Georgia teen driver requirements: permits, hours, and restrictions

TADRA: three steps, and what each one unlocks

TADRA is Georgia's graduated licensing program and it governs drivers from 15 to 18. The design is deliberately slow: each stage grants a little more freedom, and each is gated on accumulated experience rather than on a birthday alone. Stage one is the Class CP instructional permit, granted at 15 to an applicant who passes the written exam. Stage two is the Class D provisional license at 16 or 17. Stage three is the unrestricted Class C license at 18.

Nothing in TADRA lets a teenager skip a rung by being ready early. Sixteen is the earliest a Class D can be issued, but reaching it on the birthday itself requires that the permit was obtained at 15 and held continuously — the holding period, not the birthday, is what usually sets the date. Families who work backwards from a sixteenth birthday and discover they are three months short have nearly always started the permit late.

Fifteen: the Class CP permit and the adult in the right-hand seat

The Class CP permit — the instructional permit, which everyone calls the learner's permit — opens at 15. The applicant clears the vision screening and the written exam at a Customer Service Center, has a photograph taken and pays a $10 permit fee. No training is required before the permit is issued; the training requirement lands between the permit and the license, which is why it can be started immediately.

What the permit allows is narrow. A CP holder may drive only when accompanied by someone who is at least 21 years of age, licensed to drive a Class C vehicle, fit and capable of taking control of the vehicle, and sitting in the seat beside the driver. Georgia sets no separate passenger limit at this stage, but the qualified adult has to be in the front passenger seat — not in the back, and not following behind in a second car.

Proof of school enrollment comes before any of the driving

Before Georgia issues a teenager anything, it checks that they are in school. Every applicant under 18 provides proof of school enrollment, and DDS accepts several forms of it: a notarized Certificate of School Enrollment on form DDS-1, a transcript from the most recent school attended — which does not have to be certified and can usually be printed at home — the most recent progress or grade report, a current school identification card issued by the school or school system, or another valid school-issued document.

Home-schooled students use a different pair of documents: a Certificate of Enrollment from the Georgia Department of Education, or the Declaration of Intent to Utilize a Home Study Program filed with that department. A teenager under 18 who is not in school is not shut out either — a high school diploma, a GED, a special diploma, a certification of high school completion, or proof of enrollment in a GED or post-secondary program all satisfy the requirement.

Joshua's Law: 30 hours of instruction, 40 behind the wheel

Joshua's Law is why a Georgia sixteen-year-old cannot simply turn up and take a driving test. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds applying for a Class D license complete 30 hours of driver education, plus either six hours of behind-the-wheel instruction or 40 hours of parent-taught training, plus 40 hours of supervised driving of which six must be at night.

The driver education course has to come from a DDS Certified Driving Training School, and the Certificate of Completion is what you carry to the counter. DDS also publishes a 40-Hour Parent/Teen Driving Guide designed to be used alongside a 30-hour classroom or virtual course — for a family that can supply the supervising adult itself, that pairing is the cheapest lawful route through the requirement.

Georgia asks for no log of those hours — DDS says so plainly — but at the moment of application a parent, guardian or DDS-certified driver education instructor has to swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the 40 hours and the six night hours happened. Keep an informal record anyway. Forty hours is roughly three quarters of an hour a day for two months, and the night hours are the ones families leave until last and then find colliding with a school timetable in midwinter.

ADAP, and the version that runs at two in the morning

The Alcohol and Drug Awareness Program is a separate mandatory course that every Georgia driver under 18 must complete before a Class D license is issued. Most students meet it inside their high school, where ADAP is taught as part of the curriculum and the school issues the certificate of completion.

For everyone else there is eADAP, the online version, open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. DDS built it for home-schooled teenagers and for students who were absent the week ADAP was taught — the two groups who previously lost months waiting for the course to come round again. There is also a Parent ADAP course, aimed at giving the adult drug-prevention strategies and a clear picture of their own legal accountability.

One year and one day, and how an out-of-state permit counts

The number that governs the whole schedule is one year and one day. A Class D applicant must have held a valid Class CP permit for at least that long, and the permit has to be clean: a major traffic violation that resulted in the permit being suspended derails the household's plans as well as the teenager's record.

