The Australian Capital Territory Road Rules Knowledge Test asks 35 questions and requires 31 correct, according to the official Safe Plates Testing knowledge trainer page. That leaves four wrong answers across the whole test, a tighter bar than most learners expect from the country's smallest mainland jurisdiction.
People search it as ACT RRKT, road rules knowledge test ACT, and ACT driver knowledge test. Access Canberra requires a Pre-Learner Licence Course and a pass on the ACT Road Rules test before you apply, at a minimum age of 15 years and 9 months. You then visit a Service Centre with identity and residency documents, sit an eyesight test, and pay the learner licence fee. The knowledge test result is valid for 2 years. The learner licence is valid for 5 years.
Which four answers can you afford to get wrong?
31 of 35 is roughly 89 per cent. Four wrong answers is a real margin, but it is small enough that a single soft topic will use it up. If give way diagrams cost you two answers and speed zones cost you two more, you have failed a test where you knew almost everything else. Scoring 30 is a fail, not a near miss. The pass mark tool keeps that threshold in view while you practise.
The overall 31 of 35 bar is not the only rule. The same Safe Plates Testing page states that all questions must be answered correctly for Alcohol and Drugs, Intersections, Seat Belts and Vulnerable Road Users. Two questions may be wrong in Car General, and two in Driving General, and the total wrong answers still cannot exceed four. The same page sets the mix at 8 Car General, 5 Alcohol and Drugs, 5 Intersections, 2 Seat Belts, 10 Driving General and 5 Vulnerable Road Users.
Add those zero-tolerance groups and you get 17 questions that must all be correct. The remaining 18 questions, Car General and Driving General, are the only places the four-answer margin can be spent, and even there each group allows only two misses. A sitting of 33 correct still fails if one of the two misses is an alcohol question. A sitting of 31 correct still passes if the four misses are two in Car General and two in Driving General. Practising to a total of 31 without watching those groups is practising the wrong arithmetic.
How many wrong answers does each system allow?
Among whole-test pass marks that this site has checked, the Australian Capital Territory sits second only to Queensland. The comparison people usually make is with New South Wales next door, and it is a misleading one in both directions: the New South Wales general knowledge section is far more forgiving, and its road safety section, at 29 of 30, is far less. Ranked by how many wrong answers each system allows, using each agency's published figures, the eight systems sit as follows.
South Australia is the strictest on a named group of questions. In the Service SA theory test, part one is 8 give way questions and all 8 must be correct, so zero wrong answers are allowed. Part two is 42 questions with 32 correct to pass, so ten wrong are allowed on that part. Transport for NSW splits its 45 questions into two sections: 15 general knowledge with 12 correct, so three wrong allowed, which is 80 per cent, and 30 road safety with 29 correct, so one wrong allowed, which is about 97 per cent.
Queensland's PrepL assessment asks 30 questions and requires 27 correct, which is 90 per cent, so three wrong allowed. The Australian Capital Territory asks 35 and requires 31, roughly 89 per cent, so four wrong allowed, with the category rules on top. Western Australia asks 30 and requires 24, which is 80 per cent, so six wrong allowed. VicRoads sets 32 questions at 78 per cent, so seven wrong allowed. On a whole-test count, Victoria is the most forgiving of the six systems with a published mark.
Tasmania and the Northern Territory complete the eight. The Tasmanian knowledge test is free and booked through Service Tasmania, but its question count and pass mark are not verified here. DriveSafe NT runs the Northern Territory learner stage: its knowledge test asks 30 questions and needs 26 correct. The Northern Territory Government Get your driver licence page and fee page state those figures and the $20 test fee. The eight-system comparison puts pass marks next to fees and hours.
Does the New South Wales border set the ACT test?
The Australian Capital Territory sits inside New South Wales geographically, and most learners here will drive across the border regularly. Queanbeyan is a few kilometres from many Canberra suburbs. Australian road rules are substantially harmonised, so the great majority of what you learn applies on both sides of the border, but the jurisdictions are administered separately and their rules do differ in places. The practical implication is to take your rules from the Australian Capital Territory's own material for the test, and to stay aware that specific rules, penalties and licence conditions are set by the territory rather than inherited from its neighbour.
