Oregon teen driving laws: permits, curfew, and passenger rules

Oregon puts the word provisional on both of the cards a driver under 18 can hold, which makes them easy to confuse and expensive to mix up. The first is the Provisional Instruction Permit, issued from 15, and the second is the Provisional Driver License, issued from 16 — and the restrictions that matter most to a family arrive with the second one, not the first. Between them sits a stretch of at least six months during which a supervised-hours total has to be built, a school certification has to be made, and an adult has to sign something. This guide is written for the person doing the supervising as much as for the teenager: what the Oregon DMV counts as a qualifying hour, who is allowed to sit in the passenger seat, what the first and second half-years of the provisional license each forbid, when those rules finally lift, and what the state requires the family's insurance to carry underneath all of it.

Practice the Oregon written test

Oregon issues teenagers two cards, both called provisional

The teen permit page states the first plainly: drivers 15, 16, and 17 years old get a permit called a Provisional Instruction Permit. The teen license page names the pair together, saying drivers under 18 years old can get a REAL ID or standard permit or driver license, called the Provisional Instruction Permit and the Provisional Driver License. The manual sets the entry ages behind both — at least 15 years of age to apply for an instruction permit, at least 16 years of age to apply for a license — and the license page's first step repeats the second one as being 16 or 17 years old. The permit is the practice card; the provisional license is the one that lets a teenager drive alone, under restrictions that the permit never had to describe because nobody was ever alone in the car.

The permit runs on a two-year clock that nobody will remind you about. The teen permit page says a provisional instruction permit is valid for 2 years from the date it is issued and that DMV does not send you a notice when your permit is about to expire. If it expires or is about to, a teenager may apply for another — valid for 24 months from its own issue date — by surrendering the old permit and repeating the application steps. The testing consequence is milder than the expiry itself suggests: you are not required to take the knowledge or vision test unless your permit is expired for 1 year or more. That threshold is worth writing on a calendar, because it is the difference between paperwork and starting the examination over.

The person beside you needs more than a valid card

The teen permit page states the supervision rule as three conditions that must all hold at once: a provisional instruction permit allows you to operate a vehicle only if you are accompanied by a person who has a valid driver license, is at least 21 years of age, and is sitting beside you. The last of those is not decoration. A licensed 21-year-old asleep in the back seat does not satisfy it, and neither does one following in another car. The seat is part of the rule, on a two-minute errand exactly as much as on a long drive.

A separate and stricter condition decides whether the drive counted for anything. The teen permit page says the supervising driver must have had their license for at least 3 years for the driving practice to count toward the 50 or 100 hour requirement to get a provisional driver license, and the manual states the same rule as a property of the hours themselves: your driving experience only counts if supervised by someone at least 21 years of age who has had valid driving privileges for at least 3 years. So there are two bars, not one — 21 years of age to make the trip legal, and three years of licensure to make it countable. An older sibling who got licensed last year can legally ride along and still leave the log empty.

How Oregon lets driver ed cut the practice requirement in half

The teen license page puts the choice in its first step: complete 100 hours supervised driving experience, or 50 hours if you have taken and passed an approved Driver Ed course. The manual gives the same alternative with the administrative half attached — 100 hours of supervised driving experience, or 50 hours of supervised driving experience and having taken an ODOT-approved traffic safety education course, with DMV required to receive proof of course completion. That proof requirement is a limb of the rule, not a footnote to it. Finishing the course is not the same as the DMV knowing you finished it, and the 50-hour figure only applies once the department has the completion on file.

The same course does a second job that has nothing to do with the log. Both the teen license page and the adult licensing page list an ODOT-approved Driver Education Course passed within the past 2 years as a reason you may not have to take a drive test at all, and both add the mechanism: if you pass one of these courses on or after October 14, 2024, the course provider will notify DMV electronically. Driver training itself is listed as optional in the license page's first step, so nothing forces a family into it — but a course can halve the hours and remove the drive test in the same stroke, which changes the arithmetic of whether it is worth paying for. Oregon publishes a companion booklet for the adult doing the teaching: the Manuals & Publications page offers How to Guide Your Teen Driver in PDF in English and Spanish, and accessible to web translation tools.

A parent certifies the schooling, or a diploma replaces it

The manual attaches a schooling condition to a first Oregon driving privilege for anyone under 18: a parent or legal guardian must certify that you are enrolled or attending school, and if you are no longer in school, you must present a high school diploma or General Education Development certificate instead. That is a certification made by the adult, not a transcript produced by the applicant, and it applies to a first-time privilege rather than to every transaction afterward. The alternative route is genuinely an alternative — a diploma or a GED certificate discharges the requirement outright for a teenager who has left school behind.

The signature is a separate obligation with its own escape hatch. The manual says that if you are under 18 years of age your parent or legal guardian will need to sign the electronic application, and that if that adult is unable to come with you to DMV, you will need to submit form 735-173DP carrying their signature. One status removes the requirement entirely: if emancipated or married, you must provide proof, and then a parent or legal guardian signature is not required. The online-testing page adds where the signature lands even when the test was taken at home — after passing, it says, your parent or legal guardian will need to provide their signature at the DMV. And the six-month clock runs underneath all of this: the manual says you must have held a permit for at least 6 months if you are under 18 and applying for a driver license, and adds that holding an out-of-state permit does count towards this requirement.