Moving states neither erases the clock nor restarts it. An out-of-state learner's permit has to be transferred to Georgia, and the time already held on it counts, but the combined total across both states still has to reach one year and one day. A family relocating in the spring before a sixteenth birthday should transfer the permit on arrival rather than waiting until the moment they need the credit.

Sixteen: the Class D license and the card printed sideways

At 16, with the permit held its year and a day, the training finished and ADAP complete, a teenager may apply for the Class D provisional license. The card is issued vertically and states plainly that the holder is under 21 — a design decision that matters more at a cash register than on the road. It costs $10 and runs five years.

Class D is a real license: the teenager drives alone, and no qualified adult is required in the car. What replaces the adult is a pair of restrictions — one on when, one on who else is aboard — and those two rules are what the rest of this guide is about.

Midnight to 5 a.m., and the two words that make Georgia unusual

A Class D driver may not drive between 12:00 midnight and 5:00 a.m. DDS attaches the words no exceptions to that sentence, and that is the part worth reading twice. There is no carve-out for a shift that finishes at 12:30, none for a school event that overran, and none for a family emergency.

Several states operate an identical five-hour window but write exemptions into it for work, school and emergencies. Georgia does not. A teenager working a closing shift needs either a lift home or a change of schedule, and that is a conversation to have with an employer before the license is issued rather than after the first citation.

Passengers in three stages: family, then one, then three

The passenger rule arrives in three stages counted from the date the Class D license was issued. For the first six months, only immediate family members may ride in the vehicle. For the second six months, the driver may carry one passenger under 21 years of age who is not an immediate family member. After a full year, up to three passengers under 21 who are not immediate family may ride.

Two details are easy to misread. The cap counts passengers under 21, not passengers under 18, so a friend who has just turned eighteen still counts against it. And the stages run from the license issue date, which means a teenager who got the license late is also late reaching the second and third stages — turning 17 does not accelerate anything.

Booking the road test, and who is allowed in the car

The teen road test is appointment-only. Walk-ins are not accepted, the booking goes through the DDS online scheduling system, and the online License/ID/Permit Form has to be submitted before the appointment is made. Same-day slots do not exist, so a birthday and an appointment rarely land on the same date.

Who travels to the test is regulated. The applicant must be accompanied by a licensed driver aged 21 or older, and only those two people may be in the vehicle — no other minors, no younger siblings, no pets. Families who arrive as a group are routinely turned away at exactly this step.

The car is checked before the drive. DDS wants the registration on paper and insurance that is current, and a vehicle bought inside the past month — or wearing temporary tags — needs its bill of sale as well. Every test vehicle goes through a DDS safety inspection first, and a rental only works when the applicant is named on the agreement.

The signature: what the adult agrees to, and the power it keeps

Every applicant under 18 must bring a parent, guardian, responsible adult or authorized driver training instructor to sign the License/ID/Permit Form, and that person has to produce paperwork showing the relationship. The signature is a consent to the license being issued, not an administrative flourish.

It is also revocable. DDS puts it in one sentence: the person who signs the form has the right to request that the license be revoked at any time before the teenager's eighteenth birthday. No conditions on that request are published alongside it — DDS names no grounds the adult has to show and no review step. In practice that makes the signing adult a standing supervisor of the young driver for the whole provisional stage, which is a lever most families never pull and all of them should understand before they sign.

Moving to Georgia at sixteen, and enlisting at seventeen

Teenagers who arrive partway through the process are handled case by case, but two allowances are written down. DDS accepts out-of-state driver training certificates of completion from military dependents who move to Georgia within nine months of their sixteenth birthday, with the parent's military orders serving as proof of active service.

A 17-year-old who has enlisted in the military may apply for a full Class C license and is exempt from the one-year-and-one-day permit period altogether, on production of a completed Verification of Enrollment in Military Service form, DS-517. It is the only route through TADRA that skips the holding period outright rather than shortening it.

Four points, not fifteen: how a Georgia teenager loses a license

Georgia's point system runs from 2 to 6 points per conviction, and an adult licensee is suspended on reaching 15 points inside any consecutive 24-month period. A Georgia resident under 18 is suspended at four points inside any consecutive 12-month period, under O.C.G.A. §40-5-57.1. That is not a scaled-down version of the adult rule — it is a different rule wearing the same units, and it is roughly four times stricter for a quarter of the window.

