Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made an assessment of the prevalence of UK expats in Spain who are no longer able to drive legally in that country with a UK license and who were not able to register their intention to swap to a Spanish license prior to the deadline of the 1 January 2021 as a result of not yet being a resident in Spain; and whether he has had discussions with his Spanish counterpart on that matter.

The lack of a driving licence exchange agreement with Spain primarily affects three groups:

• UK licence holders who are long-term residents in Spain and did not exchange or register their intent to exchange, as advised, before the end of the transition period (31 December 2020).
• UK licence holders who did register their intent to exchange before the end of the transition period, but did not complete the exchange process by 30 April.
• UK licence holders who have arrived as residents in Spain after 31 December 2020 and have been resident Spain for longer than 6 months.

The Department for Transport does not hold information on the number of people affected in each group.

The UK and Spain have rapidly accelerated talks on driving licence exchange since the Secretary of State for Transport discussed the issue with Spanish ministers on 29 April 2022.