Virginia Driver's License Requirements for a New Driver Under 18

Virginia’s new driver’s license requirements are not satisfied by a road test alone. Va. Code § 46.2-334 sets the conditions for licensing anyone under 18: the applicant must be at least 16 years and three months old, must have completed an approved driver education course, must be a Virginia resident, and must have a parent or guardian sign the application. Section 46.2-335 B adds 45 hours of certified supervised driving.

The license that results is a provisional one, and it carries restrictions until the driver’s eighteenth birthday.

Step	Earliest age	Source
Learner’s permit	over 15 years and 6 months	§ 46.2-335 A
Unaccompanied driving on a permit plus driver education documentation	16 years and 3 months	§ 46.2-335 H
Provisional driver’s license	16 years and 3 months	§ 46.2-334 A
Restrictions expire	18th birthday	§ 46.2-334.01 D

The age floor

16 years and three months. Section 46.2-334 A opens: “Minors at least 16 years and three months old may be issued driver’s licenses under the following conditions.” That is three months after the sixteenth birthday, not on it.

The learner’s permit comes earlier — over 15 years and six months under § 46.2-335 A — so there is a minimum gap of nine months between the two ages, before any question of practice hours.

Virginia’s new driver license requirements, item by item

Section 46.2-334 A requires satisfactory evidence that the minor:

1. is a resident of the Commonwealth, certified in writing by the applicant and countersigned by a parent or guardian;
2. has successfully completed a driver education course approved by the State Department of Education or, where the course came from a licensed driver training school, by DMV; and
3. is mentally, physically and otherwise qualified to drive safely.

The application must be signed by a parent, or by the guardian having custody. Where a minor has neither, the application must be signed by the judge of the juvenile and domestic relations district court for the city or county where he lives. A married or emancipated minor may substitute evidence of the marriage or the emancipation order.

Two further conditions catch people out. The minor must state whether he has been convicted of an offense triable in a juvenile and domestic relations district court or found to be a child in need of supervision; where he has, DMV may not issue a license without the written approval of the relevant judge. And a minor of compulsory school age must supply evidence of compliance with the school attendance law, provided in writing by a parent — or a high school diploma, its equivalent, or a certificate of completion of a prescribed course of study.

The 45 hours

Section 46.2-335 B is the requirement most families plan around:

No driver’s license shall be issued to any such person who is less than 18 years old unless, while holding a learner’s permit, he has driven a motor vehicle for at least 45 hours, at least 15 of which were after sunset, as certified by his parent, foster parent, or legal guardian.

The certification goes on a DMV form, is treated as part of the license application, and carries an express statement that anyone certifying a false statement may be prosecuted. The form also records the certifying adult’s driver’s license or DMV identification card number.

How those hours are accumulated — who may sit beside the learner, the one-passenger limit, the midnight to 4:00 a.m. ban — is governed by the learner’s permit rules. Alongside the hours, Virginia DMV publishes a nine-month holding period for an under-18 driver: the permit has to have been in hand that long before the license is issued. The permit itself costs $3, which is not the expensive part of this process.

A driver who reaches 18 without ever having been licensed leaves this section behind and falls under § 46.2-324.1 instead: either an approved course of driver instruction, or a learner’s permit held for at least 60 days before the first behind-the-wheel examination. From 1 January 2027 an applicant aged 18 to 20 will need both the course and a 90-day permit (2026 Acts cc. 754, 755).

Driving unaccompanied before the license arrives

A learner’s permit, accompanied by documentation that the driver is at least 16 years and three months old and has completed an approved driver education course, signed by a parent or guardian, constitutes a temporary driver’s license for unaccompanied driving under § 46.2-334 D and § 46.2-335 H. It is valid only until the permanent license is presented.

The court ceremony

Virginia usually hands new licenses to minors in person. Under § 46.2-336, DMV forwards every original license issued to someone under 18 to the judge of the juvenile and domestic relations court where the licensee lives. The judge issues it “at a formal, appropriate ceremony, in which he shall illustrate to the licensee the responsibility attendant on the privilege of driving a motor vehicle,” and the licensee must be accompanied by a parent, guardian, spouse or person in loco parentis.

The Commonwealth’s Attorney may ask in advance to take part and address the new drivers. A chief judge may waive the ceremony for the courts in his district or direct that it be held in another form, and where it is waived DMV mails the licenses directly. The section does not apply to someone who already holds a valid license from another state.

Home-schooled students

Where a home-schooled student’s driver education course was taught by his own parent or guardian, § 46.2-334 H requires him to pass DMV’s own driver’s license examination before a license is issued. The Commissioner may not issue the license at all if the instructing parent had, at the time of instruction, six or more demerit points in the preceding 12 months, a DUI conviction within the preceding 11 years, or any conviction for voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Moving to Virginia under 18

Two routes exist under § 46.2-334. A minor at least 16 years and three months old who holds a valid license from another U.S. state, territory or Canadian province, and has not been found guilty of a motor vehicle offense, may be issued a temporary Virginia license valid for six months — not renewable, and not reissuable. For a full license, the applicant must additionally have completed a government-approved classroom and in-car driver education program, have held the out-of-state license for 12 months, and pass DMV’s behind-the-wheel and knowledge examinations. Transfer applicants generally need documentation of at least 30 hours of classroom and six hours of in-car instruction.

What comes with the license

Restrictions, until 18. The provisional license rules limit passengers under 21 and ban driving between midnight and 4:00 a.m., and DMV escalates any demerit-point conviction committed under 18 through a clinic, a 90-day suspension and then revocation.

Driving before any of this is in place is a separate matter: the offense is driving without a license under § 46.2-300, a Class 2 misdemeanor on a first offense.