Access Canberra's learner licence page states that when driving interstate you follow that state or territory's learner driver rules. That is the official instruction for a Belconnen or Tuggeranong learner heading into New South Wales: the test you sit is a territory test, and L plate conditions change at the border. The Australian Capital Territory handbook is Crown copyright, so the questions on this site for this jurisdiction are original and cite the road rule behind each answer. We reproduce no official test wording and no handbook text.
City Services sets the learner conditions that apply on territory roads. You display L plates at the front and rear, you always carry a supervising driver who holds a full Australian licence in the front passenger seat, you have no alcohol or drugs in your system, you do not use a mobile device including hands-free, you do not tow a trailer greater than 750 kilograms, and you sit on a 4 demerit point limit over 3 years. Learner drivers have no passenger restrictions. Those conditions are territory law, not a New South Wales import.
The Pre-Learner Licence Course is a territory step New South Wales does not run in this form. City Services describes a 10-hour program in four modules. Most high school and college students complete it at school. Approved providers also deliver it, some listed as charging a fee and some as no fee, including Belconnen Youth Centre and Woden Community Service. Finishing the course requires all modules, a 35 question course assessment, and the Road Rules Knowledge Test, which are two separate 35 question sittings.
Worked example: when 33 correct is still a fail
If you are in Belconnen at 15 years and 10 months, with a Pre-Learner Licence Course booked at a no-fee provider listed on the City Services page, you might have three weeks before the Road Rules Knowledge Test sitting that comes with it. Read the ACT Road Rules Handbook first, then work four full 35 question practice sets and write every miss against the six official groups. The scores below are an illustration of how that tracking works, not results from a real learner and not a published pass rate. They show how the four-answer margin and the zero-tolerance groups interact.
Set one comes back at 29 correct, a fail on the 31 mark before any category rule is applied. The six misses are 2 Intersections, 1 Alcohol and Drugs, 2 Driving General and 1 Car General. Intersections and Alcohol and Drugs are both zero-tolerance groups, so that sitting would have failed twice: on the total, and on mandatory knowledge. Set two comes back at 32 correct. The three misses are 2 Driving General and 1 Car General. That sitting would pass both rules. You are not ready yet, because one sitting is not a pattern.
Set three comes back at 33 correct, which feels close. The two misses are 1 Intersections and 1 Alcohol and Drugs. Under the overall 31 of 35 rule you have two answers to spare. Under the official category rule you have failed, because both misses sit in groups that allow zero wrong answers. Intersections are costing you the test even when your total looks like a pass. The next few evenings go on give way diagrams, T-intersections, roundabouts and alcohol questions, using the handbook first and practice questions only to check what is still soft.
Set four comes back at 31 correct. The four misses are 2 Car General and 2 Driving General. Seat Belts, Vulnerable Road Users, Intersections and Alcohol and Drugs are all clean. That sitting would pass: it uses the entire four-answer margin only where the official page allows it. Keep drilling until two more full sets land at 33 or better with zero misses in the mandatory groups. The 33 that still failed is the score that showed you which topic to fix.
What should you practise to reach 31 correct?
Practise in full 35 question sets and treat 30 as a fail, because it is one. Scoring in the high twenties consistently means you are one bad topic away from a failed sitting, not close to a pass. After each set, sort your wrong answers by topic rather than counting them. Four misses spread across four unrelated topics is a different problem from four misses in give way diagrams. The first is thin coverage. The second is a specific gap you can close in an evening. Then sort again against the six official groups.
Read the official material before you drill questions. Access Canberra and City Services both point you to the ACT Road Rules Handbook for that reading. Practice questions are good at showing you what you do not know. They are a poor way to learn a rule for the first time. Work through the ACT practice questions after the handbook, not instead of it. A four-answer margin punishes guessing more than a six-answer or seven-answer test does, because two guessed give way answers can be the entire sitting.
Passing the knowledge test is the start of supervised driving, not the end of the licensing process. City Services and Access Canberra require 100 supervised hours including 10 at night if your learner licence was issued before you turned 25, or 50 hours including 5 at night if you were 25 or older at issue. You must hold the learner licence for 12 months, or 6 months from age 25 at issue, and you must be at least 17 to get your Ps. The logbook planner turns those totals into a schedule.
What does Access Canberra publish, and what is left blank?
