Failed the Trial? The Retrial Process, the Wait, and What It Costs

Failing the trial is common and it is not the end of your application. You do not start again from the form, you do not resit the written exam, and you do not lose the money you have already paid.

What you do lose is time and a retrial fee. So the point of this page is to get you through the retrial on the next attempt rather than the one after that.

The written half stays passed. Yatayat Likhit is for people still facing that one — the full DOTM bank, free and offline.

The rules, honestly

This is one of the areas where sources genuinely disagree, so here is what is consistently reported and what is not.

Consistent across sources:

• You get more than one attempt, but a limited number — commonly three in total, including the original.
• There is a waiting period before you can retry — commonly about 10 days, described elsewhere as at least a week.
• Each retrial has a fee — commonly reported at Rs 500.
• Your likhit pass carries over. You are retaking the trial, not the exam.
• If you use up every attempt, you start the whole process again, including the written exam and a new application fee.

Not consistent: the window those attempts sit in. Some sources say 90 days from the first failed trial; others say 18 months from the initial application. A three-month wait after exhausting all attempts is also reported.

Confirm the numbers at your own office. Since Shrawan 2083 licence administration is provincial, and this is exactly the kind of rule that varies. Your office's contact details.

What to do first, before anything else

Find out precisely why you failed. Not "I failed the 8" — which station, and which mistake.

Under the point system you either lost more than 30 points across the trial, or you hit one of the outright-fail rules. Those are two completely different problems:

• Ran out of points — lots of small errors. Fixable with general practice.
• Outright fail — one specific thing: a second line touch in the figure-8, a foot down on the plank, stalling twice, rolling back on the slope. Fixable only by drilling that one station.

Ask the examiner or the counter which it was. People who skip this step book a retrial, repeat the identical mistake, and burn an attempt. Every station and what ends the test.

The retrial process

1. Wait out the minimum period. Commonly about 10 days.
2. Fill the retrial form. Your office or your province portal will tell you which route applies; the licence services sit at /edl on the province portals.
3. Pay the retrial fee. Commonly Rs 500. Keep the receipt.
4. Get your new date. Published the same way as the first one — as a candidate name list on your office's website, per class and per date. How to find it.
5. Turn up with the same documents as the first time: original citizenship, your reference, your helmet for a bike trial. The full checklist.

Use the wait properly

Ten days is enough to fix almost any single station, and it is the whole reason the waiting period is survivable.

Twenty minutes a day beats one long session the day before. A full two-week practice plan.

Do not do these

• Do not book the retrial immediately because you are annoyed. Fix the thing first — attempts are finite.
• Do not borrow an unfamiliar vehicle. Clutch bite and weight differ more than people expect, and trial day is the worst time to discover that.
• Do not practise on a public road. You need a flat empty space, not traffic.
• Do not pay anyone who offers to arrange a pass. No school or agent controls the examiner, and this is a serious offence rather than a shortcut.
• Do not assume the rules are the same as your friend's. They may have sat theirs in a different province.

If you run out of attempts

You reapply from the beginning: a new application on your province portal, the fee again, and the written exam again. A waiting period before you can do so is reported, commonly three months.

That is a real cost, and it is why the first retrial is the one that matters. Two weeks of car park practice is cheaper than restarting.

Keep the written half banked

One piece of good news in all of this: your likhit pass does not expire because you failed the trial. You are not re-learning the question bank.

If you are helping someone who has not got that far — or if you do end up restarting — the written exam is the part you can guarantee, because DOTM publishes the questions. I built Yatayat Likhit for exactly that: all 500 with the reason next to each answer, tracking of what you keep missing, timed mocks in the real format, the Nepali road signs, trial checklists and an Ishihara-style colour-vision test. Free, offline, Nepali and English.

Get it: Yatayat Likhit — free on iPhone and Android. The link opens your own app store.

The failures worth naming

Across both vehicle types, six things account for most retrials. If yours is on this list, the fix is known.

1. Foot down in the figure-8. Nearly always too fast, or looking at the front wheel instead of the exit.
2. Second line touch in the 8. The first costs points; the second ends it. Ride it wider and slower than feels necessary.
3. Rolling back on the car slope. Handbrake released before the clutch bit.
4. Stalling twice. Clutch control, and nothing else.
5. No indicator on the U-turn. Ten points, gone, for a habit.
6. Skipping the safety check. Mirrors, tyres, brakes before moving off.

Notice how many are habits rather than skills. Four of the six cost nothing to fix and need no vehicle time at all beyond remembering them.

Keep your paperwork together

You will need the same documents again, so do not let them scatter between attempts:

• Original citizenship certificate
• Your application reference number
• The retrial fee receipt
• Your likhit pass confirmation
• Helmet, for a bike trial

Photograph all of it now and keep the images where you can reach them without the originals. It costs two minutes and saves an argument at the counter.

What it costs you overall

Worth seeing in one place, because the fee is the smaller half.

The last row is the one to plan against. Everything before it is recoverable in a couple of weeks; that one costs months.

Which is the argument for spending the waiting period on the ground rather than hoping. Twenty minutes a day is a smaller commitment than any row in that table.

Questions people ask

How many times can I retake the driving trial in Nepal?

Commonly reported as three attempts in total, including your first. The window is quoted as either 90 days or 18 months depending on the source, so confirm at your own office.

How long do I have to wait to give a retrial?

Commonly about 10 days, described elsewhere as at least a week. Your office confirms the exact date.

How much does a retrial cost in Nepal?

Commonly reported at Rs 500 per attempt. Fees are provincial now, so check yours.

Do I have to retake the likhit if I fail the trial?

No. Your written exam pass carries over. You are retaking the practical only — unless you exhaust every trial attempt, in which case the process restarts from the beginning.

What happens if I fail the trial three times?

You reapply from scratch, including the written exam and a new application fee. A waiting period before reapplying is reported, commonly three months.

Why did I fail when I only made small mistakes?

Either the small mistakes added up past 30 points, or one of them was an outright-fail rule rather than a deduction. Ask which — they need different fixes.

Keep reading

• The 70-point system — what each mistake costs, and what ends the test.
• Practising at home — the drills for the wait.
• The trial, station by station — technique for each one.
• Finding your new date — published as a name list.
• If you pass instead — what happens next.