Self-employed driving instructor: authorisation and daily work

A driving instructor in Frauenfeld has worked for six years as an employee of a driving school. She is thinking about carrying on on her own account, with her own car and her own learners. The questions she asks herself are quickly listed: Does her authorisation remain valid? Whom does she have to notify? What changes for further training, for inspections and for the AHV (the Swiss old-age and survivors’ insurance)?

Most of the answers are in the Federal Council’s ordinance on driving instructors (FV). This article goes through them in order, from the authorisation to everyday work. It describes the rules as they are written in the texts; how a canton applies them in an individual case is answered by its road traffic office.

Who needs a driving-instructor authorisation

Under Art. 3 FV, a driving-instructor authorisation is needed by anyone who trains more than one learner per year, or who trains employees in a business where driving instruction is the exclusive or main activity. No authorisation is needed, among others, for teaching people with whom there is a close relationship, such as within the family, and for the special categories G and M.

The ordinance distinguishes three categories of authorisation (Art. 4 FV):

Authorisation	Teaching for	Requirement (Art. 5 FV)
B	Categories B, BE, subcategory B1, special category F	Federal professional certificate “driving instructor”
A	Category A and subcategory A1	Authorisation B and certificate “motorcycle driving instructor”
C	Categories C, D, CE, DE and their subcategories	Authorisation B and certificate “truck driving instructor”

For authorisation B, Art. 5 FV requires, besides the certificate, an unlimited driving licence of category B, two years of driving experience without a violation of traffic rules that endangered road safety, the authorisation for professional passenger transport under Art. 25 VZV (the Swiss ordinance on driving licences) and a past conduct that offers a guarantee of flawless practice of the profession. The training includes a placement: in module B7, prospective instructors train five learners under supervision up to test readiness (Annex 1 FV).

The authorisation from the canton of residence

The authorisation is issued by the canton of residence. It is unlimited, valid throughout Switzerland and entered in the driving licence (Art. 6 FV). For the instructor in Frauenfeld this means: her authorisation does not depend on her previous employment. Moving into self-employment does not require a new authorisation.

How an application looks is described, for example, by the canton of Solothurn. The documents submitted are an application for a new driving licence, a current identity card, a passport photo, proof of the completed modules, confirmation of the passed professional examination and the certificate. Processing there is free of charge; for the new driving licence in credit-card format the canton charges CHF 50, and according to the canton it arrives by post within seven to ten days.

One requirement applies permanently: anyone who works as a driving instructor holds the authorisation for professional passenger transport at all times (Art. 8 FV). If it lapses, the driving-instructor authorisation is withdrawn indefinitely under Art. 27 FV.

Before the first lesson: notifications

The authorisation alone is not enough to get started. Under Art. 9 FV, driving instructors notify the authority of the canton where they mainly work before taking up the professional activity, and likewise before giving it up. The notification goes to the canton of activity. This is not necessarily the canton of residence that issued the authorisation: anyone who lives in Frauenfeld and mainly teaches in Winterthur notifies the canton of Zurich.

Further notifications apply to individual kinds of courses:

• VKU: Anyone who offers the traffic-theory course (VKU) notifies the authority of the canton where they mainly work electronically before starting the course activity (Art. 3 VKUV, from 2027). The course may be led by persons with driving-instructor authorisation A or B (Art. 2 VKUV).
• Motorcycle basic training: With authorisation A, the course is notified in advance in writing, with start date, training ground, course design and the instructors deployed (Art. 3 VPGS). The canton of Valais names a separate email address for such course notifications.

For theory lessons, Art. 11 FV requires a suitable classroom and the necessary teaching and practice material. And the vehicle used for teaching must meet the requirements for driving-school vehicles under Art. 10 FV, with dual pedals and additional rear-view mirrors.

Self-employed, employed or with employees

The FV knows three roles, and they do not apply in the same way:

Role	What the FV says about it
Self-employed	In no employment or subordinate relationship (Art. 2 let. c)
Employed	In addition, at most 55 hours of working time per week (Art. 14 para. 1)
Owner of a driving school with employees	Overall working-time record, supervision of working time and control records (Art. 16 para. 2)

For everyone, the limit of an average of nine and at most eleven hours of practical driving instruction per day applies, with compensation within six months, as does the duty to keep training cards and weekly sheets up to date (Art. 14 and 15 FV). What these control records contain and how long they are kept is described in the article Running a driving school’s administration.

A driving school within the meaning of the FV is a business whose main purpose is giving driving instruction, by one or more persons (Art. 2 let. b FV). By this definition, a business with a single instructor can also be a driving school. Owners of driving schools keep the records under Art. 16 FV for two years at their registered office and provide information to the supervisory authority. If she later hires a second instructor, the duties from the third row of the table are added.

Further training: five days in five years

From the issue of authorisation B, driving instructors undertake further training of at least five days of seven hours each within every five years (Art. 22 FV). The topics range from pedagogy and methodology through legal and technical knowledge to driving technique, hazard theory and energy-efficient driving. Anyone who also holds authorisation A or C undertakes at least two further days per category on category-specific content.

Authorisation	Further training within five years
B	5 days of 7 hours
B and A	7 days of 7 hours
B, A and C	9 days of 7 hours

A confirmation is given only for a course attended in full. If the duty is not met, the canton sets a grace period and issues a warning, and in case of repetition withdraws the authorisation until the further training has been made up (Art. 26 FV). For the self-employed this is mainly a question of the calendar: five course days are five days without lessons. Spread over five years it is one course day per year, bundled into one week in the last year.

AHV, IV and EO as a self-employed person

Whether someone is self-employed for the purposes of social insurance is, according to the AHV/IV information centre, assessed by the compensation office (Ausgleichskasse) in each individual case, according to the economic circumstances and not according to the contract. Leaflet 2.02 names as features, among others, acting under one’s own name, one’s own economic risk, for instance through own investments and the risk of non-payment, free organisation of work and assignments from several sides. For an instructor with her own driving-school car, her own invoices and many learners these are familiar points; the compensation office will still decide.

According to the leaflet (as of 1 January 2026), the following applies to the self-employed:

• The contribution rate for AHV, IV and EO is 10.0 per cent together, and it is paid entirely by oneself.
• For annual incomes below CHF 60,500 a sliding contribution scale applies, which begins at 5.371 per cent; below CHF 10,100 a minimum contribution of CHF 530 applies.
• The compensation offices additionally charge administrative costs of at most five per cent of the contributions.
• The self-employed are not insured against unemployment, are not compulsorily insured against accidents and do not fall under the compulsory occupational pension scheme.

For someone coming from employment, the last point is often the biggest change. How to arrange accident cover and pension provision instead is a personal decision on which a professional can help.

What is left in everyday work

In the end, self-employment as a driving instructor is less a question of the authorisation she already has than a question of organisation: notifications to the canton, a vehicle under Art. 10 FV, control records that are kept up to date, further-training days in the calendar and settling accounts with the compensation office. Added to this are the things every small driving school has: appointments, packages and invoices.

Our idea for driving schools is meant for exactly this starting point. The app that is to come from it will allow a single driving instructor to begin with a calendar, packages and invoices, without setting up anything she does not need, and it will store the data in Switzerland.