YDA (Yas Driving Academy): Its Two Sites, Hours and Contact

YDA's main site is its campus at Yas Marina Circuit, on Yas Island (YS1). That is the full campus: classroom teaching, simulator sessions and practical yard training. It is also YDA's only site offering the eye test you need to open a traffic file, so if that is your next step, the circuit is where you are going.

The second site is a branch inside Al Wahda Mall — shop E271-E272, in the mall's second-floor extension. It handles registration, classroom sessions and the simulator. YDA's own wording is unambiguous: no practical training sessions are offered at the Wahda Mall branch. If you book there expecting to drive, you will be driving somewhere else.

That is the whole network. Two sites, not a branch list — which is worth knowing before you spend an evening looking for a YDA nearer to you.

This one catches people constantly, and the names are the reason: Yas Marina Circuit and Yas Mall are two different places on the same island. YDA is at the circuit. We swept Yas Mall's own directory — 358 shops — and there is no YDA listing in it.

Al Wahda Mall is the only mall directory in Abu Dhabi that lists YDA at all. If a map result puts "Yas Driving Academy" inside a shopping centre other than Al Wahda, treat it as a mislabelled pin rather than a branch you can drive to.

The Yas Marina Circuit campus opens Saturday to Thursday 07:00–23:00, and Friday 15:00–23:00. The Al Wahda Mall branch opens Sunday to Thursday 09:00–22:00, and Friday and Saturday 09:00–23:00. Both are YDA's own published weekly hours, from yda.ae, and both are in the table below.

Those hours are worth pointing at, because they are rare. EDC — the other authorised school — publishes no opening hours for any of its sites, so our EDC page has an honest column of blanks where this one has times. Hours still move around public holidays, so a call before a long drive is never wasted.

The phone number for both sites is 600 593 223. The email differs by site: info@yda.ae for the Yas Marina Circuit campus, contactus@yda.ae for the Al Wahda Mall branch. Sending a mall question to the campus mailbox is a slow way to get an answer.

YDA operates under a concession agreement with the Integrated Transport Centre — Abu Dhabi Mobility — published on 21 January 2026. The agreement covers driver training and testing, which is the formal basis for saying that Abu Dhabi has two authorised driving schools: Emirates Driving Company and Yas Driving Academy.

In practical terms that means training and testing at YDA both go through an authorised channel, the same as at EDC. A private instructor can add practice hours alongside that, but cannot substitute for the school stages either school is authorised to deliver.

We looked, and no source publishes YDA's owner or parent company. That is an unusual thing to write on a page like this, so here is the reasoning: YDA is based at Yas Marina Circuit, a venue operated by another company, and it is easy to slide from "is sited there" to "is owned by whoever runs the venue". Those are different claims, and only the first one is evidenced.

So we name no parent company. If you need to know for a corporate or legal reason, ask YDA on 600 593 223 rather than trusting a directory entry that inferred it.

Both are authorised, both take you to a full Abu Dhabi licence, and the honest answer is that the decision is usually made by geography and schedule rather than by anything about the schools. EDC is the larger and longer-established: a Mussafah headquarters campus, a campus in Al Ain, five more training branches across Al Dhafra and Dalma Island, and counters in four malls. YDA is two sites, both in the city.

One thing does differ concretely. Both schools keep a counter in the same second-floor extension of Al Wahda Mall — EDC's, and YDA's at shop E271-E272 — and neither of them teaches practical driving there. Registering at a mall counter is convenient; the driving happens at a campus either way, so factor in the trip to Mussafah or to Yas Marina Circuit before you commit.

For price, waiting times and the private-instructor option alongside either school, our driving-schools comparison guide sets them side by side, and our EDC page carries EDC's branch addresses and contact details.

Whichever school you pick will happily enrol you on the route you select — it does not check that the route is the right one for you. Whether you are a complete beginner, hold a licence from a direct-exchange country, or qualify for Golden Chance changes which stages you owe at all, sometimes by thousands of dirhams.

If you are not certain, take the free licence quiz on this site before you book. Many learners then hire a private instructor for extra practice alongside the mandatory school training, which is what the instructor directory here is for.