Your Missouri Teen's Path From Permit to Full License

Before you enroll: is a course required?

No, and many families are surprised by that. Missouri builds teen licensing around practice hours, not classroom time. Under the Graduated Driver License law, any first time driver younger than 18 moves through three stages: an instruction permit with supervised driving, then a restricted intermediate license, and only then a full license.

Drivers ed still earns its keep. The state recognizes two kinds of qualified driving instructor: a teacher whose Department of Elementary and Secondary Education certificate carries a driver education endorsement, and an instructor working for a private driver education program. Hours your teen spends driving with either one go toward the 40.

There is also a $1 student permit for teens 15 and older who are enrolled in an approved course, good for as long as the course runs. Ask the school or program whether its in-car lessons use that permit.

Worked example: if your teen takes a school course that includes six hours of in-car instruction, those six hours count, and your family covers the other 34, at least 10 of them at night. Ask your counselor early whether the district offers a course and how fast it fills.

Before you apply: the instruction permit at 15

Fifteen is the starting age. The order matters: testing comes first, at a Highway Patrol driver examination station, and the permit comes second, at a Department of Revenue license office. The paper the examiner gives you after the tests does not let your teen drive; wait until the actual permit is in hand.

At the counter, a signature is required from a parent or stepparent, a legal guardian, or a certified trainer in a federal residential job training program. The permit is $10. How long it lasts (12 months at most) turns on how your documents verify, and you can renew it again and again with no new written test.

License offices hand out free PERMIT DRIVER signs for the back window. Nobody requires them, but they buy a nervous new driver a little patience from the cars behind.

The documents are the ones any Missouri applicant brings: lawful status (a certified U.S. birth certificate or a valid passport covers most teens), a Social Security document and proof of a Missouri home address. A teen under 21 with nothing in their own name can use a parent's or legal guardian's address document, although for REAL ID that counts as just one of the two required.

Passing the tests earns a Driver Examination Record, Form 100, which is stamped as not legal for driving. The 182 days do not begin until the day after the license office issues the permit, so do not let the Form 100 sit in a drawer for weeks.

During the permit stage: who rides along

It depends on how old your teen is. Before 16, the person riding up front has to be a parent or stepparent, a grandparent, a legal guardian or a qualified driving instructor, or else a licensed driver 25 or older with at least three years of licensed driving and written permission from the parent or guardian.

A parent, grandparent or guardian with a disability can name as many as two licensed adults, each at least 21, to do the instructing, using Form 4737 when applying for the permit. From the 16th birthday on, the rule relaxes to any licensed driver aged 21 or more.

That rules out an older brother or sister on an intermediate license. A 17 year old cannot supervise, because the supervisor has to be at least 21 and has to be obeying the limits on their own license.

For the 25 and older helper, parents can use the optional Form 5434, the Parent or Guardian Permission Statement. The Department of Revenue does not file it. Keep the signed copy in the car or with your teen in case an officer asks to see it.

• Seat belts on for every person in the car.
• The permit itself travels with the driver on every trip.
• Missouri does not forbid permit driving across state lines, but the other state can impose its own limits.

During the permit stage: the 40 hours

Missouri wants 40 practice hours while your teen holds the permit, with 10 of them in darkness, between sunset and sunrise. They can be logged with a grandparent, a qualified driving instructor, or any other qualified person.

You never mail a log to the state. Instead, one of the supervising adults (a grandparent, parent, stepparent, guardian or certified trainer) goes to the license office with your teen and vouches for the hours on the intermediate license application. The optional Driver Experience Log, Form 4901, has columns for the date, start and end times and the trainer's name. Fill it in after each drive and that statement becomes easy to make honestly.

Worked example: a teen who gets the permit in October can bank night hours on short winter evenings, then spend spring on highways, and still be ready when the 182 days end in April.

On test day: the Missouri road test

Before the drive starts, the Highway Patrol examiner inspects the car. Expect a check for current plates, a valid inspection sticker, seat belts that work, doors that open on both front sides, a foot brake and a parking brake, a horn, and proof of insurance. Only you and the examiner may be inside.

The test includes starting and stopping, parallel parking in a space 25 feet long by seven feet wide, and following directions in traffic. Mistakes cost points, and dropping more than 30 means a fail. One driving test per day is the limit.

Three fails and your teen cannot test again without written permission from the Department of Revenue, which mails a letter requiring more behind the wheel training. One or two professional lessons before the first attempt are usually cheaper than that detour.

After you pass: intermediate license limits

The intermediate license covers ages 16 to 18. Your teen may drive alone, with one big exception: no driving from 1:00 to 5:00 in the morning. The curfew does not apply on the way to or from work, a school event or an emergency, or when a licensed adult of 21 or more is riding along.

Passengers are capped too. For the first six months, your teen may carry only one passenger under 19 from outside the immediate family; after that the cap rises to three. Immediate family means parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, stepsiblings, and adopted or foster children who live with you.

The passenger caps may be lifted while your teen is doing agricultural work. Everyone buckles up, and nobody in the car, driver or passenger, may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Parents keep a final lever until 18. Using Form 4811, a parent or guardian may ask the state to refuse or cancel the teen's license. That stays in effect until the 18th birthday, or until the parent asks for it to be lifted.

After you pass: phones and alcohol

Missouri's hands free law covers every driver, teens included. Once the wheels are rolling, the phone cannot be in a hand or resting on any part of the body, and texting, reading messages, filming, posting and watching video are all banned. Hands free calling and voice to text are fine.

Under Abuse and Lose, a driver younger than 21 can lose the license for 90 days after an intoxication related traffic offense, or for having or using alcohol or drugs while driving. Drivers aged 15 to 20 with a blood alcohol content over .02 percent also face suspension or revocation.

After you pass: insurance for a new driver

We could not find a Missouri law forcing insurers to give teens a drivers ed discount. Some companies do it voluntarily. Before you sign up for a course, ask your agent which programs qualify and how big the discount is, then compare it with what the course costs.

Every Missouri vehicle must carry at least 25/50/25 liability coverage (bodily injury of $25,000 for one person and $50,000 for a crash, and $25,000 for property damage), plus uninsured motorist protection at 25/50. The road test car must carry proof of that coverage, and the examiner will look for it.

The supervising driver's policy usually covers a permit driver, but ask rather than assume. Most insurers expect the teen on the household policy once the intermediate license is issued.

If you are moving to Missouri with a teen

A teen under 18 who arrives with a full license from another state usually gets a Missouri intermediate license. The full license is available by applying in the 30 days before the 18th birthday.

Bring the old license and the standard set of documents: identity, lawful status, Social Security number and a Missouri address. If that license is valid, or has been expired 184 days or less, only the vision and road sign tests are needed.

Lost the old license? Get a clearance letter or certified driving record from the previous state before visiting a license office, because Missouri has to verify it. If your teen only had a learner permit back home, phone the Driver License Bureau (573-526-2407) ahead of testing and ask how that permit will be treated.