Look at what four points actually buys. Any moving violation that is not separately listed is 3 points. Speeding 19 to 23 mph over the limit is 3. Failure to obey a traffic-control device is 3. Operating a vehicle while text messaging is 1 point, and a wireless-device violation is another 1. So one ordinary ticket plus one phone ticket inside the same year reaches the threshold. A single conviction for speeding 24 to 33 mph over the limit is 4 points and crosses it unaided, as does reckless driving; aggressive driving, unlawfully passing a school bus, and speeding 34 mph or more over the limit are 6 points each.

There is real relief on the other side of the ledger. Speeding convictions of less than 15 mph over the posted limit carry no points at all, and neither does a conviction for driving too fast for conditions. Points can also be bought back: up to 7 points once every 5 years, under O.C.G.A. §40-5-86, by completing a certified Driver Improvement — defensive driving — course and either bringing the original certificate to a Customer Service Center or mailing it to DDS in Conyers. For a seventeen-year-old sitting on 3 points, that course is the difference between a license and a bus timetable.

Points are not the only road to a suspension for a young driver. For Georgia residents under 21, a conviction for reckless driving, aggressive driving, improper passing on a hill or curve, unlawfully passing a school bus, or exceeding the speed limit by 24 mph or more suspends the license outright, with no point total required. The same convictions leave an adult driver licensed and merely poorer.

Zero tolerance: 0.02, and the test you cannot refuse

Georgia sets the adult threshold for being under the influence of alcohol at 0.08 grams by weight in the blood. For a driver under 21 the figure is 0.02, and the Driver's Manual says that at that level the driver is irrefutably considered under the influence. This is not a rounding-down of the adult number. It is low enough that one drink can reach it, and the word irrefutably means there is no argument about impairment to be had at the roadside or afterward.

Refusing the test is worse than failing it. Georgia's Implied Consent Law requires a driver to submit to state-administered chemical tests of blood, breath, urine or other bodily substances, and a refusal suspends the license or the privilege to drive in Georgia for a minimum of one year. The refusal may be offered into evidence at trial, and the Driver's Manual's first-DUI suspension entry lists no limited driving permit as available where the driver refused implied-consent testing. Once the state's test has been taken, the driver is entitled to further tests at their own expense, by qualified personnel of their own choosing.

None of this is a Class D rule. Implied consent and the 0.02 threshold apply at the permit stage as well, and they follow the driver past 18 and past the upgrade to Class C. They are the corner of teen licensing where the consequence is counted in years rather than in months of curfew.

Eighteen: the upgrade that never needs a counter

Turning 18 does not, by itself, end anything. DDS is explicit that the Class D conditions attach to the class of license rather than to the age of the driver, so an eighteen-year-old still carrying a Class D card is still bound by the midnight curfew and the passenger limit. What ends them is the upgrade to Class C, available from 18 to a driver with no major traffic convictions in the previous 12 months — and it needs no visit, no test and no new photograph, because it runs through DDS Online Services or the DDS 2 GO mobile app. The restrictions lift when the upgrade goes through, not on the birthday.

Nothing about the upgrade wipes the record. Points collected during the provisional years sit on the same driving record afterward, counted from then on against the adult ceiling of 15 in 24 months rather than the under-18 ceiling of four in twelve — and that conviction history is precisely what the clean-12-months condition on the upgrade is reading. A suspension earned on a Class D license is a fact about the driver, not about the card that replaced it.

Georgia licensing — frequently asked questions

Official sources

• Georgia DDS — Teen Drivers, TADRA and Joshua's Law
• Georgia DDS — Get a Class D Provisional License
• Georgia DDS — Get a Learners Permit (Class CP)
• Georgia DDS — Alcohol and Drug Awareness Program (ADAP/eADAP)
• Georgia DDS — Road Test requirements for drivers under 18
• Georgia DDS — Fees and Terms
• Georgia DDS — Teen Driving Laws FAQs
• Georgia DDS — Points and Points Reduction
• Georgia DDS — Suspensions and Disqualification Offenses
• Georgia DDS — Georgia Driver's Manual, Section 10 (PDF)

Checked against official state sources on July 28, 2026.