Access Canberra's driver licence fees page lists fees correct as at 1 July 2026. Issue of a learner driver licence is $65.50. A provisional licence is $165.90. A practical driving assessment booking fee is $133.90. That page does not list a separate government knowledge test sitting fee. The Road Rules Knowledge Test is taken through the Pre-Learner Licence Course, which schools may offer free to Year 10 students and which approved providers deliver for a fee or at no fee. This site does not publish a knowledge test sitting fee, because the official fee schedule does not carry one.
The territory does not publish practical assessment outcomes the way New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia do, so we carry no pass rate for it. New South Wales sits at about 56 per cent statewide on the Transport for NSW statistics portal. Queensland's Q-SAFE test passes about 61 per cent on open data. Western Australia sits at 42.3 per cent across 244,557 assessments, freedom of information reference 2026-0140. Victoria sits at 72.2 per cent across 492,504 tests from January 2024 to April 2026, released under freedom of information. None of those is an Australian Capital Territory number.
As with Tasmania and the Northern Territory, those gaps are stated rather than filled with a plausible number. Every figure on this site names where it came from and when it was checked, and a figure that cannot do that does not go up. Hours, age, result validity and the $65.50 learner licence fee are now on this page because official Access Canberra and City Services pages state them. A knowledge test sitting fee and a practical pass rate are still not.
Common questions
- Question
- how many questions is the ACT knowledge test
- The Road Rules Knowledge Test asks 35 questions, drawn from a pool of 377 training questions according to the official Safe Plates Testing knowledge trainer page. Do not confuse it with the separate 35 question course assessment that City Services lists inside the Pre-Learner Licence Course. Those are two sittings, not one.
- Question
- what is the pass mark for the ACT RRKT
- You need 31 correct out of 35, roughly 89 per cent, so at most four wrong. The overall mark is not the whole rule, though. The official Safe Plates Testing page allows zero wrong answers in Alcohol and Drugs, Intersections, Seat Belts and Vulnerable Road Users, and two each in Car General and Driving General, all within the four-answer total. A score of 30 is a fail.
- Question
- do I need all alcohol and intersection questions correct in the ACT test
- Yes. The official Safe Plates Testing knowledge trainer page requires every answer to be correct in Alcohol and Drugs, Intersections, Seat Belts and Vulnerable Road Users. Those groups hold 5 alcohol and drugs questions, 5 intersection questions, 2 seat belt questions and 5 vulnerable road user questions. A single miss in any of them fails the sitting even if your total is above 31.
- Question
- how old do you have to be to get your Ls in Canberra
- You must be at least 15 years and 9 months old. Access Canberra and City Services both state that age on their learner licence pages. Completing the Pre-Learner Licence Course and passing the Road Rules Knowledge Test are also required before Access Canberra will issue the learner licence. You must then be at least 17, and have held the learner licence for the required period, before you can get your Ps.
- Question
- is the ACT knowledge test the same as NSW
- No. New South Wales asks 45 questions in two sections, 12 of 15 on general knowledge and 29 of 30 on road safety, and Transport for NSW publishes that car bank openly. The Australian Capital Territory asks 35 questions with 31 correct to pass, plus the zero-tolerance groups set on the Safe Plates Testing page. Access Canberra also states that when you drive interstate you follow that jurisdiction's learner rules, so the test and the border conditions are separate problems.
- Question
- how much is the ACT knowledge test
- Access Canberra's driver licence fees page, correct as at 1 July 2026, does not list a separate government knowledge test sitting fee. It does list $65.50 to issue a learner driver licence. The Road Rules Knowledge Test is sat through the Pre-Learner Licence Course. Access Canberra says some ACT schools offer that course free to Year 10 students. This site does not invent a sitting fee the official schedule does not print.
- Question
- how many hours do you need for your Ps in the ACT
- It depends on your age when the learner licence was issued. Under 25 at issue, City Services and Access Canberra set 100 supervised hours, 10 of them at night. At 25 or older, the figure drops to 50 hours with 5 at night. The learner hold is 12 months, or 6 months from age 25 at issue, and you must be at least 17 for your Ps. An ACT accredited instructor credits 3 hours for each hour, up to 10 hours of that credit.
Sources
- ACT Government, Safe Plates Testing knowledge trainer (Road Rules Knowledge Test format)Checked
- Access Canberra, Get your learner driver licenceChecked
- City Services, Learner and provisional driver safetyChecked
- Access Canberra, Driver licence feesChecked
- Access Canberra, Get your provisional driver licenceChecked