China Cracks Down on Driving School Price-Fixing Monopolies

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has published a series of monopoly cases in the driving training industry, exposing coordinated price-fixing schemes orchestrated by industry associations across more than 10 provinces. The enforcement action, covering 12 cases since 2022, reveals how local driving schools colluded to inflate training fees, with county-level markets in Southwest and Northwest China identified as the highest-risk regions, according to Xinhua News.

Widespread Collusion Behind Rising Fees

The cases involve more than 100 local driving schools, with individual cases implicating between 4 and 17 entities each. Over 30 percent of the cases were led by industry associations, which organized meetings, signed agreements, and established alliances to unify prices, divide territories, and allocate profits, as reported by Xinhua.

In Bazhong, Sichuan Province, driving training fees surged from 1,500-2,500 yuan to 4,000 yuan after the local Road Transport Association organized 12 driving schools to formulate “price self-discipline measures” on three separate occasions. The association was fined 500,000 yuan, while the 12 schools received combined fines exceeding 1.4 million yuan.

Similar patterns emerged across the country. In Xiushan, Chongqing, the Road Transport Association led nine driving schools in coordinated price increases and proportional revenue distribution. In Tongliang, seven schools formed an alliance management committee, using deposits and fund coordination to enforce minimum fee standards for driving test subjects 2 and 3. Meanwhile, in Jiangjin, six motorcycle training institutions jointly established a “general school” implementing unified pricing, fees, teaching, exams, and expenses, raising motorcycle training fees from over 200 yuan to 900 yuan before enforcement brought prices down significantly, as CCTV News detailed.

Association Role Under Scrutiny

The prominent role of industry associations in orchestrating these schemes has drawn particular criticism. According to Workers’ Daily, these associations, which are supposed to promote industry self-regulation, instead became the architects of anti-competitive behavior, betraying their intended function.

“The superposition of driving training monopoly and industry chaos creates multi-dimensional harm,” said Wang Xianlin, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “For consumers, it raises the cost of learning to drive and makes rights protection difficult; for the industry, it destroys the fair competition ecosystem, squeezing the survival space of compliant, low-profit legitimate driving schools—‘bad money drives out good’; for the market, driving training is the front end of automobile consumption, and market disorder suppresses related consumption in lower-tier markets.”

Hidden Tactics and Enforcement Challenges

Regulators note that monopoly behavior has become increasingly concealed. WeChat group discussions and verbal agreements are replacing written contracts, making evidence collection significantly more difficult, as Guangming Online observed in its commentary.

The enforcement effort aligns with China’s broader economic strategy. The 2026 Government Work Report emphasizes stimulating consumption vitality in lower-tier markets, which carry 70 percent of China’s population and 60 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods. Driving training sits at the front end of the automobile consumption chain, and market disorder in this sector directly suppresses car purchase and maintenance spending in these regions.

Expert Views on Enforcement Impact

Ding Maozhong, a professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said the investigation and handling of these cases has effectively broken the “price alliance” in county-level driving training markets. “This not only protects consumer rights but also forces the industry to improve service quality and develop in a standardized and healthy manner,” he said, as China Market Regulation News reported.

Wu Weiqiang, a professor at Zhejiang University of Technology, emphasized that the industry must adapt to changing rules. “The driving training industry needs to break out of the vicious price competition cycle, rely on intelligent equipment to optimize curriculum systems, innovate training models, and win consumer trust with transparent pricing and quality services to activate the consumption potential of lower-tier markets.”

What’s Next

SAMR has signaled continued vigilance. In an official statement, the regulator said market regulation departments will “continue to maintain a high-pressure anti-monopoly posture, regularly rectify monopoly and various violations in the driving training sector, improve cross-departmental collaborative supervision mechanisms, protect people’s livelihood with rigid law enforcement, and activate lower-tier market consumption potential through market regulation.”

With the 2026 New Energy Vehicle Going to the Countryside campaign officially launched in June and multiple ministries issuing supportive policies for the automobile industry, the crackdown on driving training monopolies is widely seen as a key component of efforts to unlock consumption potential in China’s vast lower-tier markets. As China Economic Net noted, tackling these practices is essential to restoring consumer confidence and ensuring the integrity of the automobile consumption chain.