single most efficient preparation, because every eliminatory fault on the list traces back to a rule you either know instantly or you don't. Pair that with as many supervised practical drives as you can, and have your instructor grade you against this same three-tier system before test day so the examiner's scoresheet holds no surprises.