Passengers under 20 are barred for half a year

The teen license page divides the provisional license into two restricted phases, and the first is the strict one. For the first 6 months, it says, you cannot drive with a passenger under age 20 who is not a member of your immediate family. The threshold is the passenger's age, not the driver's, so a 19-year-old counts and a 20-year-old does not; and it is a flat prohibition on one such passenger, not a limit of several. Immediate family is the carve-out that keeps a sibling in the car legally; the passenger the rule actually reaches is one under 20 who is not immediate family.

The footnote to that rule is where two more exemptions live, and both are easy to miss because they sit below the list. The page says passenger restrictions do not apply while driving with an instructor as part of a certified traffic safety education course, or with a parent, stepparent, or legal guardian who has valid driving privileges. Note what that second clause requires: the adult's own driving privileges must be valid for the exemption to hold, and the list of who qualifies is specific — parent, stepparent, or legal guardian — rather than any adult relative. An aunt with a spotless record is not on it.

After month six, three passengers instead of none

The second phase loosens the passenger rule without removing it. For the second 6 months, the teen license page says, you cannot drive with more than three passengers who are under age 20 who are not members of your immediate family. The change is from zero to three, and the same immediate-family carve-out and the same instructor and parent, stepparent, or legal guardian exemptions continue to apply. What does not change in the second half-year is the night rule, which the page restates word for word under the second phase rather than relaxing it — a detail worth reading carefully, because the passenger limit moving is easy to mistake for the whole restriction moving.

Work, a school event, or a 25-year-old: what unlocks the small hours

In both six-month phases, the teen license page says you cannot drive between midnight and 5:00 AM unless one of four things is true: you are driving between home and work; you are driving between home and a school event for which there is no other transportation available; you are driving for employment purposes; or you are accompanied by a licensed driver who is at least 25 years old. All four are alternatives — any one of them is enough — and each is narrower than it first reads. The school-event exception carries its own test, that no other transportation is available, and the two work-related exceptions are written separately from one another, one describing the commute between home and work and the other describing driving for employment purposes.

The two restricted phases do not always add up to a full year. The teen license page's note is the operative sentence: the passenger and night driving restrictions only apply until you are 18 or you have had your provisional license for 1 year, whichever comes first. For a teenager licensed at 16, that means twelve months of restriction. For one licensed at 17 and a half, it means six — the birthday arrives before the anniversary does, and Oregon takes the earlier of the two. That is worth checking against the actual dates rather than assuming a year, because a family planning around twelve months may be planning around a rule that has already stopped applying.

Oregon bans the whole device, not just the handset

This is the restriction that outlasts the others, and both teen pages carry the same sentence: you cannot operate a motor vehicle while using a mobile communication device, including talking on a cell phone and texting — and then the line that closes the usual loophole: hands-free accessories are not allowed. The teen license page files it under a heading that reads Until 18 Years of Age; the permit page carries the sentence without that heading, among its own driving restrictions. Either way it reaches a permit holder as well as a provisional licensee. The manual states the same prohibition from the safety side, saying it is illegal for drivers under 18 years of age to use a cell phone or other mobile electronic device while operating a vehicle, and contrasts it directly with the adult rule, that drivers 18 years of age or older must use a hands-free accessory requiring only minimal use of a finger to activate or deactivate the device.

Two neighboring prohibitions in the manual's distracted-driving list work differently — they apply to the car, and to every driver in it. It is illegal to have a TV, tablet or other video display visible to the driver, and it is illegal to play a radio or other sound system so loud it can be heard 50 feet away from your vehicle, which the manual justifies on the ground that you need to be able to hear horns, screeching tires and sirens. Neither of those is a teen rule, and neither depends on whose phone is involved.

What Oregon law makes the family policy carry

The manual publishes the floor rather than a recommendation: Oregon law requires every driver to insure their vehicles by at least these minimum amounts. For bodily injury and property damage, that is $25,000 per collision for one person, $50,000 per collision for bodily injury to or death of two or more persons, and $20,000 per collision for damage to the property of others. Personal injury protection is set at $15,000 per person for reasonable and necessary expenses within two years after the date of the person's injury, covering medical, dental and other services needed because of injury or death resulting from the use, occupancy, or maintenance of the vehicle. Uninsured motorist coverage is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per collision for bodily injury. Statutory minimums move, so confirm these against the current edition of the manual before you treat them as the policy you need.

Insurance is not only a bill in this process; it is a document the day is scheduled around. The manual says you must show valid proof of insurance for your vehicle before the drive test or you will have to reschedule the test, and the teen license page repeats that a passenger vehicle with current registration and valid proof of insurance is what you bring. It also has a longer tail: driving uninsured appears by name in the manual's list of reasons you can lose your driving privilege, alongside driving under the influence, failing to report a vehicle collision, too many traffic convictions under the Driver Improvement Program, and failure to comply with court fines — a list the manual itself describes as not complete.

