Donegal motorists are much more likely to fail their NCT, new figures reveal

Donegal motorists are much more likely to fail their NCT – and that’s official.

In terms of pass rate, two of the county's four test centres have placed in the bottom 10 out of 50 centres across the country for the first six months of 2025, while three recorded pass rates significantly below the national average during the period.

The latest numbers from the National Car Testing Service show that Carndonagh had the ninth-lowest pass rate nationally on 44.8 per cent from January 1 to June 30, 2025, while Letterkenny was even worse on just 43.7 per cent, the sixth-lowest rate in the country.

Donegal Town recorded a pass rate of 47.3 per cent, which was also well below the national average of 49.5 per cent.

Derrybeg, with a pass rate of 51.5 per cent so far this year, is the only Donegal NCT centre where you’re more likely to pass than fail – but it’s still a long way behind first place, Deansgrange in Dublin, with a 58.1 per cent success rate.

A total of 2,340 cars in Donegal recorded ‘Fail Dangerous’ results through the first six months of 2025, with more than half of these being at the Letterkenny NCT centre [1,208].

Donegal Town had 557 dangerous fails, while Carndonagh recorded 327, with Derrybeg on 248. A dangerous fail is classed as where “the vehicle has failed the test because of a dangerous defect that poses a direct or immediate risk to road safety”.

More than 30,000 cars were tested in Donegal from January to the end of June 2025; that’s 500 more tests than during the first six months of last year.

Letterkenny had by far the most inspections with 13,603, followed by Donegal Town [7,688], Carndonagh [5,393] and Derrybeg [3,489].

When it comes to retests, your chances of success are greatly increased, with Derrybeg on 92.6 per cent, followed by Carndonagh [87.13 per cent], Donegal Town [87.12 per cent] and Letterkenny [86.9 per cent].

A spokesperson for Applus, the company that runs NCT testing here, said a number of different factors contribute to lower pass rates.

Vehicle age: Four-year-old vehicles have pass rates above 80 per cent, which drop to around 40 per cent for vehicles 10 years or older.

Mileage: Higher-mileage vehicles are more likely to fail, particularly affecting rural locations.

Vehicle usage and environment: Different usage patterns and environments, including rural, coastal and urban, impact vehicle condition and pass rates.

Road conditions: Road conditions in some areas lead to increased failures in components such as brakes and suspension.

Pre-test servicing: Around one-third of customers do not service their cars before testing, and these vehicles fail 11 per cent more often than serviced vehicles.

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They said the average wait time for a test at the Carndonagh NCT centre is currently 13 days.

Meanwhile, the price of a full NCT test has increased from €55 to €60 in 2025, while the retest fee has jumped from €28 to €40 – which means that if you fail your initial test you’ll have to fork out at least €100 in inspection fees alone!

The price hikes are part of a series of “fee adjustments” for RSA services that have taken effect from January 1.

The Road Safety Authority says the rises are “part of business planning for the coming year, including planned €18m expenditure on public interest activities and government priorities.”