Teaching a Teen to Drive in Washington, D.C.: The GRAD Path

Before you start: do you need a driving school?

You do not. DC DMV once set May 1, 2016 as the day driver education would become compulsory, then shelved the idea with no end date. It never came into force, so no course is required today.

If you would like structured lessons anyway, DC DMV recognizes a program of 8 driving hours and 30 classroom hours. The schools that teach it were certified before 2016, and every one of them sets its own tuition.

The list of those schools lives on the DC DMV web page still titled Mandatory Driver Education, with notes on which ones teach in a second language. DC DMV's permit page also suggests that first-time drivers sign up before booking a road test. Optional or not, a few lessons can pay off on the exam's parallel parking and signaling sections.

Before you start: what the family pays

October 2026 prices from DC DMV: $20 for the learner permit and $10 for a knowledge test sat at a service center. Prefer to test elsewhere? A proctoring center charges $39.95, and a virtual exam taken at home is $49.95. Whichever you choose, a fail does not get you a refund.

Budget $10 for a road test with DC DMV, plus $30 at your next visit if you cancel too late. The provisional card costs $20; the full license later costs $47 and lasts 8 years. Card payments carry a 2.5% surcharge. Course tuition, if you buy a course, is whatever the school charges.

Stage one: the learner permit

Sixteen is the floor. At the service center your teen reads the eye chart and answers the knowledge test, brings papers establishing who they are, that they live in DC and that they are eligible, and, being under 18, brings a parent's consent. Owing money to the District, or leaving moving violation fines unpaid in another place, will stop the permit from being issued.

For a U.S. citizen, a REAL ID learner permit issued from March 27, 2017 onward is good for two years and cannot be renewed. If your teen arrives holding a permit from another state, they start over: a service center visit and the DC knowledge test.

Stage one: the tutor and the 40 hour form

Forty practice hours is the minimum, all with a tutor who is 21 or older and holds a valid full license. The tutor rides up front, belted, and signs DC DMV's provisional license eligibility certification for whichever hours they personally supervised.

On road test day, hand over the finished form plus a copy of every tutor's license. Your teen signs that they are 16 and a half or older and have had the permit for six months or longer. A false statement on the form can be punished with up to 180 days in jail or a fine as high as $1,000.

Here is how the calendar works. A teen who gets a permit on the 16th birthday in October could test the following April, once 6 months have passed, if the 40 hours are logged and there have been no points.

Every stage: the driving hours

GRAD attaches a schedule to each license. Permit holders drive from six in the morning to nine at night. Provisional drivers, and 17 year olds on the full license with conditions, follow a schedule that changes with the season.

Those limits fall away on the way to or from a job, an event the school sponsors, or a religious or sports event or practice organized by a responsible group. They also fall away whenever a licensed adult 21 or older is belted into the seat next to your teen. Once a full license holder has an 18th birthday, every schedule and passenger restriction disappears.

• Permit: 6:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night, seven days a week
• Provisional, school year (September to June): until 10:59 at night Sunday through Thursday and until 11:59 on Friday and Saturday, starting at 6:00 each morning
• Provisional, summer (July and August): 6:00 in the morning until 11:59 at night, every day
• Full license with conditions, 17 year olds: the same seasonal schedule as provisional

Every stage: passengers, belts and phones

Parents are often surprised by how strict the D.C. Code is on passengers. With a provisional license your teen may carry the teen's own siblings and parents, plus a single supervising driver of 21 or more belted up front. No friends, not even at midday.

Things relax with the full license with conditions. Until 18, your teen may then carry two passengers younger than 21, and brothers and sisters are not counted against that number. Seat belts stay mandatory for every occupant until the driver's 18th birthday.

Phones are simply banned. Section 50-1731.05 of the D.C. Code forbids anyone on a learner permit, and any driver younger than 18, from touching a phone or electronic device while driving, and hands-free does not get around it. Emergencies are the only exception. Section 50-1731.06 sets a $100 fine, and the offense is treated like a moving violation.

• Permit: supervisor aged 21+ in the next seat, zero device use
• Provisional: one supervising adult plus family (parents, siblings) only
• Full license with conditions, under 18: two riders younger than 21 at most, siblings excluded from the count
• Every GRAD driver under 18: belts on for everyone

Stage two: the road test

Anyone from 16 through 20 needs a passed road skills test for the provisional license. Test with DC DMV at its Deanwood office or with an approved third-party tester. If you test with DC DMV, it will lend you one of its cars for free.

After a fail, the soonest retest is three days later. Fail six times within a year and a seventh attempt has to wait until a full year after the first failure. Cancel with less than two days' notice and a fee is added the next time you do any license business.

Stage three: the full license with conditions

Conversion becomes possible at age 17, after half a year or more of provisional driving and a full year in a row without a pointable offense. Along with that, send a signed certification of 10 or more night hours driven beside a fully licensed adult of 21 or over, and include a copy of that adult's license.

As of October 2026, teens who qualify can convert online for $47. The new card arrives by mail at the address DC DMV has on file.

If something goes wrong: GRAD violations

A broken GRAD rule, whether it is about passengers, hours or the permit, brings a suspension as well as whatever the ticket costs. D.C. Code 50-1401.01 sets it at 30 days the first time, 60 the second, and 90 for the third and any after.

There is a second sting: suspended days are added onto the waiting period before your teen can move up. Lose the permit for 30 days and the earliest road test slides back by 30 days too. If the driver is under 18, the District sends a letter to the parent or guardian.

If your teen turns 21, or you are moving to D.C.

At 21 GRAD is over. A permit holder who turns 21 can book a road test at once, skipping the six month wait and the hours form. A provisional holder who turns 21 can trade up to a regular license without the form, or simply keep driving on the provisional card until it runs out.

The District does not mandate any insurance discount for teen driver education, so call your insurer about the 38 hour course before choosing a school. If your family is relocating and your teen holds a permit from another state, the DC knowledge test is required for a DC permit; ask DC DMV whether any earlier permit time or practice counts.