Registering as the proctor, and what the DMV needs afterward

An Oregon teenager can sit the knowledge test at home, but not unwatched. The online knowledge testing page says testers under the age of 18 are required to have a proctor register and observe them complete their test, while testers age 18 and older are not required to have a proctor. It also answers the question the word proctor raises: the proctor does not need to be a parent or guardian. The page's stated requirements are that the proctor is 21 years of age, has a Social Security number, and has not proctored more than five DMV tests in the past 12 months. The manual describes the same role with a different limit attached — if under 18 years of age, a Proctor over 21 years of age must supervise the test, and a Proctor can only supervise two tests in a 24-hour period. Those two windows, one annual and one daily, come from two different documents and are quoted here as each publishes them.

Passing at the kitchen table does not finish the transaction. The online-testing page's own FAQ sets out what comes next: you will need identification documents, you are not required to bring your Social Security card but will be asked for the number or to certify that you have not been assigned one, and your parent or legal guardian will need to provide their signature at the DMV. The teen permit page lists the same visit from its side — go to a DMV office, provide DMV with your parent or legal guardian's signature, pass a vision test, show proof of your physical address and identity, provide your Social Security Number, pay the issuance fee, and get your picture taken. The test can be taken from home; the permit cannot be issued from there.

Oregon licensing — frequently asked questions

Can my older brother supervise my practice hours in Oregon?

He can ride along legally at 21 with a valid driver license, sitting beside you — those are the three conditions the teen permit page sets for driving on a provisional instruction permit. Whether the hours count is a separate question with a higher bar: the page says the supervising driver must have had their license for at least 3 years for the practice to count toward the 50 or 100 hour requirement, and the manual words the same rule as driving experience only counting if supervised by someone at least 21 years of age who has had valid driving privileges for at least 3 years. A brother who turned 21 last month and was licensed at 20 meets one bar and not the other.

We moved here with a permit from another state. Does it count?

For the six-month holding period, yes. The manual says that if you are under 18 and applying for a driver license you must have had an instruction permit for at least 6 months, and adds directly that holding an out-of-state permit does count towards this requirement. The adult licensing page handles the same document differently for testing purposes, listing a permit issued by another state as a reason the knowledge test is required, while noting that if that permit is valid you do not need to get an Oregon permit. The two statements are about different things — one about time served, the other about which tests you owe — so read each against the question you are actually asking.

Can my 16-year-old drive their little sister to school?

Yes — immediate family is the exception written into the passenger rule itself. The teen license page bars a first-phase provisional driver from driving with a passenger under age 20 who is not a member of your immediate family, and the second phase raises the ceiling to more than three such passengers while keeping the same family carve-out. The footnote adds two further exemptions: passenger restrictions do not apply while driving with an instructor as part of a certified traffic safety education course, or with a parent, stepparent, or legal guardian who has valid driving privileges. Note that the night restriction is separate and is not lifted by carrying family, so a midnight run still needs one of its own four exceptions.

Exactly when do the passenger and night rules stop applying?

At 18, or after one year with the provisional license, whichever arrives first. The teen license page states it as a note under the two phases: the passenger and night driving restrictions only apply until you are 18 or you have had your provisional license for 1 year, whichever comes first. The practical consequence is that the restricted period is not a fixed length — it is twelve months for a driver licensed at 16 and shorter for anyone licensed closer to their eighteenth birthday. The under-18 device ban is written separately and is tied to age alone, so it does not end early just because the year has run.

My teen left school. Can they still get an Oregon license?

Yes, through the alternative the manual writes into the same requirement. For a first-time Oregon driving privilege under 18, a parent or legal guardian must certify that the applicant is enrolled or attending school — and if you are no longer in school, you must present a high school diploma or General Education Development certificate instead. The diploma or GED substitutes for the certification rather than supplementing it. Every other condition stays in place: the permit-holding period, the supervised hours, the tests and the parent or legal guardian's signature on the electronic application all still apply.

What if the online testing system cannot verify who we are?

Then the test moves to a counter. The online knowledge testing page says that if you are unable to be verified by the online testing vendor, you will need to take your test in an Oregon DMV office, and it gives the same answer to anyone the SSN requirement excludes: if you have not been assigned an SSN, you can test in a DMV office. Little is lost in the move — the page states the knowledge test fee is the same whether you take it online or in a DMV office. What changes is the schedule: the teen permit page says DMV stops giving the test 1 hour before closing, so a late standby visit can end before it starts.

What if I cannot go to the DMV office with my child to sign?

The manual provides for it. If you are under 18 years of age your parent or legal guardian will need to sign the electronic application, and if that parent or legal guardian is unable to come with you to DMV, you will need to submit form 735-173DP with their signature. The requirement disappears entirely in one situation: if the applicant is emancipated or married, they must provide proof, and then a parent or legal guardian signature is not required. Nothing in the documents read for this guide extends the signature to any other adult, so a grandparent or an older sibling standing in at the counter is not an equivalent — the form is the route when the signer cannot attend.

Official sources

Checked against official state sources on August 21, 2026.

Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services — the official Oregon licensing site